What the Act calls a professional engineering service
The Act’s dictionary defines a professional engineering service as “an engineering service that requires, or is based on, the application of engineering principles and data to a design, or to a construction, production, operation or maintenance activity, relating to engineering”. The same definition then takes one kind of work out. It “does not include an engineering service that is provided only in accordance with a prescriptive standard” (Schedule 2).
A prescriptive standard is a document that states procedures or criteria for a design, or for a construction, production, operation or maintenance activity, and whose application “does not require advanced scientifically based calculations”. The Act’s one example is AS1684, the timber framing code published by Standards Australia. So work done only by following a document of that kind sits outside the definition, whoever does it.
The three sections that protect the register
Sections 113 to 115, in Part 7 of the Act, set three offences, each with a maximum penalty of 1000 penalty units.
- s 113
Claims about being registered
A person who is not a registered professional engineer must not claim, or hold himself or herself out, to be one, or allow himself or herself to be held out as one. Nor may anyone hold out another person as a registered professional engineer if they know, or ought reasonably to know, that the other person is not one.
Maximum 1000 penalty units, each subsection
- s 114
Using titles or names
Only a registered professional engineer may use “the titles ‘registered professional engineer’, ‘registered professional engineer of Queensland’ or ‘RPEQ’”. The same goes for any other title or name a regulation prescribes that, in context, suggests the user is registered.
Maximum 1000 penalty units
- s 115
Who may carry out professional engineering services
Anyone who is not a practising professional engineer is barred from carrying out professional engineering services, except under the direct supervision of a practising engineer responsible for them. A practising engineer may work only in the areas of engineering they are registered for, again unless directly supervised by a practising engineer who is registered in that area and responsible for the services.
Maximum 1000 penalty units, s 115(1) and (3)
Direct supervision, in the Act’s words
“For this section, a person carries out professional engineering services under the direct supervision of a practising professional engineer only if the engineer directs the person in the carrying out of the services and oversees and evaluates the carrying out of the services by the person.”
Professional Engineers Act 2002 (Qld), s 115(5)
Registration comes in two types, practising and non-practising (s 7B). A practising professional engineer is defined as a registered professional engineer “who carries out, or is responsible for the carrying out of, professional engineering services”, and s 115 is written about practising engineers.
Registered in an area of engineering
Registration is for an area of engineering, and s 115(3) keeps a practising engineer inside the areas they hold. The Act does not list the areas in its own text. Under s 7A, the areas are those for which there is an assessment scheme, or for which qualifications and competencies are prescribed, and the Board “must publish the areas of engineering on its website”. This guide does not reproduce that list.
Work done from outside Queensland
Section 6A says: “This Act applies both within and outside Queensland.” It applies outside Queensland to the full extent of the Parliament’s extraterritorial legislative power, and a note to s 115 points to s 6A on how that section may apply outside the state.
Checking the Board’s register
The Board must keep a register of people who are, or have been, registered professional engineers. It may keep it in electronic form. Among the particulars the register must hold are each person’s name and contact details, details of their eligibility for registration, and details of certain orders the tribunal makes about them (s 102).
- Anyone may inspect the register free of charge at the Board’s office during its public opening hours (s 103(1)(a)).
- A copy of the register, or part of it, is available on payment of the fee prescribed under a regulation (s 103(1)(b)).
- The Board must also make the register available for inspection on its website (s 103(2)).
The Board is a statutory body set up under the Act. Its page on the regulatory framework sets out the Act’s main objects: protecting the public by making sure professional engineering services come from a registered professional engineer and are delivered competently and professionally; keeping public confidence in the standard of registered engineers’ services; and upholding the standards of practice of registered engineers.
Victoria’s scheme works on areas too: see engineer registration in Victoria. NSW registers engineers only for certain buildings: see design and building practitioners in NSW. Every scheme side by side is on the comparison table.