An opportunity for expansionist units

[Odinn]

Taking this point about relationship between curator and unit, the examples in my region (and I’m referring to three local authorities) are all broadly similar i.e. ‘cosy’ chats, co-habiting in the same building, examples of curators recommending services provided by the unit and a poor level of review by the curator of the unit’s written outputs. The curators are guilty of practising one or more of these infringements of best practice. Incidentally, it also doesn’t help when people in the curatorial sections are married, or in relationships with, staff who work in the field sections.

I do agree that all review should be rigorous and even-handed. It's just that I have seen set-ups where council units both benefited and were disadvantaged by the set-up and felt the need to raise that issue to in the interest of balance. It really comes down to the individuals involved. Where they are deficient in best practice then they should be held to account, whichever way they have erred.

In terms of funding, I can give first hand experience of my own county of how the unit is effectively subsidised by the council:

• Preferential rates of rent for accommodation i.e. below the private sector market value for the offices they occupy;
  
• Free IT support as part of the Council system;
  
• Paid Bank holidays;
  
• Paid sick leave;
  
• The unit could produce a deficit at the end of every year (and for a period of many years they more often than not did) and the Council would bail them out, just so long as the loss was within ‘acceptable limits’.
  

I know that the rental and IT points above are also provided to the local unit of an adjacent county, with possibly the bill for electricity and water picked up on the Council tab too.

I'm not sure about the rates for accommodation given to the council units I have worked for, but the accommodation itself was hardly much better than a portakabin in most cases so it had better have been cheap. In all cases it was buildings that the council had been unable to sell off and were not interested in maintaining so the units were given them. IT support was paid for and, as Kel wrote, the units generally got the cast-offs from other departments, unless a project actually stumped up the cash specifically for certain equipment and/or software. Paid bank holidays (or equivalent) are your legal right. If your unit is not giving you bank holidays or equivalent as paid leave then they are in breach of the law. They can tell you when to take the leave but they cannot take away your right to 28 days' annual leave per year (for full-time staff). Regarding sick leave, all of the private companies I have worked for have given paid sick leave. Paid sick leave is best practice and is not the sole prerogative of a council unit. Kel has addressed the issue of deficits. It's true that council units can often have deficits in successive years but that situation leads to uncomfortable talks with councillors and reviews of staffing needs. Council units do lay people off (I have been through that process several times) but it is a pain to do so they try to find ways not to have to, such as redeploying people to other parts of the council instead. This last point is probably your best point about advantages for council units, but the councils I worked for still took their cut from the unit at every possible stage, including charging for admin and IT support.

'Although the field sections are chiefly self-funding, the subsidies do make a difference to their charging rates, and therefore assist competitiveness against private companies who have to factor in all the usual overheads into their fees.

The charging rates I have seen from council units are generally on a par with those of private units, so those council units must be raking the cash in. I have spent a lot of time over the past few years organising sites and getting tenders for them. Charge-out rates on all sides are roughly even with smaller units generally charging less while larger units charge more (please note: broad generalisation at work here). Council units seem to be no cheaper than the equivalent private unit based on my experience.

If the Councils are prepared to bail out the unit every year owing to loss-makers, then the incentive to let go off unproductive staff is reduced.

The incentive to get rid of the feckless, idle, work-shy fops and mere incompetents around the unit is still there, because such people negatively affect morale and lead to poorer productivity on all fronts. Managers in council units want efficient digging and reporting machines just as much as managers in private units. It's not the incentive that is the problem. Rather it is the hoops that you have to jump through to get rid of people. That said, it does happen and, as I mentioned earlier, I have seen it happen several times.

I wasn’t suggesting that archaeology should not be part of local authority services. That would run counter to my own interests for a start, as most of the work that I do is generated by local authority policy and planning requirements. I was merely pointing out that most people aren’t that interested in what we do, despite the healthy figures that Time Team gets (whatever they are, but I’ll assume they’re healthy). Assuming for one moment that TT is an accurate barometer of the nation’s interest in archaeology that still leaves the rest of the nation that doesn’t watch it. Which is a lot of people.

TT's viewing figures are around the 1.5 to 2 million mark if the Vikings special (1.7 million viewers) is anything to judge by. Other heritage programmes that I can find data for pull in up to 5 million viewers. That is a fairly significant percentage of the population that can be bothered to sit down and watch a TV programme. I have a strong interest in archaeology but I generally do not watch such programmes unless trying to spot people I know. How many more people could we add to the interested bracket that do not watch the programmes but indulge their interest by visiting sites or museums instead? I agree that *most* people probably are fairly ambivalent towards archaeology, but there is a significant percentage that are interested.

The onus is on curators not to accept average products and make sure that WSI are of a higher quality than at present, and that the field unit in question are held to their commitment to fulfill those terms. Some of the meaningless generic WSI that curator’s accept from units, both county and private, do them little credit. If the curators are accepting poor product, then that is their fault and not the fault of the companies who produce them.

Agreed.

If companies are exploiting staff then the staff are free to go and work for someone else who will value them more highly. Ultimately the company will lose out from losing their skills and experience and will be less likely to function well without them. Voting with your feet is the most effective way of ensuring better working conditions all round. I’ve had to work evenings and weekends for the same reasons, both as a field archaeologist (this was less common) and as a consultant (more commonly). I accept that a certain amount of additional work is required beyond what you’re paid to do. This is what the economy is like these days. People increasingly have to work outside of their comfort zones. I’d love to do my 37.50 hours a week and stop working on the dot, but that’s just not a reality. I also accept that doing additional work is stretching me, and to an extent that is good, as it assists my professional development and stops me from developing too much of a comfort zone.

Staff are free to move around in the good times, but look at the employment situation now. Who is going to be easily able to move just because their current employer is a shit? I'm not sure what you mean by 'comfort zone'. It sounds like you are talking about work-life balance. If people are being forced to work more than their contracted hours then that is wrong unless they have signed up to a contract that says they should. Otherwise it is exploitation of the workers once more. As a consultant, my contract stipulated that I would have to put in the hours to get the job done as and when needed. I got paid a good wage on that understanding. As a member of a field unit my contract stated my working hours and mentioned nothing about putting in extra hours as needed to meet deadlines. The contractual understanding was that I did my hours and that was it, and I got paid appropriately. As it turned out, I put in a lot of extra hours because I cared about my job. None of those extra hours actually took me outside my comfort zone. They were all spent doing the usual jobs and all they did was exhaust me and put me into a situation where all I did with my life was eat, sleep and work. Where I did get out of my comfort zone was in dealing with new tasks, with which I was unfamiliar, and that could occur at any time. Trying new tasks stretched and developed me, but working longer hours did not.