Finniston Report

The Finniston Report was an important study about engineering in the United Kingdom. It was started in 1977 by the government and led by Monty Finniston. The report looked at how well engineering groups were helping their members and whether there should be new rules to control the engineering industry.

The report suggested getting rid of the old Council of Engineering Institutions and creating a new group to oversee engineering. It also recommended that engineers should have special degrees called engineer's degrees. When the report was finished in 1980, the government decided not to make these new rules but did create a new group called the Engineering Council.

Later, in the year 2000, another report said that the Finniston Report had been misunderstood. It had not really wanted to control engineers too much with laws, but instead wanted to help improve the engineering profession.

Background

The Finniston Report was asked for by the government to look at problems in the engineering field in the United Kingdom. The government was worried that not enough engineers were being trained and wanted suggestions to fix this. They asked Monty Finniston to lead a group to study the issue.

The group looked at how engineering groups were helping engineers and if new rules were needed. They also checked how other countries handled engineering. They found that in many places, the government helped register engineers, unlike in the UK at the time. The report was finished later than planned and shared with the government in 1979.

Recommendations

The Finniston Report said that a group called the CEI was not doing a good job in supporting engineering or influencing important decisions. The four biggest members of the CEI could not agree on what to do, and many decisions needed everyone to agree, which made things slow to change.

The report suggested big changes: the CEI should be removed and replaced with a new group called the Engineering Authority. This new group would manage who could join and what level of education they needed. The report also pointed out that British universities were not providing enough education compared to universities in Western Europe. It recommended new engineering degree courses, like MEng and BEng, to help engineers reach important professional status in the future.

Reception

The government chose not to follow Finniston's advice and kept the engineering institutions independent, allowing them to manage their own membership. Instead, they created the Engineering Council as an overseeing group under a special royal charter, rather than making it a government-controlled body. Finniston did not agree with this decision.

The Council of Engineering Institutions disagreed with the report and suggested creating three new groups: one to register engineers like doctors are registered, another to improve how people view engineering, and a third to speak for engineers in national decisions. Some engineering groups supported Finniston's ideas, while others preferred to stay independent and manage themselves.

Legacy

After the Finniston Report, the Engineering Council created shared systems to help engineers keep learning and follow professional rules. This made engineering similar to jobs like accounting and planning.

The report also suggested ways to get more students, especially girls and young people, interested in engineering. This led to the start of the Women into Science and Engineering Campaign (WISE) in 1984. At first, only 56% of people thought engineering was a good career for women, but by 2000, this grew to 72%.

Later, in 1992, the Engineering Council said that only people with certain engineering degrees could become chartered engineers. This caused some disagreement between the council and other groups. Even so, engineering became more open and popular, with salaries going up in some areas.

The Finniston Report was the last major look at engineering until the Engineering Council’s 2000 Hamilton Report. A later review in 2013, led by Professor John Perkins, also looked at the state of engineering in the United Kingdom.