Finniston Report

The Finniston Report was an important study about engineering in the United Kingdom. It began in 1977 and was led by Monty Finniston. The report examined how well engineering groups supported their members and whether new rules were needed for the engineering industry.

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

Later, in the year 2000, another report explained that the Finniston Report had been misunderstood. It did not aim to control engineers too much with laws, but 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. 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. The biggest members of the CEI could not agree, which made changes slow.

The report suggested big changes: the CEI should be replaced with a new group called the Engineering Authority. This new group would manage who could join and what education they needed. The report also said that British universities needed to provide more education. It recommended new engineering degree courses, like MEng and BEng, to help engineers in the future.

Reception

The government did not follow Finniston's advice. They kept the engineering institutions separate and allowed them to manage their own members. Instead, they made the Engineering Council an overseeing group under a special royal charter, but it was not controlled by the government. Finniston disagreed with this choice.

The Council of Engineering Institutions did not agree with the report. They wanted to create three new groups: one to register engineers, like doctors are registered, another to improve the way people see engineering, and a third to represent engineers in important national decisions. Some engineering groups liked Finniston's ideas, while others wanted to stay separate and manage themselves.

Legacy

After the Finniston Report, the Engineering Council made new systems to help engineers keep learning and follow the rules. This made engineering more like jobs such as accounting and planning.

The report also gave ideas to get more students, including girls and young people, interested in engineering. This helped start the Women into Science and Engineering Campaign (WISE) in 1984.

In 1992, the Engineering Council decided that only people with certain engineering degrees could become chartered engineers. This caused some disagreement, but engineering became more open and popular, and salaries went up in some areas.

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