An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

174A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILArrangements for ApprovalIt now remained for the Hawley Group to obtain the approval of the EngC Senate for theproposals. This could have been something of a delicate matter with a whiff of ‘the turkeysvoting for Christmas’ about it. Already some letters were appearing in Institution journalsexpressing concern about the apparent loss of democracy for Registrants and lack of targetedconsultation. The Hawley Group replied to these and also carried out an information andlobbying effort aimed at Senate members. It was sensibly planned that Senate approval wouldbe in two stages. The first would be at the Senate meeting on 3 October 2001 when approvalfor the ETB/NRB arrangement would be sought. This would include agreement for thecreation of the ETB based on a document called the blueprint – broadly described above –and to a loan from EngC funds to enable the embryo ETB to operate to the end of the year. Asimple majority would be needed at that stage for the enabling resolutions to be passed. Thesecond stage would be at the following Senate meeting in December when the EngC wouldbe asked to agree to the transfer of the Royal Charter –subject of course to Privy Councilapproval. This second stage would require a two-thirds majority.October 2001The 1 st Stage – Senate Meeting of October 2001At the Senate meeting on 3 October 2001 Dr Hawley made a persuasive presentationcovering the proposed ETB/NRB roles, priorities and financial arrangements as outlinedabove. He described the sequence of events and consultations that had taken place since thestart of the initiative in late 1999 and pointed out that Senate had been kept fully informed.He stressed that the work since February 2001 had been an inclusive process overseen by theShadow Board that had involved representatives of business and industry, academia, theInstitutions, Government and Senate members.Dr Hawley claimed that the ETB would be a huge step forward, with a complete change ofemphasis. The ETB would, he trusted, relate to the whole of the wider engineering andtechnology community - that meant some 2 million highly skilled people, not just thetraditional ‘profession’, who in the UK numbered just 8% of the ‘wider community’. This, hebelieved, would allow proper links to be built with that wider community, its economicimportance to be understood and its voice to be recognised by Government. The EngineeringCouncil, Dr Hawley stated, could not do this as its terms of reference were too narrow(although according to the 1997 MOU they were not). He believed, however, that the ETBwould be able to integrate existing activities and harness the efforts of its constituentmembers. This would, over time, make it easier to attract significant extra funding frombusiness and Government.As far as the NRB was concerned, Dr Hawley underlined that the proposals would allow thecontinuation of self-regulation for the profession…and the very strong position developed bythe Engineering Council’s Board for Engineers Regulation would thus be maintained. WhilstInstitutions would provide two-thirds of the members of the new Board [note: thus satisfyingthe long sought quest for representatives]. The remaining third would be nominated by the ETBto provide the wider degree of public accountability expected of all the senior professions.Dr Hawley referred also to two other important matters. The first was the proposed financialarrangements; briefly, the NRB would have about 45% of Registrants’ fees or £2.1 million© Engineering Council UK 2004