27th November 2008, 07:47 PM
As usual I expect to be in a minority of one with the following statements.
Nationalisation not a hope - if it were on the cards it would be in the draft new Act.
This is not the time to suspend competition. The notion of companies not competing with each other ie forming a cartel is illegal and to my mind highly undesirable. The less efficient companies should be the ones to go first and I would suggest that these are the companies whose over heads are too high (and thus why they cant pay better).
What is needed at present is to ensure that competition is fair.
As for the notion that planning departments will stop putting archaeological conditions on planning permissions I think the reverse will happen. Conservation measures are usually increased at the time of recession.
The bringing forward of infra-structure projects will help the situation and I hope fairly quickly. Archaeological jobs are included in the cost benefit analysis for such projects.
I have been saying for a long time that I thought complusory pay and conditions increases were happening too quickly. In the current climate this gives a massive advantage to companies which do not adhere to the IFA/BAJR set rates.
Peter Wardle
Nationalisation not a hope - if it were on the cards it would be in the draft new Act.
This is not the time to suspend competition. The notion of companies not competing with each other ie forming a cartel is illegal and to my mind highly undesirable. The less efficient companies should be the ones to go first and I would suggest that these are the companies whose over heads are too high (and thus why they cant pay better).
What is needed at present is to ensure that competition is fair.
As for the notion that planning departments will stop putting archaeological conditions on planning permissions I think the reverse will happen. Conservation measures are usually increased at the time of recession.
The bringing forward of infra-structure projects will help the situation and I hope fairly quickly. Archaeological jobs are included in the cost benefit analysis for such projects.
I have been saying for a long time that I thought complusory pay and conditions increases were happening too quickly. In the current climate this gives a massive advantage to companies which do not adhere to the IFA/BAJR set rates.
Peter Wardle