19th December 2010, 12:39 PM
Having worked in IT for a council with its own archaeology unit, I can make the following observations on the setup there (may not be the same elsewhere, admittedly):
IT support in my council was never free for any department. There were internal recharging systems and a premium added to newly-purchased equipment that paid for ongoing support. Not that this really applied to the archaeologists. The joke was that no old PCs or printers ever left the Council in working condition, because Archaeology usually ended up with cast-offs from the rest of the council as that's all they could afford. For some reason, they preferred to spend their (limited) budgets on that weird archaeology stuff. Go figure.
Paid Bank Holidays and sick leave are standard for council staff. That's one of the reasons that archaeologists choose to stay with those units and not go elsewhere. The problem isn't good employment conditions in councils, it's the poor conditions elsewhere. "Criticisms" of council archaeology unit employment conditions, make them sound pretty attractive as employers. Councils tend to be heavily unionised and have managed to cling to decent terms and conditions. Not something that the commercial arena has managed for itself sadly.
Producing a deficit - This is almost necessary for a council department. Certainly if my department made a profit, then our budget was cut by that amount the following year on the grounds that we were clearly overcharging for our services. Council departments are (or were back then) expected to break even. If loss could be accounted for, then it would be tolerated to a certain level but ultimately, profit and loss were both equally bad.
Council units aren't going to operate the same way as commercial units because they aren't run the same way. I don't think either is inherently better or worse - they're just different.
IT support in my council was never free for any department. There were internal recharging systems and a premium added to newly-purchased equipment that paid for ongoing support. Not that this really applied to the archaeologists. The joke was that no old PCs or printers ever left the Council in working condition, because Archaeology usually ended up with cast-offs from the rest of the council as that's all they could afford. For some reason, they preferred to spend their (limited) budgets on that weird archaeology stuff. Go figure.
Paid Bank Holidays and sick leave are standard for council staff. That's one of the reasons that archaeologists choose to stay with those units and not go elsewhere. The problem isn't good employment conditions in councils, it's the poor conditions elsewhere. "Criticisms" of council archaeology unit employment conditions, make them sound pretty attractive as employers. Councils tend to be heavily unionised and have managed to cling to decent terms and conditions. Not something that the commercial arena has managed for itself sadly.
Producing a deficit - This is almost necessary for a council department. Certainly if my department made a profit, then our budget was cut by that amount the following year on the grounds that we were clearly overcharging for our services. Council departments are (or were back then) expected to break even. If loss could be accounted for, then it would be tolerated to a certain level but ultimately, profit and loss were both equally bad.
Council units aren't going to operate the same way as commercial units because they aren't run the same way. I don't think either is inherently better or worse - they're just different.