Approved by the Engineering Practice Policy Committee on April 11, 2024
Approved by the Public Policy and Practice Committee on May 29, 2024
Adopted by the Board of Direction on July 18, 2024

Policy

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) supports licensed professional engineers employed both in the public and private sectors should perform engineering functions and tasks for government agencies. It is in the public interest for agencies performing engineering at all levels of government to maintain expertise within their organizations by employing civil engineers and technical staff and providing for their continued professional development and training. For public sector engineering projects, when sufficient public agency or department staff are not available to effectively and efficiently complete projects or where project or task-specific specialty expertise is needed, the public interest is best served through contracting with private engineering firms with public agency technical staff providing project oversight. The amount of project work performed by each agency should be based on the technical capability and the number of projects that it can successfully manage. There should not be legislation or regulation that requires a ratio or percentage of services to be executed by public organization staff and private sector staff.

Issue

During the process of authorizing, funding, and administering government engineering tasks and projects, concerns may arise regarding:

  • The appropriate levels of in house engineering staff for government agencies. 
  • The need for government engineers to develop and maintain technical engineering skills. 
    The need for government engineers to be licensed professional engineers in the jurisdiction where the services are provided. 
  • The level of involvement by private engineering firms in government engineering projects. 
  • Whether executive, administrative, or legislative controls or guidelines should be established setting a fixed percentage of an agency’s work to be contracted to private engineering firms.

These concerns often focus on public staffing levels as well as the ideas of competitive balance between the public and private engineering sectors, rather than the need to have well-trained, publicly employed engineers and other trained technical staff whose primary responsibility is to see that public projects protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public, and assure that public funds are expended properly and wisely. 

Rationale

Government agencies should maintain adequate staffs of experienced and qualified licensed professional engineers and technical staff to plan, develop, operate, and maintain public infrastructure; to perform in house engineering functions, tasks, and projects; to manage and oversee work contracted to private engineering firms and to maintain the mission and services legislatively mandated for the government agency. Publicly employed engineers provide oversight to assure that there is an effective, efficient, and sustainable interface between engineering and the public interest.

Consideration of the public interest, cost-efficiency and effectiveness are important in deciding whether government agency personnel or private engineering firms should provide engineering services on public projects. The history of the civil engineering profession has clearly shown that the public is best served, the public trust maintained, and the mission of the government agency best achieved through an effective blending of engineering services performed by in-house government engineers and private engineering firms.

This policy has worldwide application
ASCE Policy Statement 138
First Approved pre-1974