An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

1988-1990: THE BARLOW YEARS 59though not always, amalgamation occurred only when financial pressures becameoverwhelming or when a Chief Executive or Secretary retired. Two such mergers were afeature of 1988, one between two chartered bodies, the other of two non-chartered bodies.The first involved the Institution of Electrical Engineers and the Institution of Electronic andRadio Engineers that amalgamated under the former’s title. In the second the Institution ofMechanical and General Technician Engineers merged with the Institution of TechnicianEngineers in Mechanical Engineering to form the Institution of Mechanical IncorporatedEngineers. Also during the year the Institute of Measurement and Control became aNominated Chartered Engineering Body of the EngC in its own right, rather than having anaffiliation arrangement with the Institution of Gas Engineers. The Institute of Ceramicsjoined the EngC as a Nominated Body.‘A Guide to the Engineering Institutions’, devoting a page to describing each NominatedBody, was prepared by Senior Executive Brian Senior and published by the EngC in May1988 to increase an awareness of the Institutions, and to promote an understanding of themand between them. This publication was followed by ‘About Registration’ in June 1988 togive potential Registrants and Institution members some details about the EngC’s Register.Then, to help the Institutions and also to guide potential Registrants the EngC published inJuly, issue 3 of the ‘List of Accredited UK Degrees’; this contained brief notes on some 700courses accredited by EngC Nominated Bodies in universities, polytechnics and colleges.Issue 4 of the list was published in August 1989.During 1989 the Association of Supervisory and Executive Engineers changed its name to theInstitution of Incorporated Executive Engineers, and in November the Hong Kong Institutionof Engineers, the only non-UK body to so do, joined the EngC’s Institution-Affiliated Bodies.(Institution-Affiliated Bodies were recognised as being able, in co-operation with aNominated Chartered Engineering Institution, to propose individuals to be CharteredEngineers). The Society of Civil Engineering Technicians merged with the Institution ofCivil Engineers, enabling the latter to nominate Incorporated Engineers and EngineeringTechnicians, as well as Chartered Engineers, to the EngC Register. By the end of 1989, afterseven years of mostly fruitful co-operation on qualification, there were 47 Nominated Bodies,27 of which were authorised to accredit academic courses, 21 to approve industrial trainingprogrammes and two to accredit arrangements for experience.At this time a significant event having a potential major impact on the EngC and theengineering Institutions was the Third Engineering Profession Forum (for the Presidents andSecretaries of all Nominated Bodies), held in December 1989; the theme was ‘Amalgamationand Vertical Integration of Nominated Bodies’. The officers and officials met Councilmembers to investigate the possibility of setting up some form of federation between theInstitutions.Then during 1990 the Society of Electronic and Radio Technicians merged with theInstitution of Electrical and Electronics Incorporated Engineers to form the Institution ofElectronics and Electrical Incorporated Engineers. In September of the same year theAssociation of Cost Engineers became an Institution-Affiliated body (within EGC-4). TheBritish Computer Society became a Nominated Body (following a 4-year, sometimes heated,debate on whether ‘computer software engineers’ really were engineers – and here we can seesome shades of the original rejection of mechanical engineers by the Institution of CivilEngineers - see Chapter 1). This was a highly significant event marking the recognition ofsoftware engineers as potential CEng and IEng Registrants.© Engineering Council UK 2004