An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

1991-1995: THE FAIRCLOUGH YEARS 101The Industry Affiliate scheme was kept alive during 1994 by visits from EngC staff and theregular newsletter Industry Link. Sadly several companies left the scheme because of thefinancial recession, but new companies joined, enabling the EngC to continue to support theManufacturing Industry Achievement Awards during 1995. A working party was set up,chaired by Council Member Michael Manzoni, former Deputy Chairman of R M DouglasConstruction Ltd, to examine ways of strengthening links with the Industry Affiliates.In spite of difficulties, extremely useful work was undertaken in this period with the IndustryAffiliates, resulting in some helpful publications, including ‘Monitoring and evaluation ofmanufacturing systems engineering initiative’ which was published in March 1993. In thefollowing July, to encourage the promotion of small and medium sized industrial enterprises(SMEs), the EngC published ‘Identifying and Satisfying the Skills required of SMEs’.EngC StaffPerry Goodman, Director Industry and Regions, retired on 30 September 1992. Hisreplacement, Bob Eade, had been Managing Director and Technical Director of Avo Ltd, andhad spent some ten years with GEC in senior engineering posts, culminating as ChiefEngineer, Telemetry Systems; Bob was also past President of GAMBICA, the tradeassociation for the instrument, control and automation industries. In 1996, as a consequenceof the Fairclough Initiative, Bob Eade effected the transition from Director Industry andRegions to Director Engineering Profession, leading the EngC directorate that served theBEP, as we explained earlier in this chapter.Risk Issues, Environmental IssuesDiscussion was embarked upon during this period on two major issues affecting engineers:risk and the environment. Two working parties had been established in 1990 [see Chapter 4],both of which culminated in a Code of Professional Practice. In 1991, the Engineers and RiskIssues Working Party prepared a draft Code of Good Practice; this was edited by a secondeefrom an Industry Affiliate, published in June and presented to the Engineering Assembly inJuly 1991. On being circulated to the Engineering Institutions and Industry Affiliates forcomment, 92% of the responses were favourable. The final report presented to Council in1992 by Sir William Francis, Chairman of the Black Country Development Corporation, waspublished in September as ‘Engineers and Risk Issues, Code of Professional Practice’. It wasformally launched in October 1992 as ‘Guidelines on Risk Issues’ at the International RiskAssessment Conference at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre as part of the EuropeanYear of Safety, Health and Hygiene. The published Code was free to Registrants, £5 toIndustry Affiliates and £10 to others. The Code, which came into effect on 1 March 1993,identified ten areas in which engineers and technicians should exercise influence to ensurethat they acted with professional responsibility. This was the first Guide of ProfessionalConduct to be issued by the EngC, assisted with financial, moral and technical support on thisoccasion by Lloyd’s Register of Shipping and the Health and Safety Executive.Sir William Francis is on the record with his view:“The [Engineers and Risk Issues] Working Party was a great success and completed the firstever Code of Professional Practice for the Engineering Council. The Professional Code ofPractice on Risks Issues was an important move towards self-regulation since the document© Engineering Council UK 2004