An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

74A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILBy the end of 1990, pilot CPD schemes were involving over 1,000 engineers and techniciansin 65 organisations. A policy statement regarding a national scheme was issued early in 1991and the DES, through its PICKUP programme, provided £280,000 over three years fromJanuary to promote a national scheme.Interfacing InternationallyWhen Sir William Barlow took over the Chairmanship of the EngC, the single European Actof 1992 was on the horizon, albeit four years away. Within the EngC’s EngineeringProfession Directorate at this time Peter Hector, a Chartered Aeronautical Engineer from theRAF had taken over as International Executive following the death of Arthur Osley. A greatdeal of work was necessary now on international matters. With this in mind, ‘The ProfessionAfter 1992’ was chosen as the theme for the Second Engineering Professional Forum on 6December 1988, when Presidents and Secretaries of the Nominated Bodies met EngCCouncil members. As a result a joint ‘1992 Working Party’ was set up. Already, by the end of1988, believing that it would be helpful in preparing for the European Act, 1,330 Britons hadapplied for the title of European Engineer – as many as from all of the remaining nineteeneligible European countries put together. Part of the reason for this disparity was that othercountries did not have a central qualifying engineering organization that was prepared topublicise among engineers the Eur Ing concept.The constitution of the British National Committee for International Engineering Affairs(BNCIEA) was amended in 1989 to permit Incorporated Engineers to be adequatelyrepresented. As we explained in Chapter 2, BNCIEA operated under the aegis of the Boardfor Engineers’ Registration (BER); it represented the Engineering Institutions, the Fellowshipof Engineering and the EngC, and was the UK’s national member of FEANI. The AnnualAssembly of FEANI in August 1989 was hosted by the BNCIEA at Harrogate in conjunctionwith the International Conference on Engineering Design. Edward (Ted) Houghton, aBNCIEA member, was elected Vice-President and Treasurer of FEANI for three years fromthat August. BNCIEA members representing the UK attended the 1989 World Federation ofEngineering Organisations’ (WFEO) biennial conference in Prague and the CommonwealthEngineers’ Conference in Nicosia, Cyprus, and members briefed some Institutions,educational establishments and industrial companies on the Single Market Act, 1992.Following a 1985 proposal by Professor Levy acting as Secretary of the BNCIEA, agreementon the mutual recognition of accredited engineering degrees was achieved by the EngC inDecember 1989 with the relevant accreditation bodies of UK, Ireland, USA, Canada,Australia and New Zealand. This agreement came to be known as the ‘Washington Accord’following a preliminary signing in Washington DC. The formal signing took place a yearlater during the WFEO meeting in Prague. Over the years, as we shall see, the WashingtonAccord assumed increasing international importance.The essence of the Washington Accord was that each of the participating countries agreed torecognise the accreditation systems of the others as robust and of an equivalent standard. Thismeant, for example, that in the UK the engineering Institutions would automatically accept agraduate from an accredited engineering course of any of the other countries as satisfying theStage 1 (Educational) requirements for registration as CEng.The agreement needed ratification by each of the partners and each had its own internalproblems. For example, in the UK all the Nominated Bodies had to be satisfied. In the USA© Engineering Council UK 2004