26th April 2006, 02:17 PM
The contract is based on civil engineering standard contracts and also has close similarities to construction contracts. It won't make any difference if a consultant is employed.
Are you saying that an archaeolgical consultant will usually employ(i.e. enter into a contract with) a contractor? In other words the comsultant is carrying out the work and is therefore not a consultant, he is a contractor. It makes no difference that he is employing anothe party as effectively a sub-contractor. I have to say I am, in my naivete, astonished.
What I have assumed to be the intention of the contract is that it works like an engineering or construction (or any other come to that) contract. Simply because a consulant prepares a form of contract, tender documents and invites tenders does not mean that the contractor is not employed by the employer. The consultant is named in the contract but has not entered into a contract with the contractor. This is exactly the same as an architect, for example. Technically a consultant does not appoint a contractor. He analyses the tenders and prepares a report for the employer who will/may then engage the appropriate contractor. The consultant does not sign the contract but will be named in it in order to have powers to administer the contract. The contract is designed to allow for this.
There is nothing confidential in such contracts. The financial matters will not be available to curators or anyone else. I would wonder whether a curator has powers to specify a form of contract however, but could say "or other suitable form".
To be honest I was gobsmacked to learn that there was hitherto no standard form of contract. Every other discipline has them and pretty much could not function without them.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
Are you saying that an archaeolgical consultant will usually employ(i.e. enter into a contract with) a contractor? In other words the comsultant is carrying out the work and is therefore not a consultant, he is a contractor. It makes no difference that he is employing anothe party as effectively a sub-contractor. I have to say I am, in my naivete, astonished.
What I have assumed to be the intention of the contract is that it works like an engineering or construction (or any other come to that) contract. Simply because a consulant prepares a form of contract, tender documents and invites tenders does not mean that the contractor is not employed by the employer. The consultant is named in the contract but has not entered into a contract with the contractor. This is exactly the same as an architect, for example. Technically a consultant does not appoint a contractor. He analyses the tenders and prepares a report for the employer who will/may then engage the appropriate contractor. The consultant does not sign the contract but will be named in it in order to have powers to administer the contract. The contract is designed to allow for this.
There is nothing confidential in such contracts. The financial matters will not be available to curators or anyone else. I would wonder whether a curator has powers to specify a form of contract however, but could say "or other suitable form".
To be honest I was gobsmacked to learn that there was hitherto no standard form of contract. Every other discipline has them and pretty much could not function without them.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.