Quote: As DF members will be aware, the IfA Jobs Information Service (JIS) is one of the two main jobsites where archaeologists look for job vacancies in the UK. The IfA JIS also lists heritage and related jobs including National Trust vacancies and some university courses and post-grad places. It is provided as a free membership benefit to IfA members, and as a paid service to non-members. The IfA JIS is one of the most visible faces of the IfA to the wider profession and aspirant archaeologists and we strongly believe that all archaeological jobs advertised in the IfA JIS should comply with IfA regulations -including meeting or exceeding IfA minima where relevant.



Concern has been raised by DF members that occasionally over the past few years archaeological jobs have been advertised on the IfA JIS that do not appear to meet even the IfA minima. DF members have queried certain adverts with the IfA and have achieved some successes with revisions of pay for some advertised posts. Recently the Diggers' Forum has asked the IfA council to look into this matter -both regarding specific examples we have provided, and also into the general principle behind advertising archaeological jobs that fail to meet IfA pay minima. We also made constructive suggestions about the format of the IfA JIS to make it more user friendly. We are currently awaiting a report from the IfA in response to our concerns.



We strongly believe that subscribers to the IfA JIS should be able to trust the IfA jobs service and that adverts should be pro-actively checked before publication -and where there is any uncertainty the advertising organisation should be contacted and queried for clarification. Whilst the recommendations of the IfA benchmarking project showed that the IfA pay minima need serious upwards revision they are an important safety net for the livelihoods of field archaeologists and should be respected by employers, albeit as a minima.


The DF will continue to actively monitor the IfA JIS, and other jobsites and individual employers' websites, for sub-minima jobs and will continue to challenge such advertising.
We would be grateful to any members who can provide any substantive evidence for contravention of IfA minima or other regulations.

Quote: Response from Kate Geary (IfA Training and Standards Manager) to Geoff Morley (IfA Council and Diggers? Forum ? IfA special interest group) in relation to comments emailed by the Diggers? Forum to its group membership (29/01/2010) regarding the IfA Jobs Information Service Bulletin (JIS).


Following our conversation re monitoring of JIS at the CWPA meeting last week, just a quick note to confirm the procedure:

The JIS Bulletin Compiler notifies me as early as possible if there are any adverts she has spotted which appear to pay below the relevant IfA minimum salary level so that I can contact the advertiser and request further information.

The completed JIS is sent to me for checking anyway before it is circulated and again, if I pick up any adverts which may cause problems, I contact the advertisers. Where posts appear to be offering salaries which fall below the relevant minima, I ask for clarification of a) the responsibility level of the post and b) where on the advertised scale the successful candidate is likely to be appointed. Although it sounds like it ought to be perfectly straightforward, there are grey areas around levels of responsibility (especially between PIfA and AIfA for Supervisor posts). There are also issues arising where organisations are obliged to advertise a particular scale which may start below the PIfA minimum. In these cases, we ask for an undertaking that successful candidates undertaking PIfA level responsibilities will be paid at or above the PIfA minimum. If we receive such an assurance, the post will be advertised with wording to that effect. As minimum salaries move away from the local government pay scale, this is likely to happen more often.

If archaeologists believe they are being paid below the minimum salary level for the level of responsibility/competence they are undertaking, they need to make a complaint against the RO using the established procedure.