Standards of Good Regulation - Part 1: Registration

In 2018, the Government of British Columbia initiated an independent inquiry into the performance of the College of Dental Surgeons of British Columbia “in response to a series of unrelated complaints” that had been received by the government. Heading up the inquiry was the former Chief Executive of the British Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, Harry Cayton, CBE. Mr. Cayton’s review uncovered a number of issues, not only in the operation of the dental college, but in the entire structuring and operation of BC’s health professions regulatory model. His report (https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/health/practitioner-pro/professional-regulation/cayton-report-college-of-dental-surgeons-2018.pdf) made several recommendations with respect to overhauling that regulatory model, and most were adopted by the BC government as the framework on how health professions would be regulated in the future. While the entire report, along with the government’s response and the analysis by the legal profession and media columnists, makes great reading for a professional regulatory governance geek like myself, there are a couple of elements of the report which I believe should be of interest to any regulated professional. These are found in Appendix 2 and 3 of the report, and are entitled Standards of Good Regulation, and Standards of Governance. 

The Standards of Good Regulation reflect that the role of the regulator in any profession, engineering and geoscience included, is to regulate the profession in the interests of the public, and the public alone. Their duty to the regulated professionals is only to ensure that the level of regulation is proportionate to the level of risk to the public. This includes the following:

·        Proportionate: Regulators should only intervene when necessary. Remedies should be appropriate to the risk posed, and costs identified and minimised.

·        Consistent: Rules and standards must be joined up and implemented fairly.

·        Targeted: Regulation should be focused on the problem, and minimise side effects.

·        Transparent: Regulators should be open, and keep regulations simple and user-friendly.

·        Accountable: Regulators must be able to justify decisions, and be subject to public scrutiny.

·        Agile: Regulation must look forward and be able to adapt to anticipate change.

Source: Right-Touch Regulation in Practice – International Perspectives, Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, 2018, https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/docs/default-source/publications/thought-paper/right-touch-regulation-in-practice---international-perspectives.pdf?sfvrsn=a5b97520_8

In practice, Right-Touch Regulation can be broken down into three primary responsibilities that the regulator has: Registration, Standards and Guidance, and Complaints and Discipline. Today, I will discuss the Registration responsibility of the Standards of Good Regulation, leaving the other responsibilities and the Standards of Governance for future articles. Please note that the descriptions below were adapted from the BC dentists reports to suit the engineering and geoscience professions.

Registration Responsibilities:

·        Only those who meet APEGA’s requirements for registration or certification are registered.

The requirements for registration as a Professional Engineer in all of the Provinces and Territories are established through the Canadian Engineering Qualifications Board (CEQB), coordinated by Engineers Canada. Geoscientists Canada serves a similar role for professional geoscientists, thought their process is not as mature or formal as the CEQB process. APEGA’s Board of Examiners (BOE) has the authority to examine the qualifications of those who apply to become professional members, not only for Alberta, but for the Northwest Territories and Nunavut and for the Yukon. The volunteers working for the BOE are among APEGA’s hardest-working volunteers, dealing with thousands of applications every year.

This process is the one which APEGA has been working on extensively over the past few years, introducing a Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) process for assessing the work experience gained by members-in-training, and a requirement for a World Education Services assessment of non-CEAB (Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board) and non-Canadian geoscience degrees. According to APEGA’s website, this process can take up to 12 months. It is here that APEGA is facing a significant challenge.

The Government of Alberta has introduced Bill 11 – the Fair Registration Practices Act, which will require, among other things, APEGA to assess applications and communicate assessment decisions within specific timeframes for interim registration decisions and within reasonable timeframes for final registration decisions. An interim registration decision is one which either allows the registration of an applicant subject to a condition (which must be satisfied within a specified period of time), or defers the registration until a missing requirement is fulfilled. The timeline specified for an interim decision is six months – half the time that registrations can currently take.  While no one in the professions is interested in doing a less-thorough assessment of a new applicant, it is clear that some process changes will need to take place in order to meet the government’s new expectations. Once note – Bill 11 has worked its way through the entire legislative approval process, including Royal Assent, and is only awaiting proclamation to come into force.

