Roy, 

I'm in agreement with your overall sentiments and the bulk,  if not all,  of the detail of your post.  I just have one very practical question, though,  as with part of your post,  it's possibly slightly off- topic as it relates to a professionally active Engineer,  whereas this thread is specifically about retired engineers,  however,  I'll go ahead and apologies to anybody who feels it doesn't belong here. 


As you see it,  would I be right to assume that you would anticipate any such professional review for direct employees to be undertaken by a manager or peer within their employer's organisation? If so,  I'm not saying that this is wrong,  but think there are two possible 'health warnings' attached,  firstly that the quality/ adequacy of the review may be highly variable,  secondly that employers may use this as a route to implement other agendas - I've certainly seen a number of such instances. 


However,  my bigger practical question is whether or not there could be the option for the Institute to provide such a service,  either from volunteers,  or even on a paid basis? I ask this as contract workers such as myself have a particular problem with this as,  on the left field,  we have HMRC, who are looking for every opportunity to find evidence of control in order to deem us as disguised employees,  and this is one of the key areas in which they do so - to have a professional review from within your client organisation is seen as a key demonstrator of control lying with the client. For this reason,  I continue to be self- regulating. 


I would happily embrace a professional review with an independent peer if it were available, and wonder if this is one element of support that the Institute could provide.

Roy, 

I'm in agreement with your overall sentiments and the bulk,  if not all,  of the detail of your post.  I just have one very practical question, though,  as with part of your post,  it's possibly slightly off- topic as it relates to a professionally active Engineer,  whereas this thread is specifically about retired engineers,  however,  I'll go ahead and apologies to anybody who feels it doesn't belong here. 


As you see it,  would I be right to assume that you would anticipate any such professional review for direct employees to be undertaken by a manager or peer within their employer's organisation? If so,  I'm not saying that this is wrong,  but think there are two possible 'health warnings' attached,  firstly that the quality/ adequacy of the review may be highly variable,  secondly that employers may use this as a route to implement other agendas - I've certainly seen a number of such instances. 


However,  my bigger practical question is whether or not there could be the option for the Institute to provide such a service,  either from volunteers,  or even on a paid basis? I ask this as contract workers such as myself have a particular problem with this as,  on the left field,  we have HMRC, who are looking for every opportunity to find evidence of control in order to deem us as disguised employees,  and this is one of the key areas in which they do so - to have a professional review from within your client organisation is seen as a key demonstrator of control lying with the client. For this reason,  I continue to be self- regulating. 


I would happily embrace a professional review with an independent peer if it were available, and wonder if this is one element of support that the Institute could provide.