IFA RO only as approved contractors

[trowelfodder]

tmsarch thanks for the post, it was great to get a planning perspective on things

[BAJR]

I will second that. A great post that explained honestly and well, the thoughts - that I suspect is the general case.

The question is not so much is it a valid proposal, but whether it is necessary? It does add another stick to beat/further sign of competence. However it does seem to be the last stick. and/or one measure of a company - the other being has it been able to successfully carry out work before? I could not imagine that a council would be able to refuse permission to a client that brings in a non-RO unless there was a very good legal reason.

[P Prentice]

this is the age of back-covering - local authorities will be only too pleased to utilise any mechanism they can to show best practice. un-registered enterprises are well on the way to commercial obsolesence and they will be bulllied out by the big 5/6 operators who are hellbent on world domination

[Marcus Brody]

this is the age of back-covering - local authorities will be only too pleased to utilise any mechanism they can to show best practice.

It's also an age that's totally paranoid about legal action and the threat of being sued. While the Council archaeologist may wish to restrict work to RAOs, the legal department is likely to be more concerned about the possibility of such a move involving the Council in lawsuits over restraint of trade and restriction of the right in a free market for developers to appoint the contractor of their choice. When faced with a choice between enforcing a standard to make a point that the bulk of the Council probably doesn't care much about, and defending this in a potentially-costly court case, I'd expect most to choose the path of least resistance.

[P Prentice]

you think a developer will go to court over their choice of archaeological contractor? you crazy or what?

[Jack]

It's also an age that's totally paranoid about legal action and the threat of being sued. While the Council archaeologist may wish to restrict work to RAOs, the legal department is likely to be more concerned about the possibility of such a move involving the Council in lawsuits over restraint of trade and restriction of the right in a free market for developers to appoint the contractor of their choice. When faced with a choice between enforcing a standard to make a point that the bulk of the Council probably doesn't care much about, and defending this in a potentially-costly court case, I'd expect most to choose the path of least resistance.

Yep, I'd say this is more likely based on what friends working in councils in other departments have said.......its all about the money.

I like tmsarch's post...........it gives me hope for a future. Sounds like sense and balanced thinking prevailing in the world of LPA's. Which from experience, ignoring the rants here, professional rivalry (grin) and the occasional hiccup in the commercial world (thornborough henges and he who shall not be named) is more the norm than the exception.

[Jack]

you think a developer will go to court over their choice of archaeological contractor? you crazy or what?

I think Marcus is saying that the archaeological contractor would take the council to court.

It has happened before, over a very different issue.

The contractor (no details I am afraid) won.

[Marcus Brody]

you think a developer will go to court over their choice of archaeological contractor? you crazy or what?

They probably wouldn't even need to go to court, the threat of court action (either by the archaeological contractor or the developer) would probably be enough to make the Council reconsider whether they really REALLY REALLY trusted the IfA's opinion on the legality of the practice. It's all very well the IfA providing this opinion, but at the end of the day, it wouldn't be them applying it in the real world or having to defend it in court, and so it wouldn't be their necks on the line if it proves to be unsupportable.

[P Prentice]

local authorities go to court all the time - they have full time lawyers who advise them on policy matters, they dont need to trust the ifa - and costs dont come out of their personal pockets

[Marcus Brody]

local authorities go to court all the time - they have full time lawyers who advise them on policy matters, they dont need to trust the ifa - and costs dont come out of their personal pockets

Of course they do, but only when they're either pretty sure they can win, or where the Council considers the issue so significant that they feel they have no option but to take it to the courts. While the archaeologist or heritage team may feel that restricting fieldwork to RAOs is a major issue that's worth taking a stand over, it's doubtful that many other people in the Council will feel the same. To the vast majority of the Council, probably including the chief executive and head of legal services, such a question would probably be considered a piddling non-issue, and not something that would be worth spending time and money on to prepare a case and take it to court, with the possibility of losing and potentially being hit with the other side's legal costs and possibly compensation for loss of work incurred by the contractor. While the costs don't come out of the pocket of an individual, they do come out of the public purse, so the Councils do need to justify what they spend it on. I'm not saying that the IfA's legal opinion is right or wrong - as I said, it's not been tested in court - but I do think that the chances of a Council feeling strongly enough about the issue to be prepared to risk a test case are fairly minimal. And unless someone is prepared to do so, to test whether it's legal, it remains just an opinion that's open to challenge.