Nearly ?3m of taxpayers cash spent on Anglesey archaeological dig

[P Prentice]

I can't imagine that the sampling strategy, in this instance SMS, would have made any difference to the tendering process as I am pretty sure that tenderers would have quoted a price based on the understanding that was the technique to e used... Surely isn't that always the case. Tenderers are asked to quote based on specific tasks outlined by the curator.. I can't imagine how any tendering process could be comparable unless the tenderers weren't quoting like for like.

but back in the real world (UK) cant remember the last time i quoted against 'specific' tasks

[trowelfodder]

Sparky you say: " To disagree with you on only one point, archaeologist can (and should) advise their clients that the costs of excavation and subsequent post-excavation assessment, analysis, publications, may be prohibitively expensive. In fact, I would go as far as saying that this is best practice. In such events, it would be prudent of the archaeological adviser / consultant / manager to advise their client of likely costs and to suggest possible changes to the footprint, if possible"

The contractor was made aware of all of these costs from the start, as they employed a consultant who liased with archaeological planning and the archaeological unit.

It worries me the number of reponses from archaeologists who are questioning the value of the work undertaken and the standard of advice given! The contractors are not victims

There was no great scam, it was a massive site and the footprints for buildings were not issues - the whole area of the retail park was taken down to natural as there were roads and services to consider in addition to the buildings themselves.

And Unit.... the work was put out to tender, evaluation trenches were dug (read Drunkys post)

In Wales there is a trust system and it has come under a lot of criticism but your reasoning for why it is wrong are illinformed. Other units frequently work in Wales and there are a number of non trust welsh units and in the past two weeks I have been employed in wales for two units - neither of whom were trusts.

And as for the no VAT - that is also not strictly true - the Trusts undertake charity works such as public outreach for which they are not liable for VAT but any commercial work that is carried out is undertaken as a commercial venture and is liable to the same taxation as everyone else!

[Sparky]

Thanks for making that clear, Trowelfodder. I did say it was one or the other.
I have no problem with the significance of this work, and I'm sure it is value for money.

[Marcus Brody]

It worries me the number of reponses from archaeologists who are questioning the value of the work undertaken and the standard of advice given! The contractors are not victims

A quick skim back through the thread suggests that the vast amount of criticism of the contractor comes from a single contributor, who, so far as I'm aware, has seldom made a positive comment about anything, so I don't think that these can necessarily be taken as representative of the opinion of the wider archaeological community. As I said above, I'm not particularly comfortable with any organisation that acts as both curator and contractor, something that doesn't just apply to the Welsh trusts but also to council units who both advise the planning department and also undertake the fieldwork, or commercial contractors who also act as curators, but it wasn't my intention to suggest that the tendering process wasn't open or fair. My aim was simply to suggest to Unit the pension situation of the company involved was less of an issue than he appears to believe.

[Dirty Boy]

A reason why such a huge potential archaeology bill didn't lead to a change in the development site may be down to the fact that apparently the council has been mismanaged for years (according to the BBC)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-12763023

[Oxbeast]

The council was not the developer though. It was the Welsh Government, through the Welsh Development Agency (if thats what WDA stands for in the linked article).

[Dinosaur]

[FONT=Arial][SIZE=3]Seems to me that this is trying to do excavation without an evaluation. I would like someone to show me where in the manual its says that you can do that.

Actually on one of my jobs at the moment the client (who already got consent years ago) elected at the outset not to have any evaluation, prefering that the site be stripped (after standing-building recording and some earthwork survey), have a site meeting with the curator, and then biting the bullet and paying for the required mitigation of any 'unexpected' remains that turned up (there was already some pretty substantial 'known' archaeology there anyway). Seems to have worked out just fine, and definitely added to the sense of adventure in what would otherwise have been a pretty tedious month or two machine-watching :face-approve:

[Unitof1]

Trowelfodder
its hard to workout if they pay vat or not. Their accounts say

[B]Irrecoverable VAT is charged against the category of resources expended for which it was incurred.[/B]

But they lump ?taxation? with social security in the accounts. I don?t get the impression that they pay any VAT and I haven?t worked out what this Income and Corporation Taxes exemption is worth:

As a Charity, Gwynedd Archaeological Trust is exempt on income and gains falling within section 505 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 or section 256 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 to the extent that these are applied to its charitable objects. No tax charges have arisen in the Charity.

come across this

http://wales.gov.uk/publications/accessinfo/disclosurelogs/dlcul2010/2011/dlcul19/?lang=en

this is worth a laugh
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=4441

and this

http://www.holyhead.com/future/page6.html


which kinda suggests that the planning permission was made before any evaluation. I would have thought that for a site like this that there would have been somekinda environmental impact assesment. When was the site put out to tender?

In Wales there is a trust system and it has come under a lot of criticism but your reasoning for why it is wrong are illinformed. Other units frequently work in Wales and there are a number of non trust welsh units and in the past two weeks I have been employed in wales for two units - neither of whom were trusts.

I am amazed that commercial units can work in wales. The only thing that I can think is that the pensions make the trusts uncompetative. How much advantage/subsady do they want.


dino are you working in wales for a council unit? you say that the consent was given without any evaluation but the job is now based on the assesment of the curator post determination who seems to be using the site strip to do an evaluation. Did you have control of the site stripping. When you say it worked out fine- what type of profit are we talking?

[Drunky]

which kinda suggests that the planning permission was made before any evaluation

.

All the evaluation trenching and geophysics was carried out years before the 2006 dated quote in your Holy head link and stripping for access roads started in October 2005 and then the site was stopped to have a rethink based on what was found.

I think Birmingham went for the main job, when it was tendered for i don't know about the trench evaluations although i think Cambrain went for those (the 2nd of those stage at lest) because i was working for them at the time and they mention there maybe be work closer to home for me so i guess they must have submitted a tender.

I was hoping that this discussion would move towards the increasing negative attitude to heritage and environment in media stories,

But it seems to be you complaining about company's with pensions, and the evils of trusts

of course a local unit is more likely to get a jobs in there local area its not down to money grabbing conspiracy it probably down to them having local staff and resources so they don't have to pay for accommodation and travel, and whole range of other other thing which can make there quote cheaper. Strangely i've never worked of a Welsh based unit in London or Scotland

[Dinosaur]

dino are you working in wales for a council unit? you say that the consent was given without any evaluation but the job is now based on the assesment of the curator post determination who seems to be using the site strip to do an evaluation. Did you have control of the site stripping. When you say it worked out fine- what type of profit are we talking?

Not worked in Wales since 1990 and not worked for a council unit since 1997 if my memory serves me aright.

Long complicated history to the site, which to be fair I've not been party to all of. Despite the client having a fairly old consent (mineral) with an appallingly minimal archaeological tag line, new faces along the way have seen sense so a rather more sensible approach to the archaeology has been taken on all sides, with the client following recommendations from the curator as things go along - since all sides are being willing it all seems to work ok. However, with the usual amount of horse-trading etc I can't imagine any significant profit margins are happening on any side, all the budgets are pared to the bone with all the usual continual cost-trimming [and I can see the client's point, there's sweet f a profit on a ton of gravel at the moment, so they really don't want to spend more on archaeology than absolutely necessary] . Where have you got the idea that anyone is getting rich from British commercial archaeology? In any other industry margins of 30-40% would be considered barely adequate, whereas in archaeology at the moment just being in the black at the end of the year would be considered a triumph by anyone other than your good self - note all the units currently/in the recent past that appeared to have failed to surmount that particular hurdle....