Indeed, but "works to the highest (quality) standards" is only one of the many aspects of being a good engineer. For example: government engineers are often not as good at completing projects within budget.
As someone who was a government worker, a lot of the issues why projects go over budget is because management believes that a single developer can do the workload of 4. So the product never gets delivered and that developer leaves to work somewhere else.
I think that dilutes the meaning of "quality" to nothing. Like if someone says "that's quality work" or a "quality engineer" I think of something specific.
For example I'd call a BMW a quality car. I wouldn't call a Lada a quality car, though it's much cheaper and has a much higher bang-to-buck ratio than a BMW.
In that sense sometimes government work has to be the highest quality, especially when it concerns security or safety. Sure it could end up being magnitudes more expensive but I'd say that's a question of efficiency not quality
