An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

1988-1990: THE BARLOW YEARS 73Steering Committee was established under the chairmanship of Derek Kingsbury, Chairmanand Chief Executive of the Fairey Engineering Group. This resulted in the publishing inJanuary 1989 of ‘Continuing Education and Training – A National System for Engineering:A Summary of Responses’. This itself was a follow-up to ‘Continuing Education andTraining - A National System for Engineering’ which had appeared in the previous year [seeChapter 3]. There was broad support for the concept but some reservations on the fundingimplications and the role of Career Action Planning (CAP) advisers. Assessments were madeof the usefulness to individuals of the Career Management Document in undertaking CETand associated career development, and the support to them from employers and theprofessional Institutions.Also published in March 1988 within the Continuing Education and Training remit was astatement ‘Management and Business Skills for Engineers’. This emphasised anddemonstrated that many engineers had the potential to become managers and it recommendedmeans by which they and their employers could bring this about to the benefit of theircompany and the UK.A workshop was again held at the University of York in May 1989 to discuss the pilot CETschemes and the involvement of the Professional Institutions that had Incorporated Engineersand Engineering Technicians in their membership. It was planned to update existing skills forindividuals as well as provide skills for those with few or none. The CET pilot schemes soonattracted nearly 1,000 engineers in 58 firms, thanks to support from the DES and industry;some firms had expanded CET schemes within their own organisations. The pilot schemeswere extended to the end of 1990, while the 1,000 th participant, Miss Rosie Brooks (23) in theDowty Group, became involved by October. Denis Filer expressed “this needs now tobecome a national scheme”; he felt that the Training and Enterprise Councils that had beenset up by the Government earlier in the year (see below), could play an important role in this,but the drive should come from industry and individual engineers. As a consequence, anotherSteering Committee chaired by Derek Kingsbury, involving the EngC, employers, theInstitutions and providers, investigated the means to turn pilot CETs into a national system.To maintain the momentum a conference at Cambridge, ‘Investing in Continuing Educationand Training – The Engineering Business’ was organised in September 1989 by the EngCjointly with the Careers’ Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC). As an added impetus to thecampaign a statement was prepared, with the backing of the professional Institutions andTrade Associations, arguing that engineers and technicians should be able to claim tax relieffor expenditure on CET. In the following year the decision was taken to rename CET asContinuing Professional Development (CPD) and a national system was imminent – “If youdon’t keep up to date, you’ll very quickly become out of date” became the sloganpromulgated by Director General Denis Filer.The case for tax relief for individuals who paid for their own CPD was debated with somevigour at the July 1990 Assembly and then laid out in the document ‘Individual taxation –The need for change’ published in September 1990 jointly with the Engineering Employers’Federation (EEF), representing some 5,000 companies. The EngC and the EEF claimed thatthe UK was out of step with leading competitor countries in the tax treatment ofprofessionals’ training expenses. The document received the support of 45 EngineeringInstitutions and Trade Associations and was to be discussed with the Financial Secretary tothe Treasury early in 1991. We shall examine the outcome to this in Chapter 5.© Engineering Council UK 2004