The Silent Majority

Without doubt the Institution is changing. We wrestle with problems of rescheduling debts and trying new ways of controlling our finances; we make preparations for Europe and consider our international membership - and within all this we are called by our Council of Presidents to reconsider our relationships with the other 46 Institutions. We are even to consider a one-voice engineering body. Rumour has it that we are under threat of Government action, and that they are already preparing a green paper - ‘Statute for the over-arching of professional engineers: regional, metropolitan and national’ (Fig 1). And should we be all forced to register to practise by Brussels, the
European Commission already has the vehicle available in its British Instrument for Engineers Registration (Fig 2) - which vehicle seems somehow appropriate.

D.R. Plum