25th March 2012, 09:45 PM
Basically it means they're operating a county list - if you're not on it you can't work which means a developer cannot choose who they want.
But you are maintaining a list if a unit has to provide info and be formally acknowledged as competent. What you're saying is its a secret and the client has to guess and try to find one on your list, perhaps by using the IFA. Why can't you just bloody give out the list of those you've approved? - because its probably illegal.... and so therefore the whole requirement to be approved is as well.
In short it needs a legal challenge to see if it can be upheld or not. If a legal challenge upheld this then fine, all the local gov curators could then sit down and thrash out a set of universal principles for us all to sign up to. This could be done by units independently, by creating one or more new regulatory bodies to replace the IFA or they could just say sod it, we're going to use the IFA and we are all forced to become RO's. The problem at the moment is the patchwork approach, you can work quite happily for one set of curators and meet their every peculiar whim - and because of that when you try to cross the border the next lot don't like your history or style and ban you. Thats whats needing a challenge, the lack of consistency.
As regards finding a contractor without access to their list - really all reference to IFA should be taken out, unless other examples of ways to find contractors are given, particularly as they later state that being an RO is irrelevant - you just have to pass their test. Actually what they're saying is that being an RO is pointless - they still don't trust you or the IFA as a body able to uphold/enforce standards and you must meet their own criteria/pass their test. Anyone know of an RO which has been blocked from working by not meeting a county mounties test?
I can see an argument for the financial check, obviously you don't want a sites publication screwed because a company goes bust. However its pointless, what happens if the client goes under a few months down the line - no archaeology unit is going to continue post-exc with no client left to pay or does everybody else get everything paid up front? While a planning condition won't be cleared until the archaeologys signed off, which does mean if a development site is sold on by a bankrupt client then the buyer is presumably assuming liability for publication etc, its no guarantee. I know of at least one major excavation site, sitting derelict a decade on with the publication in limbo, through no fault of the archaeological unit.
And are you really telling me that any unit anywhere can guarantee their financial health/future for more than a few months? I'd be surprised if theres any unit anywhere sitting on top of a big pile of cash in the bank rather than working using a maxed out overdraft and forever teetering on the brink.
Quote:neither maintains nor provides an approved list of recommended archaeological
contractors for distribution to clients in Cambridgeshire, referring them
instead to the list of Registered Organisations prepared by the Institute for
Archaeologists.
But you are maintaining a list if a unit has to provide info and be formally acknowledged as competent. What you're saying is its a secret and the client has to guess and try to find one on your list, perhaps by using the IFA. Why can't you just bloody give out the list of those you've approved? - because its probably illegal.... and so therefore the whole requirement to be approved is as well.
In short it needs a legal challenge to see if it can be upheld or not. If a legal challenge upheld this then fine, all the local gov curators could then sit down and thrash out a set of universal principles for us all to sign up to. This could be done by units independently, by creating one or more new regulatory bodies to replace the IFA or they could just say sod it, we're going to use the IFA and we are all forced to become RO's. The problem at the moment is the patchwork approach, you can work quite happily for one set of curators and meet their every peculiar whim - and because of that when you try to cross the border the next lot don't like your history or style and ban you. Thats whats needing a challenge, the lack of consistency.
As regards finding a contractor without access to their list - really all reference to IFA should be taken out, unless other examples of ways to find contractors are given, particularly as they later state that being an RO is irrelevant - you just have to pass their test. Actually what they're saying is that being an RO is pointless - they still don't trust you or the IFA as a body able to uphold/enforce standards and you must meet their own criteria/pass their test. Anyone know of an RO which has been blocked from working by not meeting a county mounties test?
I can see an argument for the financial check, obviously you don't want a sites publication screwed because a company goes bust. However its pointless, what happens if the client goes under a few months down the line - no archaeology unit is going to continue post-exc with no client left to pay or does everybody else get everything paid up front? While a planning condition won't be cleared until the archaeologys signed off, which does mean if a development site is sold on by a bankrupt client then the buyer is presumably assuming liability for publication etc, its no guarantee. I know of at least one major excavation site, sitting derelict a decade on with the publication in limbo, through no fault of the archaeological unit.
And are you really telling me that any unit anywhere can guarantee their financial health/future for more than a few months? I'd be surprised if theres any unit anywhere sitting on top of a big pile of cash in the bank rather than working using a maxed out overdraft and forever teetering on the brink.