The Chartered Society of Designers announced that The Queen has approved an Order amending the Royal Charter of the Society granting it the power to award the designation of Chartered Designer and to Maintain a Register of those Chartered Designers.
The original charter granted in 1976 recognised the efforts of the Society since its inception in promoting and fostering professional study and practice. It also set out objects which included achieving a recognised profession of design.
"The significance of this news cannot be overemphasised," said Society President Chris Ramsden FCSD. "The Society is now able to award Chartered Designer status to those practicing in design and satisfying a level of competence determined by CSD. The new powers place the Society in the enviable position of not only setting standards for professional practice in design but also monitoring and regulating that practice.
As with all power there comes responsibility and the Society must now set to work determining the manner in which this power may be exercised for the benefit of the design profession, all who aspire to enter it and those who benefit from the provision of design."
"Work to achieve Chartered Designer status commenced as far back as 2001 and during the past decade various options for delivery of the status have been considered in consultation with others in the design sector," Chief Executive Frank Peters FCSD commented. "Having now been granted the power to set up such a register the Society is anxious to consider the views of as wide a spectrum as possible before determining how it will set up, maintain and operate the register. The Society has a responsibility to ensure that any such register is sustainable and for the benefit of the profession as a whole whilst working also for the benefit of education, commerce and the public."
The Society will be undertaking a period of consultation with those inside and outside of the design sector before deciding and announcing how it proposes to set up and maintain the register of Chartered Designers. It is hoped that this consultation will be completed by the summer of 2012 following which a mechanism will be determined thus enabling pathways to Chartered Designer to be established later that year.