An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

52A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILBy November 1985, 115 industrial organizations, as Industrial Affiliates, were subscribing tothe EngC’s work. They first met together as an “Industrial Forum” in that month, with 94senior executives participating. During 1986, although four Industrial Affiliates withdrewafter mergers and takeovers, a further 40 were recruited, resulting in a total of 166 of theleading UK companies with a combined annual turnover of £300 billion, and bringing intothe EngC almost £465,000 a year. The Industrial Forum became an annual event, the secondForum being organised and hosted by the EngC in November 1986, attended by 100 directorsand senior managers from over 70 of its Industrial Affiliates. The EngC Newsletter of March1987 announced a target of 1,600 Companies by 1991.Besides the financial support to the EngC that Industrial Affiliates brought, the essential aimwas to improve industrial performance by heightening the respect for the professionalengineer and technician. This began to bear fruit during 1986 as the concept of registrationfor engineers and technicians gained ground. Meetings were held with Industrial Affiliates inEdinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham and two were held in London. The topicof the first London meeting, Continuing Education and Training (CET), resulted in ‘A Call toAction’ [already mentioned above under the CET heading] being published in June 1986,following which a working party was set up to consider a ‘career manager’ document. InChapter 4 we shall look at the output from this working party, a consultative document thatwas eventually published in 1988. The second London meeting in 1986 resulted in two EngCbooklets being published: ‘The Shortage of Mathematics and Physics Teachers’ in May and‘On Being a School Governor’ in July, taking advantage of the Education Act (1986), toencourage engineers and technicians to become Governors.An Engineering Working Group was set up by the EngC to identify what should be done tomark Industry Year 1986. This Group made a significant contribution to the ultimate successof Industry Year, particularly in strengthening industry/education links. The Working Groupcontinued to play its part during 1987 under the banner of “Industry Matters”, following upthe sterling work undertaken during the previous Industry Year.A conference to promote an industrial dimension in teacher training courses was organised in1987 at Homerton College jointly with the University of Cambridge and in association withIndustry Matters and Industrial and Commercial Perspectives.The Chairman wrote to the Industrial Affiliates in 1987 regarding Registration and the use ofthe CEng and TEng titles; he received 100 supportive replies with only two reservations.During this year regional meetings of Industrial Affiliates were hosted by British NuclearFuels Limited at Risley and by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at Annan.Presentations were made to Engineering Employer’s Boards in the Midlands and SouthLancashire, to the local branch of the Institute of Directors and to the Chief Executives’ Clubin Surrey, and to 75 invited industrialists and academics at Hatfield Polytechnic. ManyIndustrial Affiliates were concerned that there was a need for graduates in subjects other thanInformation Technology. Accordingly, in 1987 the EngC persuaded the Government toprovide funds for courses in Manufacturing Systems Engineering as the second stage of theEngineering and Technology programme ‘The Switch’. In addition, the National AdvisoryBoard for Public Sector Higher Education announced a special initiative that produced 30extra places on courses starting in 1988.Pursuing its championing of engineering and technology the EngC made major submissionsin 1987 in response to the report of the Select Committee on Science and Technology ‘Civil© Engineering Council UK 2004