| News Release Award for Excellence in Engineering Leadership 2008 For “Raising Standards” and associated articles published in The New Zealand Herald. Simon’s research investigated claims of falling standards in structural engineering in New Zealand. Rather than taking these claims at face value, Simon undertook lengthy research to check out each claim, studying documents and interviewing a wide range of people in the industry. The articles explained the commercial pressures engineers are now under because of the privatisation of the construction industry – the shift from the dominance of the Ministry of Works and council design teams to private developers. In each of the cases quoted, design faults were picked up before construction was completed, but the implication was that other problems might go unnoticed. The articles concluded that to protect public safety, councils and central government need to employ more engineers in building consent work and for random auditing of building consent processes. This is an important, albeit controversial, piece of journalism. Some engineers may dispute the findings, but few could question the quality of the research and grit displayed by the writer in bringing this issue to the public’s attention.
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