An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

118A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILchanges resulting from the Unification initiative, were published in 1997 and distributed to300,000 Registrants worldwide. This well-received six-monthly magazine continued until themiddle of 2001 when a cost-cutting decision was taken to make it available only in anelectronic form, those responsible for the decision perhaps overlooking that the majority ofRegistrants read their copies of Engineering First at the end of the working day or week, gladto be away from their computer screens. However, in a more enlightened move to serveRegistrants a new publication, the EngC Bulletin, was launched in November 1997. Thismonthly Bulletin, normally comprising a professionally printed double-sided A4 sheet,carried brief news of key EngC activities. It proved popular for briefing/updating theengineering profession, and gave telephone numbers for readers to glean further information.By the end of 1997 there were nearly 300,000 professional engineers on the Register, theEngC was in partnership with 40 Institutions, and in industrial affiliation with over 100engineering companies.Also during 1997, the EngC launched the ‘Engineering Council Digest of EngineeringStatistics’, covering the engineering profession as a whole. It was published in May by theDirectorate for Engineers’ Regulation at £40 and became a regular, annual, publicationproviding information on numbers of university students taking engineering and technologysubjects, where engineering graduates were first employed, where engineers were employedthroughout the UK and under what conditions, salaries etc. It also contained considerabledetail on UK industrial performance. A chapter on Registrants to a certain extent duplicatedthe data that could also be found in the biennial ‘Survey of Professional Engineers andTechnicians’. For 1997 the latter was published in September at £95, showing that salaries ofRegistrants continued to rise, unemployment was falling and job satisfaction remained high.Statutory LicensingThe idea of statutory licensing engineers as competent in specific activities had been floatedon a number of occasions. It was believed by some that this would enhance the status andrecognition of professional engineers. Others outside the profession saw such a move as aregrettable step towards unacceptable protectionism. The task group on Licensing ofCompetent Persons, chaired by Professor Ray Thompson, under the auspices of the BER andthe NAC, published its proposals in May 1998, stating there should be voluntary registers ofprofessional engineers licensed against specific functional competences. Meetings weresubsequently held with the Institutions, the Health and Safety Executive and DTI todetermine the way forward. The potential for recognising such schemes was discussed withthe United Kingdom Assessment Service (UKAS) and the two bodies, EngC and UKAS,each sat in on some audits conducted by the other. The conclusion was that the same resultwas likely to be achieved by whichever body was conducting the audit/assessment but theEngC's approach was “far more gentlemanly”. On the Statutory Licensing question, however,little tangible progress was made due to its inherently divisive nature.Registration fees were increased by 4.3% in 1998 to £21 for CEng, £17.50 for IEng and £9.40for EngTech – it was decided there need be no increase for 2000.ECROs and PEIsThe BEP worked closely with the Institutions during 1996 in attempting to put regionalprogrammes into place changing from the EngC-run ECROs to Institution-run Professional© Engineering Council UK 2004