25th May 2011, 07:01 PM
Dinosaur Wrote:Aren't archaeological contractors expected to work to IFA standards purely because curators expect them to say that they're going to in WSIs? :face-stir:
Yes, but the point is that the availability of the IFA standard acts as a shorthand means for the curator to ensure that the contractor will carry out the work to certain minima - many contractors will of course undertake work that exceeds these levels, but by asking that work is undertaken in accordance with IFA standards, curators should be able to ensure that any work is at least competent. It also allows organisations that are not part of the RAO scheme to compete for and win work, by agreeing to work to IFA guidelines. I know it's been discussed on here before, but an alternative would possibly be for Councils to require that work only be carried out by RAOs, which I don't think would be a popular move. I'm not sure whether this would be legal, but, as I said before, I don't think it would be a bad thing if there were also IFA guidelines for curators, as a means of measuring whether they meet certain basic standards in terms of things like access to information. It would also be a way to standardise curatorial advice, hopefully to reduce the situation of developers or contractors saying 'well, that's not the way they do things in Nextdoorshire, they just asked us to let them know if we spotted anything as the bulldozers moved in' - when tendering for work, you'd know that each HER would be following the same proceedure, which would be codified in the guidance document, and so would be transparent to the outside user.
You know Marcus. He once got lost in his own museum