An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

1996-1998: THE RUDGE YEARS 119Engineering Institutions (PEIs). It was intended that, based on the Institution of CivilEngineers’ success with its own regional centres, a new regional network of 15 PEIsmanaged by Institutions would take over from the EngC creating considerable financialsavings. Pan-Institution committees were created to co-ordinate joint venture projects on aregional basis. A named Institution was to be responsible for the PEI in each region involvingall members of all Institutions in that region, but unfortunately the Regional Affairs IWG wasunable to indicate how savings could be made. The official line, published also in the 1996Annual Report, claimed that “no vacuum had been left”, a comment vigorously challenged bymany individual Registrants and others. PR support came from London with each regiondetermining its own contribution to the Corporate Mission. This was nominally put into placein 1997, in an attempt to bring the profession, schools and industry together and encouragebright young people into the profession. Sadly this was to fail in most regions, apart fromWales and East Anglia, due to inter-Institution rivalry and lack of commitment and resources.The EngC regional offices closed during 1997, so reducing the ‘Direct CharitableExpenditure’.Bernard Dawkins a former EngC Executive Officer and a perceptive and enthusiastic longterm worker for the engineering education observes:“As a former elected member of a leading IEE Management committee, I found the membershad NO knowledge or understanding of the work and role of the Engineering Council. …Inthe field, amongst the PEIs there was a growing feeling that the Institutions alone could notlead the engineering profession and that there was a need for leadership from “the centre”, i.e.the Engineering Council. The withdrawal of funding from hosting of a number of PEIs by theICE, in the later 1990s suggests that the Institutions left alone do not all pull in the samedirection.”Again, regarding the PEI in Northern Ireland, Professor Sir Bernard Crossland, who hadgiven sterling service as an EngC Council Member, writes:“In Northern Ireland we had a most effective ECRO, which was supported by the NorthernIreland Training and Employment Agency. It provided a suite of offices and committeerooms in the Dundonald Training Centre, and contributed to the cost of a secretary. We alsohad a CPD Officer, Bill Cousins. As a consequence the local branches of the engineeringInstitutions worked well together, and developed close collaboration. We published an annualyearbook of events, addresses and one or two articles, all paid for by advertising, which wentto each Registrant, Universities, Technical Colleges, schools and Public Libraries. We alsopublished and circulated monthly posters of events and courses. The office was the centre forthe YEB programme in Northern Ireland, which was considered to have been mostsuccessful. With the creation of the ‘Reformed’ Engineering Council all support for theECROs was withdrawn, and as a result the Training and Employment Agency withdrew itsmatching funding.“The PEI in Northern Ireland, which supplanted the ECRO and was supposed to be supportedby the ICE was stillborn, and after the last Prestige lecture it has finally died. I am supposedto be its Patron, and when I think of what we had formerly I could weep.“With the death of the ECRO I think that most engineers in Northern Ireland have becomecompletely disillusioned with the ‘Reformed’ Engineering Council, and I guess this appliesequally to the Training and Employment Agency.”© Engineering Council UK 2004