TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT Knowledge Partner
A RIGOROUS PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATION PROCESS
A
lthough very much ‘under the radar’, your Membership and Registration
Committee (M&R Committee) provides an essential service for the Institute and for Engineering Council, of which IHEEM is a licensee. First of all every application for membership is scrutinised to see if the applicant could be eligible for professional registration through the Engineering Council and, if so, is then encouraged to do so. Those membership applicants that do decide to apply for professional registration then have to submit documentary evidence of their underpinning knowledge and understanding (most commonly through academic qualifications), competence, and commitment. IHEEM designates this an engineering practice report (EPR), that is reviewed by two or more assessors. If the M&R Committee endorses their recommendation that the registration process continues, then the applicant is invited for a professional review interview (PRI).
Although called an ‘interview’, the PRI is really a meeting with the applicant to discuss their career to date, and expected future professional development, so that they can demonstrate their competence and commitment as described in UK-SPEC. The assessors that conduct the ‘interview’ then produce a report that is submitted to the M&R Committee, and a positive outcome is hopefully endorsed and the applicant’s details can then be added to
Richard Vie
Richard Vie is the Liaison Officer for Engineering Council, monitoring the processes used, and assisting IHEEM in meeting the requirements of the Engineering Council as a licensed body. He studied mechanical and marine engineering at the University of Surrey before a long and enjoyable career in the marine industry. Before retirement he worked at Carnival, the cruise company, leading a team designing new cruise ships and bringing them into service. His own professional body is the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science of Technology (IMarEST), where he is a Fellow and Past-President. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Chartered Engineer, and a Chartered Marine Engineer, and has always been an active supporter of the engineering community in its ambitions to attract more young people to engineering, and achieve professional recognition through registration and Continuing Professional Development.
April 2024 Health Estate Journal 17
Engineering Council’s register at the applicable grade of registration. This two-step process is the foundation of Engineering Council’s peer review process used to populate and maintain its register of professional engineers. This is only a summary of the ‘standard route’ to registration, and further details are available through IHEEM and the Engineering Council’s website. Clearly this whole process depends not only
on the executive team at IHEEM corresponding with the applicant and gathering and collating all the required information, but also on the assessors and members of the M&R Committee that are all volunteers. Their roles are key, and IHEEM, like most professional bodies, is always encouraging its members to volunteer for the roles of assessor and/or committee member. Engineering Council requires that volunteers are provided with the necessary induction and regular training to keep them up to date with any changes in the regulations, and maintain the necessary attributes needed be a competent assessor. It may sound daunting at first, but being a volunteer is both rewarding in that one is giving something back to the profession, and encouraging the engineers of the future, and it also provides a different type of professional development that can be of immense value in normal day-to-day work. Of course all this activity requires quality assurance, and this is covered in three ways. First of all Engineering Council encourages internal
audits, and IHEEM has an Audit Committee, again composed of volunteers, that reviews the output from the M&R Committee to ensure that the required registration processes have been followed correctly. Secondly, this Liaison Officer attends the M&R Committee meetings and assessor training sessions as a ‘critical friend’ to offer guidance and advice when requested, and to submit a report to Engineering Council after each event. Finally, Engineering Council requires IHEEM to submit an annual report that, among other matters, requires information on the registration processes and registrations themselves, and if there are concerns, an annual risk assessment will highlight areas for improvement that the Liaison Officer is asked to monitor. Every five years (or sooner if deemed necessary) there will be a much more detailed Engineering Council audit (led by a Review Panel Chair and a member of Engineering Council’s Quality Assurance Committee, QAC), when often registration records are reviewed in detail to make sure that the registration process has been both fair and rigorous. In this way the public and employers can
have confidence that professionally registered engineers will carry out their duties in a safe, sustainable, and ethical manner, managing risk, and protecting the environment for the benefit of all.
Richard Vie FREng, CEng, CMarEng, FIMarEST
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