An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

170A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILProfession Directorate staff could envisage that all of their work would be superseded by theremit for the ETB.At this point it is fitting to pay a warm tribute to all the EngC staff who not only kept theirefforts going at a very difficult time when their future was uncertain, but also enhanced someprocedures, for example in the areas of regulation and Industry Affiliates.August 2001Reconsideration of the ERB/NRB RelationshipBy the summer of 2001 feelings were beginning to grow that the two-body solution – anNRB more or less separate from ERB - was not the best way forward, The DTI wasparticularly worried that there were already too many bodies involved in the management ofengineering. In fact, in a letter of 1August 2001 Alastair Macdonald, the Chairman of theConstitution and Governance Group, wrote to the Shadow Board that at a meeting held theprevious day in which he, David Worskett and Dr Hawley met Lord Sainsbury, the Ministerhad stated that “the proposals which had been developed …would have no chance of securingDTI approval… or indeed of securing additional Government funding”. The DTI had twomajor concerns :• The strong call from business and industry for clarity and simplicity in the neworganisation, for the creation of a single focal point for the wide community, and theavoidance of any ambiguity in this respect.• The need to be absolutely certain that the influence of the ‘wider community’, and thecustomers could and would be fully and effectively brought to bear on the processesof regulation, accreditation and registration.Consequently, at a late date, the focus moved to a single body ETB encompassing an NRB,giving the former a strong input to the latter. It was realised that unless done sensitively thiswould run into opposition from the Institutions because of their traditional influence onregulation, accreditation and registration matters. Also, the single-body model carried thepossibility, an anathema to some, that the result would simply be a reinvention of the EngC.Not only that, but a proposal was on the table that the NRB should be staffed by the EngCRegulation Directorate (one would have thought an eminently sensible idea remembering thespecialist skills and knowledge required) and, more controversially, that the initial core staffof the ETB should be drawn from the EngC Communications Directorate and that bothgroups should remain in Maltravers Street supported by the EngC Finance andAdministration Directorate. It was suggested that all EngC activities such as NeighbourhoodEngineers should transfer, at least at first, to the ETB.September 2001These ideas, though of considerable merit in view of the Minister’s decision that there shouldbe a single ETB/NRB organisation and the need to put in place judicious transitionarrangements, were received with less than acclamation by the G10 Group of the biggestInstitutions. In fact the Group sent an e-mail to Alastair Macdonald on 3 September 2001 anda letter on 5 September in which it was suggested that the proposed terms of reference for theRegistrants’ panel, one of the five panels reporting to the ETB (see below), were bluntlyoffensive from an Institution’s point of view. The Group was particularly incensed by the© Engineering Council UK 2004