IFA RO only as approved contractors

[Marcus Brody]

And I once met an archaeologist who wasn't in the IfA and who'd been digging for 15 years and and was pretty poor at field archaeology. His context sheets were not a pretty sight. So what did I do? Did I extrapolate from his ability and assume everyone who wasn't in the IfA was a terrible archaeologist and slag them all off.

Yes, but the difference between that individual and someone who's similarly lacking in field skills but who happens to be a member of the IfA is that in the brave new world of IfA-only fieldwork the latter would still be allowed to work, simply because they've paid for membership of a club and somehow managed to convince that club that they know what they're doing. No-one's said that all IfA members are useless (well, vulpes implied it, but I assume it was a joke), but similarly, no-one's disputed the assertion that there are some members who seem to have progressed to a membership grade that isn't matched by their level of competency. Yes, you can argue that someone who's been digging for 15 years should have had a better grasp of the basics, but they weren't laying claim to a degree of competency that they didn't possess. Conversely, if someone has attained a grade of MIfA, it's not unreasonable to expect them to have a certain basic level of competency - after all, isn't the point of the membership grades to indicate the skills supposedly attained by the individual?

Surely this indicates the flaw in using such a blunt instrument to determine who can and can't undertake work - simply being in the IfA doesn't mean that the person is capable of undertaking work to a particular level, and doesn't even guarantee that swift disciplinary action will follow substandard work, so really, the only result of requiring that any work is undertaken by IfA members or RAOs would be to force non-members to join if they want to work.