An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

1991-1995: THE FAIRCLOUGH YEARS 891992 respectively. The Association of Consulting Engineers became the third ProfessionalAssociate of the EngC. In December 1992 the helpful booklet ‘A Guide to the EngineeringInstitutions’, containing succinct details on all the engineering Institutions associated with theEngC, was re-published.So at the end of 1993 there were 42 Nominated and Institution-Affiliated Bodies recognisedby the EngC. The Institution of Works and Highways Management merged with theInstitution of Civil Engineers on 1 April 1994 and the Hong Kong Institution of Engineersleft the EngC in that Summer to form its own accreditation board, in anticipation of HongKong becoming a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China on 1 July1997. The position of the Professional Associates was reassessed in 1994 by the NominationsCommittee which drew up new criteria and decided that Learned Society Associate was amore appropriate title for bodies such as these. In 1995, the Institution of Mining Electricaland Mining Mechanical Engineers merged with the Institution of Mining Engineers, and theInstitution of Water and Environmental Management was awarded a Royal Charter andchanged its name to the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management. Atthe end of 1995 the number of Nominated Bodies had dropped to 39 as a result of thereorganisations of Institutions described above.The EngC staff continued developing links with Institution branch officers and set up a websitein 1995, with links to all Institutions’ web-sites and full e-mail facilities for all staff. AWorking Group on IT, reporting to the newly-formed BEP, was established during the year toact as a forum for Institutions to exchange information and discuss further IT activity. Thenew Director General, Mike Heath, appointed in mid-1995 was largely responsible forensuring that the very latest innovations in IT were introduced throughout the EngC.Interfacing with the RegistrantsThe Regional Organisations (ECROs)The volunteer Regional PROs [who had been appointed in 1990] helped to promote EngCevents in the regions during 1991. At the same time the EngC Regional Organisation wasrestructured, and revised EngC regional boundaries, to coincide with local authorityboundaries, were introduced on 1 January 1992, with eleven Administrative Centres openingin July 1992 to support the nineteen ECROs. This necessitated the Neighbourhood Engineers’scheme being redefined and CPD Advisers being re-deployed. The SCRA and the ECROCmerged to become a new SCRA. The 1991 annual election to the Engineering Assembly hadto be postponed to the Autumn of 1992 to resolve the anomalies created by the boundarychanges. To accommodate this situation all Assembly members were offered an extension ofone year to their terms of office.In 1994, as the later stages of the Fairclough Initiative were being finalised, attention wasrestored to outstanding issues when regional engineering centres were developed by the EngCwith the Institutions and complementary organisations. The centres were envisaged as beinglocally owned and financially independent, providing a focus for educational initiatives andprofessional development. The Northern Engineering Centre had been established for someyears, and one for Wales had been set up in 1994. Exploratory talks were held elsewhere withthe Branch Chairmen of the Institutions. Officers in the ECROs recognised that there was aneed to retain the ECRO Board as a strategic forum and a facilitator for the profession in aregion.© Engineering Council UK 2004