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Time for licenced Engineers?

Former Community Member over 6 years ago

As a result of a discussion within a Linkedin group. I had originally raised the issue of the EC UK or IET legally licencing Engineers and had agreed to bring this discussion from Linkedin to the IET members in an appropriate community for a frank and open debate.

The circumstances surrounding this discussion was the tragedy of Grenfell Towers and my personal observation that some of the alleged decision makers, had no technical qualifications to make decisions on public safety. I am wondering how far the inquiry will go to reveal that issue.

As I currently work in Canada we do have an act of law governing the conduct of its licenced Engineers and this makes the Engineer have some higher degree of responsibility for public safety.

Questions

1) Given the impact of Grenfell, does EC(UK) have to now start considering licencing? What are the perceived hurdles to achieve this?

2) If not. What can we do within our profession to improve pubic safety with an objective to prevent another 'Grenfell' ?

I am Interested to get IET members responses.

0 Simon Barker over 6 years ago
Before we got a licencing system for engineers, we would need:
To persuade the public that "engineer" was a specific profession, not just a catch-all word for people who fix things.

To persuade the government that we even need a licencing scheme for engineers.

To come up with a sufficiently robust definition of "engineer", and what things are and are not "engineering".

On 2, I don't think the government will be too impressed if this just looks like a scheme for increasing the salary and status of a small group of people who are members of specific institutions, at the expense of everybody else. You would have to come up with a specific safety or financial case why it is good for the country as a whole.

On 3, the government has a lousy track record of defining things properly in legislation. What's to stop employers simply re-naming their job titles from "engineer" to "designer" and claiming that what they do isn't covered by the legislation?

And, when push comes to shove, most of what's being discussed on these forums is primarily a scheme for increasing the salary and status of a small group of people who are members of specific institutions.
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0 Andy Millar over 6 years ago

Hi,

Actually I disagree with a connection between public perception and a drive for legal change - I would hope that any change in the law would be driven by a proven opportunity to improve safety by licensing rather than by a public perception that it would improve? (I think for example of the original dangerous dogs act, IMHO a daft piece of legislation that was driven by a false public perception of risk and risk management.)

My personal feeling is that, as Roy describes, there are already legal remedies - including, now, personal liability - against negligence on the part of both employers and employees which covers this issue: including the risk that employers employ incompetent engineers. The rail industry has been mentioned above, it is true that for certain defined implementation actions licensing is in place, but for the vast majority of change activities there are no licensing requirements, but there is clear legislation that safety cases must be in place which include demonstration of staff competence. So people like me go and look at the staff involved to make sure they are competent in their specific roles. Which we'd have to do even if they were licensed as a general purpose engineer.

I'm not against licensing in principle, and for defined processes (like rail signalling systems as mentioned, Gas Safe, Part P) where there are nice clear boundaries and competence requirements I think it's a very good idea. But I've never yet seen a quantified argument that it will support safety if it is applied as a generic process - however that's not to say such an argument doesn't exist!

I'd be very, very wary about drawing conclusions about Grenfell Tower until the public enquiry concludes, but there seems a strong possibility that the building regulations may have been followed to the letter, in which case the engineers involved in the tower design would have been acting perfectly competently (we don't know yet) - certainly if this was the case it would be hard to delicence a licenced engineer for following the statutory regulations! It is well worth reading the interim report on the building regulations review following the fire:

www.gov.uk/.../Independent_Review_of_Building_Regulations_and_Fire_Safety_web_accessible.pdf

It's very interesting that this broadly recommends moving away from a regulations based approach to a risk-based approach (as we use in the rail industry). I've pasted the detail recommendations regarding competence below - note that the onus is passed to professional bodies!

Cheers, Andy

1.72

The task of raising levels of competence and establishing formal accreditation of those engaged at every stage of design, construction, inspection and maintenance of complex and high-risk buildings can and should be led by those professional bodies which cover the sector. The system needs to be designed to ensure that competence is measured, is made transparent to those engaging the individuals and has a means of recourse in the event that work delivered is substandard. This is a challenge to the current less rigorous and disjointed approach to registration or certification which allows many individuals to practice with questionable qualifications or without a requirement for competence to be assessed and accredited.

1.73

Recommendation: There is a need to be certain that those working on the design, construction, inspection and maintenance of complex and high-risk buildings are suitably qualified. The professional and accreditation bodies have an opportunity to demonstrate that they are capable of establishing a robust, comprehensive and coherent system covering all disciplines for work on such buildings. If they are able to come together and develop a joined up system covering all levels of qualification in relevant disciplines, this will provide the framework for regulation to mandate the use of suitable, qualified professionals who can demonstrate that their skills are up to date. This should cover as a minimum:

• engineers;

• those installing and maintaining fire safety systems and other safety-critical systems;

• fire engineers;

• fire risk assessors;

• fire safety enforcing officers; and

• building control inspectors.

I would ask these bodies to work together now to propose such a system as soon as practicable.

I will launch this work at a summit in early 2018.
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0 Former Community Member over 6 years ago

Thanks for the continuiing dialog.

In response to the complex definition; this is an excerpt from the Canadian act: "“practice of professional engineering” means any act of planning, designing, composing, evaluating, advising, reporting, directing or supervising that requires the application of engineering principles and concerns the safeguarding of life, health, property, economic interests, the public welfare or the environment, or the managing of any such act; (“exercice de la profession d’ingénieur”).... Not overly complex but quite broad.

With regards to salary - Well that would be economics of supply and demand. Nothing unusual there.

In terms of importance, then take a look at the obligations above, the title comes with some professional liability.