If you elect me to APEGA Council, I will work to ensure that the appropriate processes and resources are dedicated to meeting the Government’s expectations and requirements, and by doing so, improve our applicants’ experience and trust in the Association

·        Through the register, everyone can easily access information about Engineers and Geoscientists, including whether there are restrictions or conditions on their practice.

APEGA’s online register is actually quite good, though because APEGA doesn’t register professionals by their specific disciplines (other than for Professional Licensees) it is difficult to know what any individual professional can and cannot do. As professionals, we are obliged through the APEGA Code of Ethics to only practice within our competence, and that competence is not limited by the discipline in which we received our undergraduate degree. Still, that undergraduate degree, which was at one time listed on the register, would give the public an idea as to what discipline the professional could be expected to practice, and could prompt them to ask questions if the task and the degree didn’t line up.

One other (minor) failing of the APEGA register is that it doesn’t deal with commonplace names as well as it could, nor does it always capture name changes or those who go by a different first name than what was on their original application. This is less a problem with the register as it is with the individual professionals who might not report preferred names or name changes as rigorously as they should.

·        The public and others are aware of the importance of checking a professional engineer’s or geoscientist’s registration.

APEGA makes no effort to hide the register from the public – two links to the register can be found in the first two lines of the APEGA website homepage. APEGA’s advertising of the professions, however, have largely been aimed at demonstrating how engineering and geoscience impact the daily lives of the public without going into the importance of checking the registration of the professional. 

While working at APEGA as the Director of Investigations, I uncovered a few situations where engineering documents were authenticated with the stamp of an unregistered professional. Whether the professional simply allowed their registration to lapse (accidently or deliberately), they retired from the profession, or were stricken from the register for cause, their stamp was used inappropriately. Had their clients known how important it was to check the registration of the professional they were hiring, many problems could have been avoided.

If elected, I will work with Council to put in place a policy that any advertising done by APEGA, while promoting the professions, includes a message of the importance of checking the register.

·        Risk of harm to the public, and of damage to the public confidence in the professions, related to non-registrants using a reserved title or undertaking a restricted activity, is managed in a proportionate and risk-based manner.

APEGA’s compliance efforts, managed by the Enforcement Review Committee, look after the right-to-title and right-to-practice portions of the Engineering and Geoscience Professions (EGP) Act. In my years at APEGA, the commitment by Council to this aspect of regulation varied considerably. I know of at least one instance where a former Professional Engineer was informed that he could not indicate on his resume that he even used to be a Professional Engineer. I am aware of another company which hires numerous practicing engineers and has a variation of the word “engineer” in their company name, but doesn’t hold a Permit to Practice. These inconsistencies have led to both members of the public and of APEGA to doubt how seriously the Association takes this legislated responsibility.

If elected, I will work with Council to provide clear and consistent direction to the Enforcement Review Committee and the Compliance Department regarding a proportionate and risk-based approach to violations of the right-to-title and right-to-practice sections of the EGP Act.

Overall, I believe that APEGA takes the registration responsibilities it has very seriously, and that the Association strives to be as effective as possible in fulfilling those responsibilities. We all know, though, that there is always room for improvement. If I am elected, I will work with Council on improving our processes and policies in order to better meet the needs of the public. The Council is made up of a number of professionals and public members, so I cannot promise that any improvements that I suggest will go forward, but I can promise that I will make and support those suggestions to the best of my ability.

If you feel that I am heading in the right direction with this, then I ask that you vote for me in the 2020 APEGA Council Election, and to let other professionals in your network know that I am running and what I stand for. If you disagree with me, I would still ask that you participate in the election, and vote for candidates whose views align with your own.