14 Jun 2018
CPEng doesn’t currently provide assurance that an engineer can do specific, safety-critical tasks. So to strengthen it, we have been developing Bodies of Knowledge and Skills (BOKS) in collaboration with the relevant technical societies.
We will be assessing CPEng applicants against these BOKS to provide more specific assurance of competence. While structural, geotechnical and fire BOKS are finished or in progress, this could equally extend to other safety-critical areas, including recreation activity, water and food process engineering, for example.
When Engineering New Zealand’s Deputy President and Chief Executive met the Minister for Building and Construction earlier this year, the future of occupational regulation was high on the agenda. As a result of this meeting, we’ve been invited to enter a collaborative policy process with MBIE. The process will look at what system will best protect the public from harm, regulate in proportion to the risk and ensure engineers are held to account for negligence or acting outside their areas of competence. It could mean changes to CPEng or more fundamental reform.
Your input and feedback will be critical as we go through this process with MBIE, and we’ll provide regular updates in Discover. In the meantime, if you want to get in touch on this issue, please contact Neil Miller.
