Standard and guidance for archaeological advice by historic environment services

[Unitof1]

no some summary statement needs to be made to the authorising authority

and the local planning authority is minded to grant consent

[Unitof1]

I am still on the trail of which civil servants thought up wonderful the ifa need another standard gravy train constulation. Came across this just recent state the obvious waste of money by another Victorian invention wearers http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/index/heritage/grants.htm but cant find a way to tell if they are only giving money to close family friends and who they are or where they get their ideas from. Seems they went through a very important backscratching exercise for over two glorious years with the local planners (monies involved not your concern) whilst the credit crunch crunched and the work load dried up

http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/index/heritage/policy/jointworkingagreement.htm

which presumably sorted out everything that you ever wanted about standards

to ensure that planning authorities and Historic Scotland, work consistently and transparently

to an agreed standard in taking forward the management of the historic environment.

But I cant find any mention that it was discovered that the planners or historic scotland had standardless people pretending to be archaeologists amongst them planning authorities, or historic scooterland.

It does seemto me that we should all agree that these ?archaeologists? do need a standard so that it can be seen that they are not archaeologists and that they need their own university courses to be academically initiated. It appears they want to call themselves?advisors?.

So I chucked this into google -advisors standards

Got this first up -mustn?tlaugh

http://www.dur.ac.uk/eh.rsa/training.html

and this

http://www.dur.ac.uk/eh.rsa/standards.html

but still barking and up wrong tree. What I am looking for is an example of some standard for advice so that the poor protected from spending cuts assistant curators to the person still pretending that there was ever such a thing as a county archaeologist can plead that when they went to councillor fenland that they had not only correctly advised but was it was also standard and they may snigger that this standard was created by IfA and ALGAO, with funding from EnglishHeritage, Historic Scotland and Cadw using wheels within wheels .

Going back to the consulation (but only for second)

This standard and guidance applies to historic environment services (hereafter?advisors?) providing archaeological advice on the designated and undesignated built, buried, intertidal and submerged historic environment, on behalf of a local authority, national park, national heritage agency,charitable trust or other not-for-profit public body. Except where provisions in this document relate specifically to local advisor, archaeological advice by national organisations should comply with this guidance

What I don?tunderstand is- is this standard to be applied to all those working in EnglishHeritage, Historic Scotland and Cadw?

ps cant highlight and change font size in editor

[P Prentice]

you are indeed a blood hound unit

[Unitof1]

sometimes it just ozzeses

have just had a telephone call from the little old lady and have now added to my chat up lines that my advice is standardless and that the little old then did thank something called a god

[Martin Locock]

I'm confused, Unit: you think it's a good thing that you an ignore standards but a bad thing that there is an initiative to apply standards to address precisely the variability in practice you complain about.

But as to the deficeincy of the Standard in specfying how curatorial decisions should be taken, the Standard itself (not the Guidance) says:

" Archaeological advice on the investigation and stewardship of the historic environment
must aim to benefit the public both now and in the future, through the advancement of
understanding, sustainable management of the resource and the realisation of social,
environmental or economic benefits.

Advice must be clear, consistent, compliant, reasonable, timely, informed and impartial,
and proportionate to a reasoned and clearly-documented assessment of significance.
Advice must be provided by suitably qualified, skilled and competent practitioners and
based on an up-to-date and publicly-accessible information base maintained to nationallyagreed standard."

(Emphasis added)

In which case you should be responding to the consultation saying that this is an excellent development and it is a pity we have had to wait so long, rather than a waste of time and money.

[Wax]

So considering how long there have been advisors working in the historic environment sector what standards were they working to before this initiative? Unit of 1 might have a point, why has this consultation appeared now? ( ps I personally think we need local government archaeological advisors and the ones I know work to high professional standards)

[Unitof1]

[SIZE=3]I'm confused, Unit: you think it's a good thing that you an ignore standards but a bad thing that there is an initiative to apply standards to address precisely the variability in practice you complain about.

[/SIZE]

Don?t think that I have complaint about any variability in practice particularly of curators. Most of their activity is to keep archaeologists away from case officers or council planning committies. Tend to think that they should be put out of their misery and that would make the world a much better place. I think that all planning applications like environmental impact assessments provided by the developer should include an archaeological consideration provided by the developer open to objection from the public and other archaeologists ?who would be able to judge the clearly documented assessment of significance.

[SIZE=3]Archaeological advice on the investigation and stewardship of the historic environment must aim to benefit the public both now and in the future, through the advancement of understanding, sustainablemanagement of the resource and the realisation of social, environmental or economic benefits.

[/SIZE]


Why this English is better than my Nigerian. Is this really English or is it the language of the loophole? The above standaRD has got three ands and two commas and an or. I think that it says archaeological advice must aim to benefit the public. gosh but what is archaeological and what is advice

As far as I understand it the ?advisors? advise the authorising authority like Eh advise the government I dont remember the public being directly mentioned. But the authorities want advice on archaeology from archaeologists so we get

[SIZE=3]Advice [/SIZE][SIZE=3]must be clear, consistent, compliant, reasonable, timely, informed and impartial, and proportionate to a reasoned and clearly-documented assessment of significance. Advice must be provided by suitably qualified,skilled and competent practitioners[/SIZE]

Now competent practitioner means: archaeologist or advice giver or is that archaeological advice giver. Whats going on with this standard is that the advice givers are saying that archaeologists cannot advise the authorities, that it must be done through them and basically that all archaeologists are scum and to prove it they want to protect the public from our really bad ways of doing evaluations.

Martin does the world in crisis need them? No Vote for baby incubators

[BAJR]

Unit has indeed used his sniffer nose to find what was guessed at.

Words?

Now, do we agree that standards are required? Yes
Have we been working in a standardless world until now? Ah!
Is there any proof that there is a problem that needs this... Oh... Hands up please... what? Nobody?

So is this document dealing with a problem that does not exist? Quickly the Sky is falling. Said Chicken Licken. Or is it.

Solutions actually need problems. So it seems that there is currently no problem. So why this solution. Could I have the grant funding instead please to enhance BAJR?
:face-approve:

[kevin wooldridge]

Surely the 'bigger picture' is that boith IfA and ALGAO want a standard in place for when HERs become a statutory necessity. Imagine your local authority compliance officer being faced with the need to now administer or have access to an HER and wondering (as a non-archaeologist) about where to even start, but then feeling mightily relieved that IfA and ALGAO have devised this document...

I am reasonably optimistic that most curators 'in-place' pretty much run to these standards anyway, but of course there are places where the curatorial provision is less than adequate in terms of staffing or resources....

[BAJR]

FAir enough... and should this however contain elements where the people coming up with the standards happen to slip in the message that of course you not only have to adhere to this standard, (one that is happening already) but yu have to become an RO to actually be able to adhere to these standards, as if you are not, then we will exclude you from working in the first place...

This is hardly a document for the purpose of informing the local authority compliance officer about what a statutory HER is. ? IF that is the purpose... then should it not stick to that. rather than say, we will create the standard, and the standard involves using only us . hmmmmmmmm

I am fine... I would be ok, but I don't like being forced - I prefer to be convinced. Chicken Licken or the Big Bad Wolf?