Lord Sainsbury calls for a clear set of Professional Standards for Technician Skills

"I believe that professional membership and registration have a real value for technicians through the commitment to lifelong learning and development, and to professional standards, which it brings.", said Lord Sainsbury, Minister for Science and Innovation.

Speaking at ECUK's "The Value of the Engineering Technician to Business" conference - supported by etb and EMSSF - Lord Sainsbury went on to praise the role of UK-SPEC (guidelines for UK professional registration, known as the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence) as an "extremely helpful descriptor"  for the Engineering Technician.

Lord Sainsbury pointed out that lack of technicians and intermediate skills had a major impact on UK productivity. "It seems to me to be clear that if we are going to correct this situation then a starting point has to be a clear set of professional standards which is widely understood and accepted", he said. He therefore urged   SSC's and employers to work together with professional bodies such as ECUK and etb to raise awareness of the full value of the UK-SPEC descriptors to business.    "Although employers may have generally positive feelings about professional membership and registration, they are not going to go out of their way to promote it unless they can be convinced that it will be of real benefit to their business for their employees to be professionally qualified and have a range of transferable skills."

Andrew Ramsay, Executive Director at ECUK said, "The high attendance figures and calibre of our panel today demonstrate the importance of this issue to industry and Government.   Working with etb we will continue to champion the role of the Engineering Technician in adding value to business. To this end we have launched a dedicated website www.engtech.co.uk to highlight the issues discussed at the conference and act as a foundation for future initiatives."