An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

212A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILInstitution of Mechanical EngineersThe relationship between the Engineering Council and the Institutions has varied over theyears. There were times, particularly in the early days when the Engineering Council seemedto be a body operating separately from the Institutions. In more recent times it has becomemuch more of a partnership at least at the operational level.John Whitwell, Clive Holtham and myself being asked by Keith Foster to try to identify abetter grouping of Institutions. We did but it was not to everyone’s liking and was not takenup. Out of this came the concept of DABCE as a single accrediting body.Institute of Marine Engineers*In early 1992 a Council of Presidents of all the Engineering Institutions agreed to set up asteering committee under Sir John Fairclough, the then chairman of the Engineering Council,to chart a way forward for the engineering profession.The Unification Steering Group consisted of the 1991 Presidents of the ICE, IMechE, IEE,IChemE, IMarE, IIEE, and the Institute of Plumbing, with a Project Director and withSecretarial support seconded from the DTI. The Group reported in 1993 in a report entitled“Engineering into the Millennium”. Subsequently joint Engineering Council/Institutionworking parties were established to modify the recommendations of the Report and topropose an implementation plan. The plan was implemented in 1994. It was subsequentlymodified, as a result of further discussions between the Institutions and the new EngineeringCouncil, and a new way forward entitled “Building on the Lasting New Relationship” wasagreed in 1999.The vision of the Unification Steering Group was of a strong Engineering Council and anumber of Colleges to cover the full span of the profession. The Colleges would beresponsible for all Learned Society activities and for most, perhaps all, of the Education andTraining needs of the Profession. It was envisaged that the Council would be largely directlyelected by the Registrants, would be responsible for standards, registration and codes ofconduct, would be the Voice of the Profession and would be the principal point of contactwith Government and Industry. The overriding aim was to give Registrants a strong sense ofcorporate unity (engineers first, marine engineers second) by giving them a sense ofownership of the profession.I think that it is fair to say that everything that has happened since the 1993 report has had theeffect of watering it down to the extent that the situation now is not markedly different fromthe starting point. If anything the larger Institutions have strengthened their grip on theprofession and the Registrants have been further distanced from the notion of a unifiedprofession - if only because of the dismantling of the ECRO and the failure of the Institutionsto make the PEIs (what a title) a relevant force in the country.I am not in a position to respond authoritatively within the suggested framework. Myimpression is that the relationship of the IMarE with the Engineering Council is marginallybetter than it was, but it must be said that in the Bad Old Days we regarded the EngineeringCouncil as our friend and protector against the cohorts of the Big Three plus the IChemE.© Engineering Council UK 2004