Northamptonshire Archaeology

[Unitof1]

So metromola staff have been made redundant or quit. I have looked this up on RESCUE but found no mention. This might be an exclusive NWA. By the way very nice to met you. But please beware that I am only here on some probation that you will not find in the aup. Have you any idea what sums of monies might be involved in the buying and why the council are not putting the entity known as northamtonshire archaeology out to auction?

[Land-Escapist]

I am curious about what happened to metro mola because everytime I try to visit their website, I just get bounced back to their normal mola page. And from there, I cannot find any information whatsoever on them. I work up in the North-West and thought they had an office up in this area but I have had a sniff around and everyone just shrugs their shoulders, suggesting they no longer exist?? Therefore they may have more success in taking over an already established company? Its worth keeping an eye on I guess

[Unitof1]

Ah the old shoulder shrug. Hello Land escapist. beware this subject is a rollercoaster. May I refer you to the 1985 Museum of London Act. It is one of the few Statutory Acts of parliament that mention the provision of archaeology as a service.....And then somehow there was something called metromola. Thing is, is what happened the same principles under which mola will shot up its own firemament ... . Any ideas Land-escapist

for your own reference here is the latest Act

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/8/contents

[vulpes]

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Corpora...harity.htm

[Unitof1]

Thanks wolfy

MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) has now become an independent charity

Its an interesting game how something that once was, becomes something that now is. Is it not. but whaT IS AN INDEPENDANT charity. How is that different to a charity for charities sake. Are these people desperate or what.

As far as I can work it out there was a statuate back in 1965 and then there was another one in 1986 and this is how it mentions archaeology and it has to be said that archaeology is something that is only very rearely mentioned in statutary law:

to wit the functions of the "board"

(2)The Board may, subject to the provisions of this Act, do all such things as they think necessary or expedient for those purposes and their functions under this Act.

(3)Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (2) above, for the purposes mentioned in subsection(1) above the Board may-”

(a)provide archaeological services and undertake archaeological investigations and research in connection with land in London, publish information concerning such investigations and research and promote the provision of such services and the undertaking of such investigations and research and the publishing of such information;

it seems to me that it is a function of the board to provide archaeological services. It does not seem to me that it is a function of the board to produce charities.

but this is when it gets gowwee because you can go through the whole act and find no mention that any enterty mentioned in the act is to be considered a "charity"

so my fellow time travellers how come the museum of London has registered "its" self as a shiRtty chaRity. By what act of parliament.?

And then there is the section on where the dosh should come from and there is no mention of "loans" which all the charity accouynts are littered with

Funding of Greater London archaeological service.


(1)The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England may make grants to the Board of Governors of the Museum of London for the purpose of assisting the Board in providing archaeological services and undertaking archaeological investigations and research in connection with land in London and publishing information concerning such investigations and research or in promoting the provision of such services or the undertaking of such investigations and research or the publishing of such information by another body or person

(2)A grant under this section may be made subject to such conditions as the Commission think fit to impose.

(3)In this section “Londonâ€Â includes all Greater London and the surrounding region.

(4)In section 14(1) of the M1Museum of London Act 1965 (general obligation on Board to apply moneys received by them otherwise than as mentioned in paragraphs (a) to © to defray general administrative expenses) after paragraph © there shall be inserted the words “or

(d)under section 4 of the Museum of London Act 1986.

which comes after the fianace bit which says

3 Funding of general expenses in respect of Museum.


(1)In section 15(3) of the M1Museum of London Act 1965 (payment of the expenses of the Corporation of the City of London in respect of the Museum as to one-third out of moneys provided by Parliament and one-third by the Greater London Council)”

(a)for the words "the Secretary of State out of moneys provided by Parliament, and the Greater London Council shall each pay to the Corporation a sum equal to one-third there shall be substituted the words " the Secretary of State shall pay to the corporation out of moneys provided by Parliament a sum equal to one-half; and

(b)for the words "the Corporation, the Secretary of State and the Greater London Council" there shall be substituted the words " the Corporation and the Secretary of State".

(2)Section 43(4) of the M2Local Government Act 1985 (which makes provision concerning the funding of expenses in respect of the Museum and is superseded by this section) shall not have effect.

Rescue if you have any gumption take who ever to court and sharf them. Mr Woodbridge have you any thoughts on all this charitiesing and who has the authority to do so?



I desperatly need help on this one folks

[NWA]

Regarding the sale of NA, I have been told that that a number of organisations showed interest in buying, but through some form of selective process MOLA emerged as the 'preferred bidder' - which implies that the sale must have been advertised in some form, perhaps on one of the local gov procurement websites (this is how the Greater Manchester archy advisory service was tendered). Unfortunately I haven't got a clue what sort of money is involved........but I'd like to find out!

I gather that metromola was set up to get around the Museum of London Act, which restricted MOLA's activities outside Greater London (I get the impression that MOLA had always felt somehow inferior to Oxford and Wessex because of this restriction). When MOLA became an independent charity, they were no longer bound by the Act - and had no further need for metromola. I think MOLA make people redundant here and there anyway (mainly diggers), so a few from metromola probably wouldn't be flagged up as unusual........and given the potential embarrassment of admitting to the failure of metromola I'm not surprised that they kept it quiet......

The legal basis for the 'Great Extraction' as it became known (MOLA - molar.....................groan......) was looked into by a number of parties, including Prospect, and I don't think a legal basis to challenge to the Museum getting rid of MOLA could be found. It's probably no surprise though that the then museum director (and possibly one of the main architects of the scheme), Jack Lohman, effed off to Canada shortly after........

I suspect that the purchase of NA is intended to tap into a new geographical market and give MOLA a dispensable local work force that they can pay much less than the rest of MOLA (even accounting for London wages)..........

[Unitof1]

Found this http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/en/co...0final.pdf

which say that for 2010-11 Northamptonshire Archaeology had a Turnover of 1,504000, Expenditure of(1,618000) and a loss of (114000)
for 2011-12 Turnover was 1,556000, Expenditure (1,507000) and a Surplus of 49000. It does not say what the assests of the archaeology unit are or what pensions schemes they are involved with. I dont see why Thewould need to buy into northamptionshire or what they would get for it. I would have thought that the pensions alone are a can of worms. Is the HER
included in the sale and what about the curators?

Does anybody know if the Greater London archaeological service ever existed as an entity?

[kevin wooldridge]

The Greater London Archaeology Service known as DGLA existed between 1983 and approx 1991. It then merged with the Department of Urban Archaeology and became MoLAS. Point of information...the archaeological departments of the MoL were carrying out work outside of London, and even outside of the UK, well before the creation of MoLA....

[Dinosaur]

As with most 'service' industries, the only real value of NA is its client/order book - if the people go elsewhere and the cllients follow then the business is valueless. Something similar but on a smaller scale happened in northern England a number of years back, a big unit took over a small outfit basically to get 1 contract - the smaller lot just went off and restarted under a new name and carried on as before with the same clients, big outfit are long gone...

[Unitof1]

The Greater London Archaeology Service known as DGLA

Is that a yes or a no

...the archaeological departments of the MoL. Not trying to be clever but these department names just seem to be made up and for ever changerable. Just how long did metromola exist for? it seems that it managed to get its self an RAO badge. As an RAO doesnt there have to be some mifa director anybody know who that was and whats become of them?