13th July 2014, 09:00 PM
kevin wooldridge Wrote:But stronger legislation is only likely to have an effect if it limits those allowed to carry out the trade of archaeologist. As there is at present no industry wide 'standard' for what constitutes archaeological proficiency, it seems likely that membership of the IfA and/or academic qualification will become the criteria that define your applicability to work in the profession. I don't believe you and many other folk really want to go down that route....
Too right I don't want to go down that route! Neither membership of the IfA nor having a degree are any guarantee of proficiency. What would help is the employers, whether archaeology contractors for the bulk of us or developers if they employ individuals directly being held more rigidly to account. I work for a company. They train and supervise me. If they're doing their job right then I'm doing mine right, regardless of my personal membership of any organisation or my educational history. Conversely I can see a situation where such restrictions were imposed, less people work in the business, archaeology companies can't fulfil their obligations to their contracts, the developers get pissed off and exercise their huge political might (construction being the single largest employment group in the UK unless I'm mistaken) and the planning rules get relaxed. So no, that is not the way to go.
I reserve the right to change my mind. It's called learning.