Bar to self-employment.

[Sparky]

Vulpes,

Do you really believe that rhetoric? I saw no evidence in that article that draw conclusions of 'authority'. Its still an opinion, as stated earlier in the article. Confusing as it is, you really must stop believing everything you read.

[vulpes]

Oh I don't Sparky. In fact I choose to rarely believe anything you or Unit of 1 post or indeed much of the blether I find here :face-approve:

As for the IfA article, as I said - time will tell.

[Sparky]

Well Foxy, you do write a hell of a lot of it.

Give us a wave when you leave piped to the tune of blind faith...:face-stir:

[Unitof1]

Sparky its not vulpes fault. Hes a member because if you expect to get one of those pension thingys he has to go around in the council pretending he is something called a sorry forgotten. He believes it after a while. He also believes that all archaeological work requires a written scheme of works to be agreed by all parties because it is written over all manner of ifa toilet paper.

I have to say that I am a bit jealous that I will not be a member when they introduce the guidance?s and standards for not your standard geophysics but Archaeological geophysics survey and some other obscure made up concept, what was it, oh yes a phroensic archaeologist. They are going to have standards and they had better watch out I do like this bit.

Failure to comply with the Standards is unlikely to satisfy the requirements of
commissioning bodies and the Courts.

Looks like the ifa has been sanctioned by the courts.

Who wrote this utter rubbish. Do they do much court work.

[vulpes]

At least Unit of 1 understands me even if you don't This thread is now pretty off track as regards self employment, sorry!

[Unitof1]

possibly. What with council cuts and all that maybe your position could be carried out by a self-emloyed curator. Do you think that it is possible?

[BAJR]

Right.... this is a strict policy of getting this back on track....

a recap....

Bar to self-employment.

[INDENT] I have recently been notified that one of the local authority areas where I work (as a sole trader) has not put me on their contractor list pending some more info from me. Fair enough, and I will just have to accept the five month delay in telling me this, as I know they have been severely understaffed. The extra info they require from me is easily provided except for a request for a couple of reports produced by my company.

My beef is that I cannot produce reports under my new company name until I actually land some work, which I am unlikely to do if I'm not yet on the contractor lists! I now have good reason to believe that other local authorities where I would like to work have recently adopted similar policies, but presumably they have not yet seen fit to notify me that I am not on their contractor lists. Where does this leave me in this chicken & egg Catch22 situation? Put simply, without any requests to do tenders to land new work. And I thought it was just the recession starting to bite.

This situation is infuriating to me as I have worked in these areas for 6 years producing dozens of reports to a good standard. I understand why the LA's want to have some quality control over who is doing work in their patch, but surely that comes later when they actually monitor work and accept or reject reports? Perhaps their ability to monitor has been so curtailed by cutbacks that they see this as a simpler way to monitor, by just excluding the new boys, and sticking with the established units who never had this massive hurdle to clear.


Of course there are ways around this, all of which will make for some very lean times until I can actually get on the contractor lists.

What do BAJRites think? [/INDENT]

as a postscript

With the possibility of becoming a chartered organisation looming

Oh really - I see talk, but no loom? Which is a very different beast.

Chartered BAJRs... there... said it... oh... what do you mean it does not mean it will happen.. (I do agree with some form of requirement however)

if asked I would direct poeple to the RO list rather than the Yellow Pages as it does, in my view, have some validity in terms of quality assurance.

oh really - I thought you provide the quality assurance?

a curator would be on firm legal footing to require all planning related work to be carried out by IfA members or ROs.

Would you care to test whether you can legally require people to be the member of an organisation that currently has no legal standing other than it exists? BAJR exists... but I would suspect you would not include that list (as some curators do... ) because of course BAJR never maintains any accountability or checks on companies

[trainedchimp]

I've known a couple of people who got themselves onto 'tender lists' through threats of legals, and the only reliable explanation I've ever heard (from curator who'd faced down such threats) was that you have three options:

1) list people who have previously worked in the LPA area
2) direct people to the IfA (or other 3rd party) list
3) have no list at all
4) list people who have said that they want to work in the LPA area

what is unsustainable is having any form of recommendation that could be challenged- less because of any genuine fear of getting successfully sued, more for the sheer hassle involved. At the moment, I can't see anyone genuinely believing that the IfA list is any guarantee of good work, but as the foxy one points out, it is the only one that has a transparent(ish), published and peer-based review - not perfect, but better than anything else. The more people who joined or got involved, the more effect they'd be able to have, and the more meaningful RO status could become. They're in the Catch-22 of not enough members to have any more effect and widespread cynicism (not least about the influence of the big units and the usual suspects) preventing more people joining. But I digress.

[vulpes]

Thanks TC for explaining the options quite clearly, as well as the pitfalls.

This suggests that this list is a kitemark of quality and means that if the company is an RO then it says, no worries here

Anyone who suggests that any list can remove risk is a fool to themselves, as Unit of 1 is fond of saying - Caveat emptor. However to quote the IfA:

Archaeological projects are complex. Registered Organisations have demonstrated the requisite skills to

- provide informed and reliable advice
- execute schemes of work appropriate to the circumstances, minimising uncertainty, delay and cost
- subscribe to codes of professional conduct and practice

IfA’s Registered Organisation scheme is a unique quality assurance scheme. There is no equivalent in the historic environment. It is a ‘kite mark’ of commitment to professional standards and competence.

The rest is here: http://www.archaeologists.net/regulation/organisations

Either you believe the above, or you don't. I know where I stand. Vetting advertisers on a jobs website is hardly comparable in my view.

Curators also don't provide 'quality assurance' BAJR, surely you realise that, for the same reasons of liability that we don't, or shouldn't recommend specific contractors. Ensuring compliance with briefs and specs and planning conditions etc is not the same thing, but there is an overlap of course. If asked, I take option number 2. We used to do option 4 but the list swiftly becomes as long as your arm or BAJR's list.

Tender lists are not the same as LA contractor lists and depending who is maintaining one, potentially more defensible. Many private companies and consultants either maintain these lists or will only deal with ROs.

I have a lot of sympathy for the original poster and it seems to me a bit of a bad joke that an authority would choose to go down the list route, including specific criteria when they clearly don't have the resources to maintain it. This is grossly unfair, and I can only suggest taking the matter over their heads and raising a complaint with the Chief Exec or Head of Department if you make no headway. If you live in the area I would also raise it with your local councillor. No matter how understaffed a public body is, 5 months to respond to a simple enquiry is unacceptable.

[trainedchimp]

it is genuinely amazing how many people don't know the difference between contractor lists and tender lists, unfortunately, those who maintain them fall into that category too often...