But more importantly, this is not a push for increased salaries, this is a question on whether the engineering bodies should be adapting to the increased risks presented to the public from the complexities of engineering. We are starting to move into a very different world. Are we really prepared for that ? Is the public protected sufficiently?

I would suggest there is more to do.
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0 Simon Barker over 6 years ago

I notice that the Engineers Canada web site uses the term "engineering principles" all over the place. But I am struggling to find any definition of what "engineering principles" are. Without that, the whole "practice of professional engineering" becomes meaningless.
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0 Former Community Member over 6 years ago

Simon, Engineers Canada is the Federal Body, but is the main contact point for the provincial regulators sort of like EC UK in its mandate. It has a limited authority of powers over each provincial licensing body. Think of each Province as a separate country in Europe, with Engineers Canada representing the whole of the European Union. I think the text therefore is a little vague to suit the differences between provinces ( and there are some). I don't have much experience with the other provinces but this link is Professional Engineers Ontario and it explains that it expects the Engineer to be able to prove the application of theory as part of the licensing requirement, that would be the engineering principles they are referring to. Remember also that a lot of text is translated between French and English and back so some strange translation or vaguaries are sometimes common place.

www.peo.on.ca/.../1.htm

Principes d’ingénierie : application professionnelle des principes des mathématiques, de la chimie, de la physique ou de toute matière appliquée connexe.

Engineering principles: the professional application of mathematical principles, chemistry, physics or any applied or related matters.

We are sort of drifting off topic. They key point here is that an ex- British dominion has successfully implemented a licensing scheme to full effect and has certainly maintained and raised standards of engineering. The result can be seen in the number of entries into the profession, how the public view the profession and I would say the number of women represented. For example Ottawa has a population of approx 1 million people, within that there are 8,500 licensed professional engineers. Don't quote me on this but I think of that 8,500, 17% are women. In 2016 it was 12.8% of 288,870 practising engineers in the entire country.
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0 Andy Millar over 6 years ago

Hi Gareth,

Re your last paragraph: Be careful that correlation does not necessarily imply causation...I'm not saying these factors aren't related, but it would need to be proven that they are.

Cheers,

Andy
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0 Simon Barker over 6 years ago

Is there any evidence that compulsory registration saves lives, improves the environment or produces an economic gain for anyone other than the engineers and the people who register them?
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0 Former Community Member over 6 years ago

Andy , agreed, the figures were taken from Engineers Canada Website and OSPE. I would say that, it is quite noticeable that there are many younger women aspiring to becomes engineers here over the UK system. It is a profession that is not pushed into the category of the washing machine repair man.

Simon, no, but it does keep the inexperienced and untrained out of the profession who would normally be allowed to masquerade as engineers. But the corollary is that how many lives have been lost through non-registered engineers; the evidence of this being that many key UK employers are actually implementing their own 'back-door' licencing as a reaction to some significant failing in the profession. This may even become a more dangerous situation as we can have widely varying standards between employers.

I am not saying this is perfect by all means, but it is a system that works well and raises the standards of the profession.

Improvement of the environment - Yes this would be safeguarding the public so would be top of the agenda.

Economic gain - You have licenced individuals that have been assesed and legally mandated to follow an act of law and a code of ethics, they are certainly a marketable commodity around the world and I have bumped into licensed professionals in a number of countries. Could I quantify that economic benefit? No. I suspect that it would be just as difficult to quantify within the UK.
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0 Roy Pemberton over 6 years ago

Simon,
Firstly, I've already stated that I don't feel we need licensing in addition to professional registration and that it would be difficult and unnecessary to introduce. However, regardless of what system of accreditation is used, I think the answer to your question would be to look at those professions which do have compulsory registration - doctors, solicitors, etc. - and ask if they have protected the public and society. I would suggest that's a resounding yes. By preventing quacks from being able to pose as something they're not, there is a clear and evident protection of the interests of all. Is there anyone who would really try to argue that the registration system for doctors or solicitors had economic gain for those registered as it's only (or main) benefit?

I don't think there can be much doubt that extension of the principle to engineering would produce similar benefits. Why should we be more ready to allow those who have not demonstrated their competence and professionalism to undertake safety or mission critical tasks in engineering than we are in medicine or law, when the impact is at least as wide sweeping?

Let's not turn this thread into yet another one that critiques the extent to which the registration system may or may not need improvement - that's been done to death. Like everything, it can benefit from constant review and improvement.

Worse still, let's not allow this to become yet another attempt by those who feel aggrieved by the registration process to take pot shots at the process or at those who hold registration. That is massively off topic and another recent thread that dealt with that reached a point where some posts were so insulting and offensive that the thread had to be pulled by a moderator.

The key issue, however, as I and a number of others see it, is not to find one more accreditation route, but to get government on board to using whatever accreditation system we have to regulate who is allowed to operate under the banner of engineer and so protect from poor and, in many cases, outright dangerous engineering outcomes.
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0 Simon Barker over 6 years ago

Roy Pemberton:

I don't think there can be much doubt that extension of the principle to engineering would produce similar benefits. Why should we be more ready to allow those who have not demonstrated their competence and professionalism to undertake safety or mission critical tasks in engineering than we are in medicine or law, when the impact is at least as wide sweeping?

Oh, yes there can. So far, nobody has presented any evidence that compulsory registration will benefit anybody but those registered and those doing the registration. Just asserting that it is necessary doesn't make it so.

People (on this forum and elsewhere) have been whingeing and moaning for many years about the lack of compulsory registration, and convinced nobody but themselves.
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