An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

164A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILis owned by that community and which accepts responsibility for its success and failure. Thiscould not, in our view, be achieved whilst membership of the body is principally made up ofindividual engineers operating through a Senate.“The new body needs to be made up not of Registrants but of those organisations which, ifthey work together, can hope to deliver the broader objectives. The Institutions are one majorpartner in this but so should be industry (in its various guises), the Royal Academy andacademia. The objective of this broader ‘Council’ would be to agree on what is to be doneand then use the resources of the constituent bodies, which far exceed those of the currentEngineering Council, to deliver…This structure should engender a sense of ownership whichwould not develop in the presence of an overarching body.“The key challenge in creating this ‘representative’ body would be to avoid it becomingunwieldy…In this respect it may be appropriate to establish the ‘registration’ role quiteseparately from this ‘broader’ Council - based on the current Board for EngineersRegulation, but modified to give a greater involvement to staff from the major Institutions”[italics added].With hindsight it appears that this remarkable and perceptive letter may have subsequentlydriven the agenda of the four Institutions which, between their memberships, held 64% of allthe Registrants and 77% of the Chartered Engineers.The largest Institution having Incorporated Engineers, the IIE, also gave solid support to theHawley objectives whilst some of the smaller Institutions too, were active in their response.The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), for example, stated that itwas delighted with the Stage 2 Report and strongly supported the range of issues it explored.CIBSE also remarked that sometimes the medium-sized Institutions had the capacity torespond to circumstances more quickly than the larger Institutions.The December 2000 report to the MinisterWith impressive speed by the Hawley Group, the outcome on 15 December 2000 was thereport ‘Making the Best of Valuable Talent’. The Report, based upon all the inputs receivedby the Hawley Group, including those from the seven ‘review groups’ established duringStage 2, and also wide-ranging research commissioned from ‘Opinion Leader Research’(OLR), concluded that “the profession no longer serves economic needs adequately”.“Already” it said “a large proportion of engineering and technological skills are notadequately catered for by the existing engineering profession (defined as the EngineeringCouncil and the 34 Engineering Institutions)”.The report then proposed a large number of generalised measures; these included commentssuch as “Implementation of a comprehensive Continuing Professional Development structureshould become a top priority” and “New arrangements should be developed to facilitatedialogue between business and the academic community; this should be a major new role forThe Engineering Council”. [Note the reference was still to “The Engineering Council”.]There were 40 such recommendations under the following headings:• Promoting engineering with relevant partners• Continuing Professional Development• Engineering Education© Engineering Council UK 2004