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What are we in terms of Licensing, Registration and Specialist Lists

Upholding the defined standard of competency in accordance
to codes of ethics and the public interest.

The UK Inter Professional Group defines a Profession as: ‘an occupation in which an individual uses an intellectual skill based on an established body of knowledge and practice to provide a specialised service in a defined area, exercising independent judgement in accordance with a code of ethics and in the public interest.’ The purpose of regulating a profession is ‘to assure the quality of professional services in the public interest. The regulation of a profession involves the setting of standards of professional qualifications and practice; the keeping of a Register of qualified persons and the award of titles; determining the conduct of registrants, the investigation of complaints and disciplinary sanctions for professional misconduct.

There are a number of international approaches for the regulation of a profession, including (Institution of Civil Engineers, 2005):

a) Licensing: Licensing can be statutory or non statutory. An area of work restricted by statutory licensing cannot be undertaken by an unlicensed person. Non statutory licensing provides the public with lists of approved persons competent to work in a particular area, which can also be undertaken by non licensed persons.

b) Registration: Regulation of a profession involves the setting of standards, the keeping of a register of qualified persons and the award of titles. Regulation may be statutory (regulations set by Parliament) or non statutory (regulations set by the governing body of the profession). If non-statutory registration, governing bodies can only use civil action to prevent non-registrants from using the title and cannot restrict any area of work to registrants. Statutory regulation normally involves a statutory register and the protection of title by law and sometimes, but not always, the statutory reservation of an area of work to registrants i.e. to work in the area without being on the register would be an offence in law. If statutory regulation reserves an area of work it has the same effect as statutory licensing which seeks to restrict an area of work to those who are approved persons.

c) Specialist Lists: The non-statutory voluntary listing of professionals who have met a defined standard of competence in a specialist area, typically administered by a professional or trade body.

In essence, licensing authorises eligible persons to practise in a specific area, registration recognizes demonstrated achievement of a defined standard of competency, while specialist lists indicate peer recognized competence in a particular area. Statutory regulation of the practice of engineering in South Africa, when the Engineering Profession Act is fully implemented, uses the mechanisms described in paragraph b) above, namely registration and the prohibition of performance of identified work by persons who are not registered. The Joint Structural Division’s Listing of Competent Persons – Structures is, however, a specialist list developed to serve a specific purpose. It is complimentary to the statutory regulation.