standards anyone?

[tom wilson]

In summary, Local Planning Archaeologists can recommend that (1) assessment work requested to support a planning application is insufficient to determine the significance of a heritage asset and any impact on it caused by the proposed development, or that (2) mitigation work is insufficient to discharge a planning condition. After that, it's over to the council planning department to enforce. For applications this may involve regecting it or requesting more work. For conditions on planning permission, this may involve requesting more work, or a two-stage process detailed in planning law, first notifying the wrongdoers to give them a final opportunity to comply, and then prosecuting them.

[Marcus Brody]

...then prosecuting them.

But how often does this ever happen? Very rarely, in my experience. This is not a criticism of the curators, as by the time it reaches that stage, the case will probably have been passed to the planning enforcement team. It's more a recognition of the fact that Councils often seem unwilling to exercise their full enforcement powers in relation to breaches of archaeological conditions. In any case, I think the level of fine involved is unlikely to be much of a deterrent - I'm not sure of whether this is still the case, or what the fine is in England, but until recently the maximum fine in Scotland for breach of planning consent was ?1000.

In addition, the sanctions available to the planning authority relate to the developer rather than the archaeological contracor. Refusal of planning consent, non-discharge of condition, prosecution and fine would all penalise the developer. In terms of steps that could be taken against an archaeological contractor who repeatedly undertook substandard work, or who the Council suspected of deliberately not finding archaeology, I'd imagine that the first step would be a complaint to the IFA, assuming that the company involved was an RAO. Where the company was not an RAO, I suppose the only sanction available would be to remove the company from any list of contractors, assuming that the Council held such a thing. As most contracting companies probably get the bulk of their work through this route, this could potentially be fairly effective. They could also refuse to accept the company as being suited to undertake commercial work, i.e., a developer phones up, says 'I've got a condition on my consent, I'm going to use John Wayne Archaeological Services to do the work', the Council could say 'Sorry, we don't consider that company to be acceptable, you'll have to get someone else'.

That said, I think the Council Archaeologist would need to have some fairly robust evidence of wrongdoing before their legal department would allow them to go down either of the latter two routes, as the contractor involved would be able to argue that such measures amounted to restraint of trade. I think that any such evidence would have to be fairly blatant, something that couldn't be passed off as a difference of professional opinion. Again, this is not a pop at curators, as again I think that their freedom to take such actions are likely to be constrained by what the Council lawyers will let them do.

[tom wilson]

[quote=Marcus Brody]But how often does this ever happen? Very rarely, in my experience.

Agreed; I was just summarising the process in principal. Regarding the issue of dealing with poor fieldwork, yes you're right again, it's the developer that would get penalised, but then the fieldworkers are just sub-contractors. Similarly, a roofing sub-contractor woudn't get chased by the council for putting on a poor roof. The developer is in charge, they get the blame and if they are unhappy with their sub-contractors they can refuse to pay, take court action etc.* Would you expect the council's planners to take action against a cowboy roofing contractor?

*or they can hire consultants in advance, to ensure that the work complies with the brief and industry standards...

[kevin wooldridge]

[quote=Marcus Brody]But how often does this ever happen? Very rarely, in my experience.

Agreed; I was just summarising the process in principal. Regarding the issue of dealing with poor fieldwork, yes you're right again, it's the developer that would get penalised, but then the fieldworkers are just sub-contractors. Similarly, a roofing sub-contractor woudn't get chased by the council for putting on a poor roof. The developer is in charge, they get the blame and if they are unhappy with their sub-contractors they can refuse to pay, take court action etc.* Would you expect the council's planners to take action against a cowboy roofing contractor?

Don't disagree Tom, but if the archaeological organisation involved is registered with the IFA then of course the curator is within their rights to make complaint through the IFA disciplinary process. Whether a 'conviction' under this scheme would make any difference to an individual's or organisation's ability to continue trading is open to question, but in an unregulated market, the IFA route is probably the only form of sanction....and as we all know that only applies to IFA members....

[tom wilson]

... and just to expand on that, if a curator suspects that work is being carried out that isn't compliant with the brief (and industry standards, which the brief usually obliges compliance with anyway) then they have no recourse to complain except by going to site and checking, asking to see the records, going over the report with a fine-toothed comb etc. until they find evidence to state that the work is not compliant; e.g. "What is this stratigraphy I can see in the baulk? Why is there all this pottery on the spoilheap? Why don't the features I photographed appear on the site plan?" etc. Then they might be in a position to recommend action by their planning colleagues or, if the archaeological sub-contractor is an RAO, complain to the IfA.

