MAY 2008 Issue
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE & ETHICS CORNER
APEGGA members with professional practice or ethics questions are welcome to mail them to Ray Chopiuk, P.Eng., Director, Professional Practice, APEGGA, 1500 Scotia One, 10060 Jasper AVE NW, Edmonton, AB T5J 4A2; fax them to 780-426-1877; or e-mail them to rchopiuk@apegga.org.
Q Do engineering drawings submitted as part of a tender package need to have a professional engineer’s stamp and signature on them?
A Yes, professional documents that are issued for tender purposes need to be stamped. The General Regulation under the Engineering, Geological and Geophysical Professions Act states that, “A stamp or seal issued to a professional member or licensee … must be applied … to all final plans, specifications, reports or documents of a professional nature ... ” Some will argue that the documents they submit for tender are incomplete for construction purposes and, therefore, shouldn’t be stamped since they are not final.
APEGGA’s Practice Standards Committee issued a Practice Standard for Authenticating Professional Documents to clarify numerous stamping issues. Stamping preliminary documents, such as tender drawings, was one such issue.
The practice standard defines final as “a professional document issued to another person on which that person is permitted to rely.” In other words, final means “final for the purposes intended.”
An engineering drawing that is part of a tender submission was considered to be a document on which someone would place some reliance. Since the document contains work of an engineering nature, someone must be responsible for the work. That responsibility is communicated by a professional engineer’s stamp and signature, along with the date on which the document was stamped and signed. Although the drawing will not be used specifically for constructing something, someone is making decisions affecting the project on the engineering information contained in the drawing. The drawing is final for tender purposes.
The practice standard notes that “where professional documents are issued for some restricted purpose and where someone may rely on those documents, they shall be authenticated. The professional documents shall be authenticated but shall be clearly identified as to their intended purpose or their limitations, e.g., ‘For Budget Purposes’, ‘For Site Planning Only’, as appropriate.” Although the practice standard didn’t use the phrase For Tender Only, it could have just as easily, since there is little difference between that phrase and For Budget Purposes.
To guard against such documents being used for construction, it would be advisable to also clearly identify the documents as Not for Construction.
For example, drawings submitted for building permits would be final for that purpose, even if they may not provide all the details that would be necessary for construction. Building permit drawings must be complete to the extent that an authority having jurisdiction is able to determine compliance with the Alberta Building Code prior to a permit being issued.
Drawings classed as Issued for Construction would still be required and would, of course, need a stamp and signature as well.
Q We are a consulting firm that has been asked to take over an ongoing project from another consultant. Although we are evaluating the business and financial aspects of the potential assignment, we wondered whether APEGGA has any requirements that we need to meet if we were to take on the work.
A There are no specific regulatory requirements that would prevent you from taking on the assignment.
APEGGA’s Practice Standards Committee considered just such a question several years ago. The committee suggested that, as a cautionary measure, the second consultant should obtain written confirmation from the client that a contract for professional services between the client and the previous consultant no longer exists. The move would assist the second consultant in deflecting possible accusations of unethical behaviour.