26th January 2006, 02:08 PM
ALGAO membership rules deliberately exclude a large number of Archaeological Development Control Officers across the country. Many of these would also be the people most qualified to offer an opinion on individual RAO status.
I'd suggest the following (or similar): When a unit submits for RAO status (regardless of whether they've had it before or not), the IFA should require submission of a list of all the projects that unit's done for the past (say) two years. They should then pick a couple of areas where the unit's worked the most, and write the local curator a letter that says something like "So-and-so unit has applied to become an RAO. As a monitoring official, are you satisfied that their recent work has been in accordance with such a status?" Maybe that would introduce some independant and longer term quality control practices into the system, and make sure standards were more uniformly and consistently upheld.
I'd suggest the following (or similar): When a unit submits for RAO status (regardless of whether they've had it before or not), the IFA should require submission of a list of all the projects that unit's done for the past (say) two years. They should then pick a couple of areas where the unit's worked the most, and write the local curator a letter that says something like "So-and-so unit has applied to become an RAO. As a monitoring official, are you satisfied that their recent work has been in accordance with such a status?" Maybe that would introduce some independant and longer term quality control practices into the system, and make sure standards were more uniformly and consistently upheld.