New Member Engagement Board is part of 2018 Special Meeting governance changes

Nearly a year has gone by now since our President, Prof. Joe McGeough, set up the Reviews Implementation Group to look into the 85 initial recommendations that came from the review teams.

The Group's challenge was to consult with members around the world; then, with our regulatory authorities, build on the output of the separate review teams and come up with practical solutions for better ways to run our Institution.  Their core aim was to ensure we were ‘best in class’ when it came to resolving any problems we might be facing.

What their year of work has revealed has been the thorough and thoughtful approach of all three of separate review teams during 2018 and 2019.  Virtually all of the recommendations for change, which are available on our website for members to see, have been warmly received by our membership; changes like creating a new Finance Board, reporting directly to the Trustee Board, with an independent and expert qualified membership.  There is now also a new governance department, with five staff, to advise on regulation and best practice for our operations. 

Internationally, the key change is the creation of a new Member Engagement Board.  This brings together representatives from the International Strategy Board with the Regional Strategy Board, the Young Members Board, the International Young Members Committee, and the Education and Skills Strategy Board into a single group with a unified mission.  As the Governance Report stated, the aim is to create a ‘global and connected feel’.  Its terms of reference start with the purpose of being "the conduit and communication network for the engagement of all members across the world".

Meanwhile of course we continue to run our operations with 28% of our members now resident outside of the UK.  For the eighth year running we registered the largest number of new professional engineers with the Engineering Council.  Our subsidiary businesses were all profitable and we returned some significant cash to our reserves.  Thankfully we also upgraded much of our IT infrastructure which has allowed us to continue to operate during the COVID-19 lockdown.

So, will the future feel different?  We hope so.  The new structure of the Annual Report is intended to reflect a renewed engagement with our professional purpose based on openness and trust.  We have had a Presidential year theme in the past, based on being ‘Proud to be an Engineer’.  We sincerely hope that the further changes we will be making in the coming months will continue to move us in that direction.