The Guidelines on direct supervision (the Guideline) seems to conflict with itself regarding who may make engineering judgements.
In some places, the Guideline states that the supervising registered professional engineer must make any engineering judgements:
Where engineering decisions are required, contact must first be made with the supervising registered engineer so that they make the engineering decisions and provide any further instructions or directions to the unregistered person that may be required.
And:
For both supervisors the approach to supervision includes:
• holding regular one-on-one meetings to provide instructions and make decisions (face-to-face, virtual)
• being available to provide further guidance and make decisions (open door, email, messaging)
However, in other places, the Guideline states that the unregistered person may make engineering judgements:
They must be satisfied that, at all times, the unregistered person is exercising adequate knowledge, skill, judgement and care, and that the service they are carrying out is:
And:
This will require the supervising registered engineer to be satisfied about the information the unregistered person has gathered and the calculations and the judgements they have made to apply engineering principles and data to carry out the service.
And:
Registered Supervising Engineer
• Reviews the work at regular intervals and discusses any new issues or further engineering decisions that must be made with the unregistered person
• Conducts a careful review, including verification of key decisions and calculations
And:
A person working under the direct supervision of a supervising registered engineer must:
…
exercise adequate knowledge, skill, judgement and care and only provide professional engineering services that they are competent to perform, and
Recommendations
As discussed elsewhere, the Act should be updated (and possibly renamed) to recognise and assess engineering technologists, as well as professional engineers.
Engineering technologist work can be defined as “an engineering service that is provided only in accordance with a standard (performance-based or prescriptive)”.
The Guideline should be updated to distinguish between professional engineering services, engineering technologist services and other engineering services as (respectively):
- “beyond standards”
- “only in accordance with a standard (performance-based or prescriptive)”
- “only in accordance with a prescriptive standard”.
The Guideline should be updated so that:
- For engineering technologists (Sydney Accord, who work with broadly-defined engineering problems), the supervising registered professional engineer must make any engineering judgements that are beyond “only in accordance with a standard (performance-based or prescriptive)”.
- For engineering associates (Dublin Accord, who work with well-defined engineering problems), the supervising registered professional engineer must make any engineering judgements that are beyond “only in accordance with a prescriptive standard”.