pay pay pay

[Antipesto]

a few years back a local-government operation won a small job (3 or 4 people trial trenching a carpark for a few days) with a tender which wouldn't even have hired a JCB for a day, and was about 1/10 of the other 2 tenders....errr....mysteriously nothing archaeological was found, apparently....only good thing was that they backfilled so incompetently that the carpark surface collapsed and they were forced to return and re-do it their own expense }

Where there are 3 or 4 tenders for a job, curators should be able to query/object to any that are significantly lower than the rest? :face-thinks:

Not an action soley to local govt units though, I'm sure we've all heard of or encountered other units doing this. Would/should curators be allowed to object to lower quotes? Maybe, but hten if they also have a local council unti then there is the potential for a conflict of interest.

What they can/could do is hold the 'offending' unit to their WSI, and then its up to that unit to justify why its then cost their client so much more than they said. If the client then holds the unit to the price they agree, it becomes awfully expensive to do a stupidly low tender surely?

[FJH]

Are County units are subsidized by Councils? Err do they pay commercial rents, IT equipment and service charges, HR provisions, advertising? IF so, are people who pay Council tax in County A subsidizing the Council unit to carry out work in and out of County? I guess they big grey area is Council A paying for work to be in Council B's backyard.

Do Council units get (occasionally) bailed out financially when the fail to break even (a financial loss in other words)?

I also thought that Government was keen to stop Councils directly competing against private companies for work?

[Gilraen]

Not an action soley to local govt units though, I'm sure we've all heard of or encountered other units doing this. Would/should curators be allowed to object to lower quotes? Maybe, but hten if they also have a local council unti then there is the potential for a conflict of interest.

What they can/could do is hold the 'offending' unit to their WSI, and then its up to that unit to justify why its then cost their client so much more than they said. If the client then holds the unit to the price they agree, it becomes awfully expensive to do a stupidly low tender surely?

Curators don't have anything to do with tenders or quotes - surely that is a matter between the unit and the developer? It should be up to the developer to highlight if a job has been under-quoted (ie, is ridiculously lower than the rest) as it should set alarm bells off that the unit hasn't understood the requirements of the job properly and it will cost them more in the long run if the unit doesn't do the work properly.

[kevin wooldridge]

Are County units are subsidized by Councils? Err do they pay commercial rents, IT equipment and service charges, HR provisions, advertising? IF so, are people who pay Council tax in County A subsidizing the Council unit to carry out work in and out of County? I guess they big grey area is Council A paying for work to be in Council B's backyard. Do Council units get (occasionally) bailed out financially when the fail to break even (a financial loss in other words)? I also thought that Government was keen to stop Councils directly competing against private companies for work?

I am pretty sure in these difficult financial times that very few non-essential local authority services are subsidised....but depending upon your point of view (and I can see Uo1 going off on one here), what defines an essential and non-essential service....I mean all of the following roles could be construed as part of a county unit. County Archaeologist wages - subsidy, luxury essential? Planning archaeologist wages - subsidy, luxury essential? HER archaeologist wages - subsidy, luxury essential? Finds Liaison Officer wages- subsidy, luxury essential? Wages of archaeologist attached to local museum - subsidy, luxury essential? Wages of community archaeologist - subsidy, luxury essential?

Legislation was enabled during the late 80s to allow local authorities to provide services outside of their local area. Whether you consider that to be subsidy is a matter of opinion as most of the instances I know of where this happens both local and 'intruder' tax payers get stung for the cost....As for bail outs. If a local authority undertakes work for which it has a contractual responsibility, it should of course honour that contract. I think the Daily Mail might describe that as a bail-out, others would say it is just a business transaction. Although Local Authorities can in principle overspend, it isn't legally possibly for them to make a 'loss'....

There is legislation which covers services for which local authorities are allowed to provide 'direct services' and the rules for contracting out those services and for regulating the tendering process between 'direct services' and contracted services. Local authorities are allowed to administer what I would describe as 'arms-length' operations where the enterprise is directly and wholly owned by the local authority, but provides in essence a contracted-out service. I know of at least 4 English local authority units who are now in effect 'arms-length' operations. There may be more....not sure of the situation in Wales and Scotland and NI....

[FJH]

Kevin,
I specifically meant Council field work units, not HER or planning staff. With the bailout I was alluding to units that carry out fieldwork and make a financial loss at the end of the year and get 'topped' up by the Council to keep them going (after completing there projects but failing to operate in a viable format). Was the change allowing Councils to work out of their area to provide services that cannot be filled by other operators? In that case it would appear that that would no longer be the case in archaeology (fieldwork).

[kevin wooldridge]

When many county field units were set up they encapsulated all of the roles I outlined. My point was where do you draw the line between so called 'subsidy' and a directly funded position?. My experience of UK archaeology including working for many LA units is that I cannot remember any occasion on which the field team element of a unit made a loss. It was the non-field sections of units, 'the overheads' where imaginative accounting was required to balance the books. And as I said previously your question is slightly off the point because legally a local authority cannot post a loss. What you describe as a subsidy or 'top-up' has to be within the allowable range of authority spending otherwise it cannot be legal. Whether that equates to fair competition is another matter. I have recently seen the same suggestion levelled at council run care homes enjoying 'subsidy' at the expense of private facilities. Personally I am not a great fan of the competition for the sake of competition idiocy so naturally my opinion is biased. I would like to pass you over to Unit of 1 who has a view much more in line with the tone of your question.....

[Wax]

Are there any real council field units left? Thats excluding the curatorial service, Museums HER and Community archaeologists.? I know of one museum based field unit in this neck of the woods but though they do do some commercial work it does not pay the bills and what they do do tend to be very specialised or local. I know there are various "Trusts" associated with historic towns and cities but how much are they actually funded by their local councils? Of course things might be different down south.

And if you look at Kevin's posts it is the IFA who set the low pay grades (they used the lower council grades as guidelines when they did not have to ). I do not think we can blame a long defunct system for the present low wages. Local authorities have for many years been very cost conscious and are unlikely to subsidising anything in the current economic climate.

[Dinosaur]

Tyne and Wear Museums' field unit seems to be pretty 'in-house' for instance? Don't know any details of their financial set-up but they certainly ain't arms-length from the rest of the museum service which is directly funded by the local councils. And the annual magazine put out by W. Yorsks, Arch Advsory Service and Archives seems, when you check the authorship, to be largely produced by ASWYAS staff which immediately casts doubts on the 'separateness' of that operation....

[vulpes]

Finds Liaison Officer wages- subsidy, luxury essential?

Kevin, the PAS is funded by DCMS and managed by the British Museum. It would have to be a very hard pressed local authority indeed to not provide a desk etc for a nationally funded FLO.

The other posts are unfortunately without any statutory basis and as you know some authorities e.g. Sandwell, Merseyside. Have decided to do away with some or all of them.

[P Prentice]

The trouble is that demand for staff inevitably varies from time to time, making a permanent team difficult to sustain. I think the "skills passport" approach to validating the good diggers is the best way to inform a labour market where expertise is recionised and rewarded.

it is curious that you are not advocating permanent employment as the best way forward. i would see the vagaries of demand as the most detrimental aspect of industry employment. i think half the problem is that most diggers do not get the chance to be anything other than a digger and will therefore settle for crap p&c until they come to their senses and get a proper job somewhere else