[SystemSafety] professionalism

[Matthew Squair]

To provide a slightly different context to the discussion of
professionalism.

In Queensland (just next door to where I live) the behaviour of
professional engineers providing services is regulated by an act of
parliament and their professional conduct in the provision of said services
overseen by a statutory body independent of the profession, with powers to
investigate, charge and punish. You are either registered, supervised by a
registered engineer or don't practice. And practicing without registering
is illegal. The quickest way to be registered is to become a chartered
engineer through our national body, Engineers Australia.

A couple of points about the might be of interest to the discussion here.
First the legislation is set up as a complaints process, so for someone to
be investigated there has to be a complaint, which in turn implies that
some sort of contract/agreement was in place. That's not surprising because
the original intent of the act was to regulate the hole in the wall
engineering consultancies providing professional services to the consumer
e.g. the Ma and Pa Kettle's who for example needed a retaining wall
designed.

But, as is the way of these things, the act was worded fairly broadly so
it's application, according to the board that regulates it is wherever an
engineering service is provided. A lot of engineers don't like it, for
various reasons relating to questions of natural justice, procedural
fairness and the perception that the board applies a more strict standard
of care than the general civil liability for professional negligence.
However there was a reason that the Queensland parliament thought it
necessary to bring forward the act, which goes back to the powerlessness of
the professional body to enforce professional standards on those who
practice, unlike the professional bodies of doctors or solicitor's here in
Oz.

I'm no great fan of the act, I'd prefer the model used by the medical and
legal fraternities rather than a state Quango, but that said, unless you
have a scheme that requires one to be certified to practice, and that is a
legally enforced obligation, then enforcing uniform professional conduct
will always be difficult it seems to me. The folks who would do a
professional job regardless will sign up, and those who won't don't. And
all of that is compounded by the difficulty of figuring out what
constitutes a breach of the rules of ethical conduct, and the preference of
management, and especially project management, for people who 'just do as
their told', no matter if that ends up as a death march project.

The sting in the tail, of course, is that the software engineering is not
one of the disciplines that the board recognises as needing registration...

On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 3:22 AM, Martyn Thomas <
martyn at thomas-associates.co.uk> wrote:

>  On 19/02/2014 15:38, Steve Tockey wrote:
>
> For what it's worth, I run the CSDP and CSDA certification programs for
> IEEE-CS. Candidates need to sign a statement saying they have read, and
> will abide by, the IEEE-CS/ACM code of ethics. If we can prove that any
> certificate holder is/was not abiding, we (I) will--without question--revoke
> that certificate.
>
>
>
> I'm certainly not questioning or doubting your integrity or commitment,
> but I would like to understand how you would do this (in the hope that I
> can find a way to emulate it in the UK).
>
> How would you know that a certificate holder had perhaps not abided by the
> code? Would you only act on a complaint, or would you (say) follow up press
> reports of a major project failure to investigate whether a certificate
> holder was professionally implicated?
>
> And what process would you then follow to establish the facts and to
> determine whether to issue a warning or to revoke the certificate?
>
> Would you expect your action to run into issues of commercial
> confidentiality or to be challenged in the courts? If so, how would you
> overcome these difficulties? Do you or the IEEE-CS carry insurance to cover
> such eventualities?
>
> These questions have always seemed to me to be major barriers to effective
> enforcement of a code that includes professional competence. I can see how
> to handle cases where financial fraud or criminal behaviour have already
> been established through court proceedings, but I would welcome any insight
> into how standards of professional competence can be enforced in our field,
> where there is so much professional disagreement about the right way to
> buld and assure software.
>
> Regards
>
> Martyn
>
>
>
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>
>


-- 
*Matthew Squair*
MIEAust CPEng

Mob: +61 488770655
Email: MattSquair at gmail.com
Website: www.criticaluncertainties.com <http://criticaluncertainties.com/>
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