31st January 2012, 12:32 PM
kevin wooldridge Wrote:In answer to Ken's questions I suspect the answer lies in the IfA achieving chartered status and therefore, by Privy Council recognition, becoming the default body setting professional standards....it's the long game!!
....and the wrong game. I’ll highlight two reasons:
1.The IfA is a membership organisation representing professional interests of its members. It is not a competent QA accreditation organisation supporting commerce and industry, such as UKAS. These are separate functions and the roles are not compatible. To illustrate this point, IfA’s ability to focus on member interests has been compromised by the demands of the ROs on issues such as salary benchmarking. This need not occur if it addressed concerns regarding standards in commercial practice by promoting the take up of corporate accreditation schemes that already exist. UKAS is universally recognised across all sector of industry and, as Martin point out, enjoys Government recognition in the public sector, which remains a major employer of archaeologists.
2. Any rational response to the impact of poor quality business management on the archaeology sector must recognise it doesn’t have time for a long game. Two large employers offering commercial archaeological services have posted financial results that show three consecutive years where spending exceeds income to a cumulative total value of between ?1,336, 855 and ?1,513,988. Much is made of the cost of operating an ISO9000 management system, but this demonstrates the far greater cost of failing to implement appropriate systems, which are particularly critical in a period of low growth. This has a drastic effect on the balance sheet of the respective companies, which makes for an uncertain future within the foreseeable economic climate. Similarly it hits the sector in terms of job losses and poor pay.
Charter status is a distraction and a vainity exercise in such circumstances. To seek to impose a form of trade restraint without detailing credible mechanisms by which competence and accreditation is determined simply amounts to protectionism. I look forward to a day when the IfA first response to a problem facing the profession is to make sure that itself does not part of the problem. It may then be better placed to look beyond the immediate issue to find solutions that have clear benefits for the profession and not simply serve perceived self interests.