Tim Broyd comment - Getting involved with government

There has been much discussion recently on the need for the ICE to involve itself more in national policy making processes. As a member, I believe that such activity is as important as the institution’s qualifying and professional obligations, and recent membership satisfaction surveys indicate the vast majority of you agree. 

In addition to our members’ interests, the ICE has an obligation to use its position as a world class centre of engineering knowledge to provide advice to politicians, civil servants, and other key stakeholders, and work to ensure policies are developed and implemented that are in the best interest of UK plc. I was thus delighted to be invited to found the ICE’s Policy Panel in 2007.

Since it was formed, the panel has been working with groups of experts throughout the institution to ensure we are maximising our impact and reaching our overall goal of becoming the accepted voice of infrastructure. 

Our impact has grown significantly in recent times, with much of the best work going on behind the scenes. The ICE has consciously pursued an insider strategy, alongside its more high profile reports, and we are increasingly becoming a natural part of the policy making process in our priority areas.

Some notable successes include the impact of our revised State of the Nation reports.  The report on Capacity and Skills, for example, resulted in the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Select Committee chair Peter Luff  attending the launch and being personally briefed. The report was quoted over 20 times in the Select Committee’s report, which also backed the ICE’s call for someone to be given the role of improving visibility and reliability of the government’s future construction procurement programme.  Government has since accepted this recommendation and is in the process of appointing a chief construction officer.

On flooding, the ICE produced a report Flooding: Engineering Resilience designed to sit alongside the official Pitt Reviewof 2008. ICE vice president David Balmforth chaired the ICE project and sat on the Pitt Technical Advisory Panel. The Pitt team used the ICE library for research and chose us as the venue for the launch of the report, the findings of which mirrored many of the ICE’s recommendations, not least on the need for a single body to have strategic oversight of all forms of flooding. 

Pitt recommended the Environment Agency for this role and this is being taken forward in the new Floods and Water Management Bill. The ICE is the only professional body represented on the Stakeholder Forum which is helping the Agency develop plans for implementing its new role.

The new inquiry format for our State of the Nation reports is a radical step forward in our strategy, leading to detailed engagement across government and civil society. Our forthcoming report into defending critical infrastructure exemplifies this new approach, and has attracted submissions from over 70 people, with 14 organisations presenting oral evidence. 

With infrastructure issues coming to the forefront of government policy, never before has it been so important for us to have a strong institution, which works to ensure civil
engineers are present at the heart of policy making in the UK.

• Tim Broyd is chair of  the ICE’s policy panel and Halcrow group director for technology & innovation

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