4th August 2008, 06:46 PM
This one is a can of worms.
I have received legal advice over maintaining a list in a couple of authorities now. As a development control archaeologist you can set a reasonable set of criteria and have these adopted by the relevant planning committees or management or oversight committee of your archaeological organisation. These criteria would have to be legal and acceptable within council policies. For example one borough I have covered requires a level of employment for companies on lists to be obtained from within that borough. I cannot remember how I managed to get around that one.
A county archaeologist cannot stop anyone doing work within their patch, but we can, of course, make it exceptionally difficult for you.
The legality of RAO status: the RAO scheme is an independently assessed quality control scheme. I can legally advise that developers use an RAO as it is an open quality control system that any archaeological organisation or individual is free to join if they can pass the basic standards. You can also lay it on with a trowel about why an organisation would not want to join up.
If a unit has previously undertaken work within my patch which has resulted in enforcement action being taken by any of the councils then I can also point this out to developers who propose to use them. The unofficial ?You are unlikely to get your condition discharged if you choose to use this bunch of muppets? is quite frequently used. I know colleagues in HB conservation do advise developers not to use particular architects due to their poor quality of work and also get away with it.
I have received legal advice over maintaining a list in a couple of authorities now. As a development control archaeologist you can set a reasonable set of criteria and have these adopted by the relevant planning committees or management or oversight committee of your archaeological organisation. These criteria would have to be legal and acceptable within council policies. For example one borough I have covered requires a level of employment for companies on lists to be obtained from within that borough. I cannot remember how I managed to get around that one.
A county archaeologist cannot stop anyone doing work within their patch, but we can, of course, make it exceptionally difficult for you.
The legality of RAO status: the RAO scheme is an independently assessed quality control scheme. I can legally advise that developers use an RAO as it is an open quality control system that any archaeological organisation or individual is free to join if they can pass the basic standards. You can also lay it on with a trowel about why an organisation would not want to join up.
If a unit has previously undertaken work within my patch which has resulted in enforcement action being taken by any of the councils then I can also point this out to developers who propose to use them. The unofficial ?You are unlikely to get your condition discharged if you choose to use this bunch of muppets? is quite frequently used. I know colleagues in HB conservation do advise developers not to use particular architects due to their poor quality of work and also get away with it.