Hail To The Chief Engineer

I don't know how Neil Craig has managed to miss this:

There is a need for better trans-departmental management of engineering policy. The Government should adopt a practice of formulating and following roadmaps for each major engineering programme, including skills provision with co-ordination between each of them. The Government should also be more strategic in its support for emerging industries and policy areas. Finally, Government would benefit from having senior officials tasked to oversee engineering roadmaps and strategic plans, and to manage engineering advice in a Civil Service with more residual and specialised engineering expertise. There should be two people responsible for this challenging body of work: a Government Chief Scientific and Engineering Adviser and a Government Chief Engineer.

A Chief Engineer? Splendid idea. And I write, of course, as a diehard arts and humanities man myself. Here's to all those lovely nuclear power stations, and to that vastly improved public transport infrastructure. Just for a start.