26th August 2011, 01:05 PM
Tom has provided an excellent summary of the enforcement process. in my experience this relies on the development control archaeologist having a good relationship with the planners that they are advising. The planners need to have confidence in the archaeological curator and trust their decisions implicitly. This is not something that necessarily happens overnight - a relationship of trust has to be built up. In this way the planner can be confident that when the curator says that in a certain case they're really not happy with the standard of work that?s being undertaken they can act decisively and with confidence. A high curatorial staff turnover, short term contracts and cuts all put these vital relationships at risk. Cuts to curatorial services now may take a long time to undo if/when there is an economic upturn.
Mention is made of taking action through the IfA if the archaeological organisation is a ROA. I would think that similar action could also be taken against individual archaeologists working within that company if they are IfA members and in particular if the responsible post holder is a member of the institute? Of course what this does require is a IfA to have the balls to actually follow things through and take meaningful action. Council legal teams are mentioned as being something that could potentially stifle a curator taking action against an archaeological contractor, but my impression is in fact the opposite and that the legal advice that they can offer can be very useful in getting things sorted.
The dreaded issue of Council maintained contractor lists has been raised again and I don't want to comment on this in detail here. One area where a council could quite legitimately maintain a list (in my view) is for their own projects where they are the commissioning body - council own school, waste and highway schemes. Any contractor who has seriously breached professional standards could find themselves frozen out of some quite major projects.
Finally I would suggest that if anyone has serious and real issues about the professional standard of archaeological work being undertaken on a development site to discuss this (in confidence if necessary) with the local development control archaeologist as soon as possible. Things can often happen quickly on site and it is easier to resolve such problems when the work is being undertaken. Once all the on-site works have been completed it is often too late and the damage has been done. Yes we can talk about retrospective action (either enforcement by a planning officer or professionally through the institute) but surely our responsibility is to protect the archaeology, not to chastise after it?s been destroyed.
Mention is made of taking action through the IfA if the archaeological organisation is a ROA. I would think that similar action could also be taken against individual archaeologists working within that company if they are IfA members and in particular if the responsible post holder is a member of the institute? Of course what this does require is a IfA to have the balls to actually follow things through and take meaningful action. Council legal teams are mentioned as being something that could potentially stifle a curator taking action against an archaeological contractor, but my impression is in fact the opposite and that the legal advice that they can offer can be very useful in getting things sorted.
The dreaded issue of Council maintained contractor lists has been raised again and I don't want to comment on this in detail here. One area where a council could quite legitimately maintain a list (in my view) is for their own projects where they are the commissioning body - council own school, waste and highway schemes. Any contractor who has seriously breached professional standards could find themselves frozen out of some quite major projects.
Finally I would suggest that if anyone has serious and real issues about the professional standard of archaeological work being undertaken on a development site to discuss this (in confidence if necessary) with the local development control archaeologist as soon as possible. Things can often happen quickly on site and it is easier to resolve such problems when the work is being undertaken. Once all the on-site works have been completed it is often too late and the damage has been done. Yes we can talk about retrospective action (either enforcement by a planning officer or professionally through the institute) but surely our responsibility is to protect the archaeology, not to chastise after it?s been destroyed.