INSTITUTE NEWS IHEEM contributes to RAE response to 2020 Spending Review
As an official Policy Partner to the Royal Academy of Engineering’s National Engineering Policy Centre, IHEEM has recently contributed to the RAE’s response to the 2020 Spending Review in its paper, Engineering a resilient and sustainable future, released on 30 September. The National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC) connects policymakers with critical engineering expertise ‘to inform and respond to policy issues of national importance, giving policymakers a route to advice from across the whole profession, and the profession a unified voice on shared challenges’. The Centre is an RAE-led partnership between 43 different UK engineering organisations. With the Autumn budget cancelled, and the new Spending Review a one-year
review, rather than looking ahead to the planned three years, the RAE’s Policy Centre has taken the lead in compiling a joint paper on behalf of 40 engineering organisations representing over 450,000 UK engineers. It recommends the Government invests in the paper's proposed actions to help decarbonise the economy and create a national workforce planning strategy to create jobs and spread opportunities more evenly nationwide. It says the UK could position itself as a market-leader in low carbon technologies, but that achieving net zero carbon emissions depends on a resilient infrastructure system. The paper says the 2020 Spending Review is ‘one of the most important in a generation’, coming at a time when the UK is in recession, and the impact of the pandemic has increased inequality. Careful and considered decisions must be made now about physical and digital infrastructure to drive economic recovery and provide skilled jobs. Equally, long-term, evidence-based infrastructure needs to be addressed, with individual regions given the freedom to create infrastructure strategies.
With the COVID-19 crisis having ‘hugely disrupted further and higher education’, and potentially reducing the diversity of young entrants to engineering (the RAE says), the paper says the UK must now plan for its long-term engineering and technical skills needs, ‘with an ambitious plan for training, up-skilling, and re-skilling’. ‘World-leading ambitions’ on net zero, infrastructure, and digitalisation, are threatened, it warns, without sufficient personnel with the engineering and technical skills to deliver them. Professor Sir Jim McDonald FREng FRSE, the RAE’s President (pictured), said: “It is a crucial time for government
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to take practical actions to help the economy recover, while addressing inequalities and reducing our carbon emissions. The actions proposed by the Academy and its partner organisations in the NEPC reflect the level of UK engineering expertise available to address the challenges of developing the UK’s transport infrastructure, energy supply, and digital networks, to deliver an inclusive, sustainable economy. Done well, this will create more jobs and prosperity across the nation, addressing the needs of our future society.”
The Institute hopes to support this agenda further through its ongoing STEM work, as well as supporting the new Workforce Strategy due for release at the
end of 2020 by NHSE/NHSI. Pete Sellars, IHEEM’s CEO, said: “I am pleased the Institute has been given an opportunity to contribute to this important document, which has IHEEM’s full support. Working with the RAE not only raises the Institute’s profile, but also ensures that the healthcare engineering sector will now be given due consideration and recognition on these far-reaching issues. Professional bodies have a vital role to play in working alongside businesses and industry across both the STEM and R&D agendas.” To view Engineering a resilient and sustainable future, visit https://
www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/ engineering-a-resilient-and-sustainable- future
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