Licences?

[deepdigger]

I wasnt saying that just because you mention road transport!
I was just using it as an analogy, just as you did!!

deep

[the invisible man]

Fair enough!

We owe the dead nothing but the truth.

[Tile man]

>>
Now, it the IFA was chartered, would it then be legal to require that work is directed/carried out by a chartered archaeologist (or RAO)?
>>

As I am not a lawyer, nor a member of the law society, (and I do not want to add to the ambiguous and contradictory legal opinions which get put up here!) I will not offer a legal opinion on this...

However the attaining of charterd status is a medium to long term aim which would require co-operation with govermentental bodies, and possible legislation ( also required in my opinion to strengthen the present system and to get past some fairly fundemental loopholes...)

I think there also needs to be some reflection on what exactly the role is of a proffessional association....

[the invisible man]

I could not agree more, Tile Man. There seems to be an expectation that a professional institution should be a combination of trade union, HSE, advertising agency, charity and mounted police force.

Well,..................

We owe the dead nothing but the truth.

[Tile man]

Thanks IM
I sometimes think that it's expected to be secret police or an organisation like SPECTRE...

Keeping to topic, I should also add that I think that the best group to decide what constitutes an accredited archaeologist, and what standards they are beholden to, are archaeologists working together in a professional association where we can all have a say; rather than, for instance, a governmental department deciding what constitutes acceptable archaeological practice.

[deepdigger]

No, not quite, but in other proffesions if a chartered member like an accountant was found to be doing something dodgy they could be struck off and not allowed to practice that proffesion again, this could be good!

deep

[Tile man]

As with other professions, if someone is found guilty of gross professional misconduct they can be expelled. Obviously this would work better as a sanction if only accredited/ charterd archaeologists were allowed to run archaeological projects, alongside monitering by properly funded and supported curatorial bodies

[1man1desk]

After some experience of the Irish situation, I have mixed thoughts about licenses.

The Irish system requires an individual to obtain a license for a particular piece of work. They have to apply anew each time. On many big schemes, where there may be more than one site affected, this can be a major obstacle to sensible management of a fieldwork programme.

I would favour some form of licensing or accreditation system that accredited the archaeologist with being competent. If necessary, the license could specify limits on their (e.g. running geophysical surveys but not excavations, or vice-versa, or curatorial work only). There would therefore be no need to obtain a new license for each project. Quality control on project design would still be available through the curators.

The route I would actually favour would be to do this through a chartering system, whereby work above a certain level of responsibility would only be available to 'chartered archaeologists', who could be struck-off for incompetent/dishonest work. I would apply this equally to field archaeologists, consultants and curators.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[Tile man]

I agree with you! Going down the charted/ accreditation route ( and I would include finds specialists wtc as well...) seems to me the most effecient way of using the structures which are in place already and avoid as much as possible the inevitable teething problems of a revolution which wouldn't neccessarily tackle the core coases of the problem in the first place....

[disheartened]

There have been changes here, it is now possible to apply for a single licence for a scheme, i.e. a road, or a gas pipeline, rather than for a site. This appears to be to facilitate the large amounts of bureaucracy involved in changing licences or getting new ones if sites turn up where they are not supposed to be, like in the middle of the brand new motorway which will just get us all to the traffic jams five minutes quicker! It is also possible to change directors on sites without endless hoop jumping. Anyway, haven't gotten to the bottom of this change yet, so I'm not quite sure how it works, but this new system has probably been in use for near enough to a year now.