In other words, curators need to put in a lot of hard work that they don't have time for, because they (and planning guidance) are the only defense we have against declining standards.

[BAJR]

Just had a report sent back with issues on the organisation of teh data... I had to agree and set about reorganising it... I had no complaint, and was actually quite grateful that the curator took the time to read it and be kind enough (yes kind!! as they could have been within their rights just to throw it back) to suggest what was wrong. I had jumped about over different floors during a building survey and this was reflected in my report... I should have reorganised to floor by floor...

So Curators should be able to be respected and we (as commercials) should try to do our best from the start.

[Dinosaur]

Probably the most informative page I've ever seen on any thread on this site, thanks guys! :face-approve::face-approve:

....and fascinating who's avatars haven't appeared on this page, clearly too sensible :face-thinks:

[tmsarch]

Tom has provided an excellent summary of the enforcement process. in my experience this relies on the development control archaeologist having a good relationship with the planners that they are advising. The planners need to have confidence in the archaeological curator and trust their decisions implicitly. This is not something that necessarily happens overnight - a relationship of trust has to be built up. In this way the planner can be confident that when the curator says that in a certain case they're really not happy with the standard of work that?s being undertaken they can act decisively and with confidence. A high curatorial staff turnover, short term contracts and cuts all put these vital relationships at risk. Cuts to curatorial services now may take a long time to undo if/when there is an economic upturn.

Mention is made of taking action through the IfA if the archaeological organisation is a ROA. I would think that similar action could also be taken against individual archaeologists working within that company if they are IfA members and in particular if the responsible post holder is a member of the institute? Of course what this does require is a IfA to have the balls to actually follow things through and take meaningful action. Council legal teams are mentioned as being something that could potentially stifle a curator taking action against an archaeological contractor, but my impression is in fact the opposite and that the legal advice that they can offer can be very useful in getting things sorted.

The dreaded issue of Council maintained contractor lists has been raised again and I don't want to comment on this in detail here. One area where a council could quite legitimately maintain a list (in my view) is for their own projects where they are the commissioning body - council own school, waste and highway schemes. Any contractor who has seriously breached professional standards could find themselves frozen out of some quite major projects.

Finally I would suggest that if anyone has serious and real issues about the professional standard of archaeological work being undertaken on a development site to discuss this (in confidence if necessary) with the local development control archaeologist as soon as possible. Things can often happen quickly on site and it is easier to resolve such problems when the work is being undertaken. Once all the on-site works have been completed it is often too late and the damage has been done. Yes we can talk about retrospective action (either enforcement by a planning officer or professionally through the institute) but surely our responsibility is to protect the archaeology, not to chastise after it?s been destroyed.

[Winders]

To expand further on the issue of planning controls, an additional hurdle is that in non-unitary parts of England, by and large archaeological advice is provided by the county council. County council's, while they are the minerals and waste planning authorities, rarely handle other types of planning applications- most are dealt with by district and borough councils acting as local planning authorities. It's one thing for a county archaeologist to walk down the corridor and have a chat with their own enforcement officers regarding potential breaches of conditions on minerals or waste related planning applications, but as has been mentioned keeping in frequent contact with enforcement officers in all the local councils within their patch is considerably more difficult.

Enforcement is often the Cinderella of the planning system sadly - development control gets the workload, policy gets the big ideas, and specialist advisors get the interesting details to play with- so staff can be hard to attract and retain. Combine that with the challenge that enforcement not only requires a very good grasp of the planning system but also the knowledge and ability to interview people and collect evidence that is admissible in a court of law so your staff are harder to find than an average planner, and you can see why most enforcement officers are up to their eyeballs in workload.

Another hurdle that has to be handled is that many councils require that the planning committee votes on taking formal enforcement action, even if most planning decisions are delegated to officers usually. Even if there's a breach and there is ample evidence and it is likely that enforcement will be successful, officers will still need to convince the committee to outlay time and money on action....

[Sith]

The dreaded issue of Council maintained contractor lists has been raised again and I don't want to comment on this in detail here. One area where a council could quite legitimately maintain a list (in my view) is for their own projects where they are the commissioning body - council own school, waste and highway schemes. Any contractor who has seriously breached professional standards could find themselves frozen out of some quite major projects.

I understand that in order to avoid claims of favouritism many local authorities point developers towards the IfA register of AOs. I've also come accross one council who established a framework contract for archaeological works on their own develeopments a bit like the ones used for building refurbishment etc.