29th May 2011, 06:17 PM
In principle the idea of standards for archaeological curators is one that I cannot have any reason to object to. I do however wonder how valuable they will actually be in real-life. There are already a number of existing IfA Standards & Guidance papers, but to what extent do they actually have any effect on the standard of archaeological work being undertaken in the field? Other than being referenced in specifications/WSIs/reports how often do field archaeologists actually use the standards and guidance? I also wonder how these Standards and Guidance will be enforced. The IFA appear to be toothless in this respect. Locally we have one unit that consistently produces sub-standard work (which whilst not a RAO is headed up by a MIfA), but the IfA seem to be reluctant to help in either discipline or working together to help improve standards. The work generated trying to sort out this company puts a lot of extra pressure on the local curators, whose resources are already stretched.