28th October 2011, 06:07 PM
diggingthedirt Wrote:In the rush to polarise this debate into a ?for or against the IfA? question, it strikes me that we are missing the wood for the trees. The point is that curators are already influencing who gets to work in ?their? patch by advising applicants of contractors who have undertaken similar work:
Applicants, getting a whiff of life made easy, are likely to only seek quotes from the names provided by the curator. This sometimes works in our favour, sometimes not. As a barrier to entry it is opaque and open to bias. By ensuring that only RO?s can qualify for work, it is merely clarifying the selection process with recourse to an externally verifiable source. As a regulatory move it is not only fair, but also seen to be fair ? an essential prerequisite to a proper functioning competitive market.
We need to move much much further in this direction. Commercial archaeology?s problems are structural, and solutions therefore need to be found at that level.
In fairness I was answering a specific question from our host (Do curators see the RO as a kite mark rather than/instead of a company carrying out decent work in their patch?) - my answer remains the same - I would honestly see previous successfully completed work as a better indicator of future competence than RO status.
A company might be a RO, but archaeology is a wide-ranging topic, not all ROs will be able to undertake all types of work. I wouldn't expect an RO who specialises in historic buildings to necessarily have the expertise to undertake goearchaeological investigations on complex Pleistocene sequences (they may have that ability, but I might ask for that to be demonstrated - CV, example of past work (doesn't need to be from my 'patch')).
Where I work we do not maintain any kind of approved list - indeed we are very rarely asked to provide such a thing. In my experience most developers already have an archaeological contractor on-board (usually someone they have successfully used in the past). There are occasions when we are asked to provide a list of contractors, our response is that we don't have such a list - if pushed I will provide contact details for a range of archaeological organisations who have previously completed similar works and are familiar with the archaeology of the area. It is always made absolutely clear that these contact details are provided for information purposes only, that they should not be considered to be council approved or recommended in any way. I will also provide them with links to the IfA's website as a source for alternative contacts. However as I think others have pointed out the IfA?s list isn't necessarily the easiest to navigate to the uninitiated.
Some pieces of work that we might require can be exceptionally specialised and there is sometimes a very limited pool of archaeologists who can or will undertake such work. Sometimes you will get a develop whose 'usual' archaeological contractor has declined to tender for a piece of work because they don't have the capabilities to do a specialised piece of work - very difficult for a developer to know where to go next. Archaeological contractors themselves often want me to provide them with contact details for specialist contractors that they can sub-in to undertake a specific aspect of a project.
The intention is not to restrict trade or dictate who works in an area - it is simply to be helpful. Not all developers (especially inexperienced/householders) know what an archaeologist does, how to find one, or where to start looking. People expect me as the county archaeological officer to provide them with this advice - and are usually surprised to find that we caveat information so heavily - I'm not trying to be a bureacratic busy-body, but sometimes in these situations you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
I am not trying to restrict trade, I'm not acting in league with archaeological contractors and I'm not part of an IfA pact. All I want to do is ensure that the archaeological resource that I have a responsibility for is managed correctly; that developers and archaeological contractors are clear about their requirements and that work is undertaken to an acceptable professional standard; and that specialists and the general public get to hear about and enjoy the archaeology of the area.