Bar to self-employment.

[SW]

Approved Lists..1

This list business really does annoy me.

I've had a similar thing happen to me recentl. I have been trading for more than a year now as a sole trader and have had to jump through all of the usual loops concerning getting approval from curators, even though many of them have known my work for other units for the last 15 years. I have recently been contacted by a potential client in an area I have worked in from the start of my career, although never as a sole trader. The client has been told he can choose whoever he likes to conduct his watching brief as long as they are IFA registered! Is this legal?

The thing is one of the larger units I have worked for in the past have worked in this very area for more than ten years and are not IFA registered.

He has also been informed by the curator that the brief 'as yet not issued' and the WSI can be dealt with once the watching brief has been undertaken. This cannot be correct? The development is not happening for two weeks, pleanty of time for the curator to prepare a brief.

[Dinosaur]

Admittedly the company I work for is reasonably large and well-established, but I'm not aware that we've ever had any trouble working in areas where we're not on the approved lists, and we've never been on the IFA list either. If the client say's they're using us it's up to the county to come up with a reason why they can't and no one has yet! Although centred in one area of England we do odd jobs anywhere in Britain, so breaking into new counties isn't unusual, and it just hasn't ever been an issue. Can't help feeling someone's been picking on the little guy.....

All the counties I have direct dealings with have a standard Spec/Brief, usually a bit vague but useful in an emergency, that they can just dole-out, and we've got equally vague 'standard' WSIs that we can respond with when there's an urgent situation (like it's 5pm and someone has to be on site at 8am the following morning), but two weeks???!!! - that's an eternity.....

[RedEarth]

I've never really understood the purpose of the county lists, in fact they seem counter-productive. They are not allowed to be 'recommendations' but in order to get on one you typically have to demonstrate some compentancy, so they in effect become recommendations. Also, I have seen lists for two counties that clients have helpfully sent and to be honest if I were a developer, who had never dealt with such a thing, I would find them more unhelpful than helpful for three reason - firstly they include every organisation that has expressed an interest in working in the area and is based within a certain distance ('based' does in some cases mean that there is just an 'office', by which I mean a PO Box number or an employees house), and secondly because they are presumably only occassionally updated there are organisations listed that are, as far as I am aware, no longer operating, and thirdly, the vast majority of the organisations have done virtually no work in the area and are never likely to.

What's wrong with expecting the developer to find someone themselves (e.g. via the Yellow Pages) and then get assurances that it is someone reputable when they submit their project design? Perhaps IfA accrediation could be used in such circumstances, the way such schemes exist with say electricians, which means that their work doesn't have to be checked in as much detail by Building Regs? I assume that would come down to funding. Perhaps the IfA could help with that and it might encourage membership, I'm not sure how similar schemes in other areas work.

The worst thing is that some, frankly very poor contractors are on these lists and they don't therefore even need to bother to advertise elsewhere. They must, initially at least, be winning work off the back of being the list. As someone else pointed out, you don't even need to be on the list to work in an area anyway.

Are there any counties that don't have lists?

[Dinosaur]

At the risk of being contentious, there's also the issue of units working in areas where they have no experience or knowledge and are hence effectively working 'blind', which can't be good for the archaeology - I occasionally wonder on some jobs what the h*** I'm doing there, and equally am appalled by some of the work that's been done by units from other parts of the country on what deep down I regard as 'my' patch. Some of the resulting reports have been horrendously lacking in background knowledge, or in a couple of cases I can think of have exhibited a total lack of interest at all in the context of the site ('the site was in a field somewhere up north....'). I gather it's heresy to pine after the old county units who 'knew their patch' in these days of commercial archaeology, so I won't (....ok, maybe just a little bit, but strictly in private). It might be helpful if county lists at least highlighted local archaeological contractors in amongst all the optimists/sharks from elsewhere?

Am playing devil's advocate to some extent here, since the crew I work for are to some extent (ok, quite a lot) guilty of this, although normally cos we've been taken elsewhere by a client (it's all their fault, honest govner....).

[BAJR]

Interesting and sadly all too true words there. The end result is we all be come complicit, grabbing that extra breath of air before we all drown.

I was once (a lifetime ago) the DC archaeologist for Midlothian... asst. archaeologist to East Lothian (long story) ... and I was never keen on lists. I was happy to say... This company has worked successfully in this area in the past. But the danger is that you (the client) pick from the list... and find yourself with a real do-do and then can come back at teh council saying... you said they were ok. The get out clause is that you have a disclaimer. Similar to the disclaimer here: http://www.bajr.org/RACSmap/default.asp (see the footer disclaimer) but this system does allow for searching in the locale and for various 'sized' contractors.

Nothing is perfect, but then neither should it be cheapest shark wins

[RedEarth]

I think the worst case I saw was when a client very indiscretely emailed everyone on the conty list for a price (it must have been in excess of 40 organisations/individuals), so thanks to the curator for enabling that! The problem for the profession is that this of course allows them to find the very cheapest price - in fact, why not go the whole hog and set up a 'Compare' type website for archaeologists?! (I'm beginning to think some contractors are winning work on a sort of 'we guarentee to beat the nearest quote or we'll refund the difference' basis as it is, but that's another matter). Of course, in that case probably over half wouldn't have even replied for the reasons I mentioned before, they hardly ever do work in the area and probably knew it was a waste of time putting in a quote for such a small job.

I can't imagine such lists existing in other trades, perhaps they do. I would like to think that this could be an area that the IfA would be able to step in, providing a suitable list with curators pointing people in its direction since many curators already already flag up RAOs and/or insist on some sort of IfA or equivalent qualification. The IfA would need to sort out its directories first though as their online 'search for an RAO' facility is basically rubbish, especially when compared to BAJRs equivalent.

[Jack]

Information is power......and power corrupts.........ultimate power corrupts ultimately.

I would feel uncomfortable with the IFA controlling THE list of useable contractors

[RedEarth]

Indeed, although how many other bodies representing archaeologists are there that have access to such lists, apart from BAJR of course... has BAJR been corrupted by this power? Why would you be worried about the IfA having such a power, they can at least be held accountable by the members? If you think that an organisation is so poor they really shouldn't be on the curator's list is there anything you can do about it?

Information could in this case give the power to remove poor archaeological contractors from such lists.

Anyway, I wouldn't suggest that the IfA control the only list of contractors - how on earth could they? But they could provide one that curators could be encouraged to point people at.

[Dinosaur]

Why not let the CBA do it, they're meant to be a neutral party, or is that just getting silly? :p

[Dirty Boy]

Compare the archaeologist.com?

We even have a cuddly badger mascot who could front an advertising campaign!