Reply To: Latest petition for industry licencing is still long way off target despite widespread calls

[David]

Steph Savill, the IMI are doing their bit to try and secure a license for the trade, however I’ve been around a long time and I am a member of the IMI at level IV, and was accepted at level IV as a member when the IMI accepted me after my training to become a member.

I can advise this about the IMI, my experience has shown that the IMI have shown little interest in their members in my working life time, and that is now over 30 years. During my career in my day I turned to the IMI for further guidance and training after achieving my City & Guilds back in the 80’s, however the IMI then either ignored my requests or basically fobbed me off with conversations along the lines of the IMI are not here to helpt their members move up the ladder in engineering, we are a management organisation. How times have changed the outlook of the IMI when the government funding dried up, and now government handouts are not forthcoming that easy for any organisation to get their hands on anymore, hence from the outside we always see the organisations then starting to look to the public for their goals.

I agree the IMI are doing a lot now with training but my feelings are that has only occurred because like any organisation, the IMI need a financial income, and if its not from government then there is only the public left, and in our trade they generally go for the Trading Standards route. I really don’t think anything will change in reality.