Crisis ? What Crisis? A Way forward?

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

A good office manager/secretary is very essential to keep things on track.

[Windbag]

:face-topic:

We had a good thing going there! Why all the talk of queen's speeches and office managers?

I'm interested by curator kid's comment about increasing the number of planning conditions during a recession- I assumed there would be pressure to do the opposite. Given the fall in the number of planning applications submitted, will curators' and planning officers' jobs also be under threat, or does it not work that way in local govt?

As for competitive tendering, it's a nice idea but the quality of tender documents you see from clients is extremely variable- sometimes it's really obvious they have cut and pasted from a previous document without any understanding of the project or the role of an archaeologist within it. Also, most companies and organisations will have a ceiling, above which formal tendering is required. Below that amount then managers just have to receive 3 quotes normally. There's certainly plenty of opportunity for developers to play one bidder off against another in order to lower their costs in these circumstances.

[Curator Kid]

quote:Originally posted by Windbag



I'm interested by curator kid's comment about increasing the number of planning conditions during a recession- I assumed there would be pressure to do the opposite. Given the fall in the number of planning applications submitted, will curators' and planning officers' jobs also be under threat, or does it not work that way in local govt?

Hi Windbag,

I'm not sure how it will work in a recession. The National and Local planning policies will still be in place, and advisors and monitors will still be required to support them. Applications will continue to be made. However, none of this has stopped some local authorities downgrading or getting rid of heritage advice services in the last few years of good times, so perhaps this will continue. ALGAO apparently think it's an process that will be continuing although seem to be declining to take a lead in addressing it.

I don't think increasing planning conditions is a viable solution to look at, and that's not what any of my previous posts meant. Curatorial comments are based on policy and archaeological grounds in relation to the development proposals, considerations which will be staying the same for the moment at least, recession or not. If the archaeologically sensitive or large-scale planning applications start drying up, I don't have a quota of conditions to meet which means I am able to apply them to lesser developments. I'll just have to watch the work tail off like the rest of us. At the moment, it seems to be holding up fairly well - but my County has always been subject to rather intense development pressures, so I presume there are differences elsewhere. You should also bear in mind that our comments are just advice to the LPA's - they don't have to take it, so monitoring to ensure recommended conditions are actually applied during this period will be important to keep up.

However - I am looking at a downturn in day-to-day work as an opportunity to finally perhaps get some quality time with the strategies and policies we work with. We're usually too busy for this and they've stagnated badly, so a slack period will offer the chance to maybe get some new and more rigourous County standards in place, or the designated archaeological priority areas revised and updated. This kind of work will stand the County in good stead out the other side of all this. Assuming we haven't got laid off in the meatime and are still here to put it all into practice that is... B)

[1man1desk]

Posted by the Invisible Man:

quote:Tenders should be truly like for like, quantified, confidential, and opened on the same day. As in construction, you inform all tenderers who the others were (alphabetically) and give a list of tenders submitted (numerically) and all is above board, in theory. I suppose what I am saying is more work for consultants and indeed curators. (I am neither)

I agree entirely, and that is what we do as consultants. The other thing we do is to score tenders on quality. Recently, we have been requiring that the price is given in a separate envelope. We open the quality submission first, and only open the price envelope if a certain quality mark is achieved. Otherwise, the tender is rejected without examining the price.

Posted by Windbag:

quote:As for competitive tendering, it's a nice idea but the quality of tender documents you see from clients is extremely variable- sometimes it's really obvious they have cut and pasted from a previous document without any understanding of the project or the role of an archaeologist within it.

That is why you need archaeological consultants to procure the archaeological work - if you don't, then you get someone doing the job who hasn't the foggiest. It is also why the use of a standard contract (such as the ICE Conditions of Contract for Archaeological Investigation) is advisable for jobs of any significant size.

Of course, if you are going to include quality criteria in your tender assessment process, then you have to have someone knowledgeable to do that too. Tenders assessed by a non-archaeologist will usually be done on price only, because they have no other basis to work from.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[drpeterwardle]

David said on another thread :-

"The road and other infrastructure work is (as far as I am aware from discussions) coming... though it will not be enough for all.... New year will see a radical restructing (job losses) and the way to consider your future is one where either you hang on in there"

I think that some thing that could be usefully done is for somebody IFA/SCAUM/BAJR (anybody) to try and quantify what the extent of the job losses will be and what the affect of infra-structure work will be. Big projects donot just happen over night.

This would at least allow people to make an informed decision about there future. I know, for example, how many evaluations I will be commissioning in the period Mar-May for example and about how much work this will involve. The infomation is not in the public domain yet and the tender competitions will not be run until the new year.

Peter Wardle

[kevin wooldridge]

The recent IFA publication 'Profiling the Profession 2007-08' seems to have come out at exactly the right time in that it has recorded the 'peak' to which the number of archaeological jobs had risen immediately prior to our current problems. Their estimate is circa 6900 'archaeologists' and 700+ 'support staff. At least from here the depths of the seemingly inevitable downturn can be gauged.

I wonder though, re Peter's suggestion, whether any person or body is capable of making useful estimates of the depth that this recession might reach. 'Pro. the Prof.' published as recently as August 2008 reports that those questioned regarding the future growth of archaeology as an industry were 'confident'. Although the report does qualify this by adding that the question was posed before the 'credit crunch', it might as well have said 'those questioned were confident that the industry would grow, until it stopped growing after which they would be equally confident it had stopped growing. It's hardly Cassandra stuff is it!!

That said however, I think David's earlier comment that job advertising for excavator posts on BAJR had all but dried up (and seems to have dried up pretty much for the latter quarter of this year) says everything that really needs to be said about the depths of the recession.

My own personal view is that 'short' and limited contract staff make up more than 25% of our profession and that sector has basically ceased to exist in the last 3 months or so. Without being overdramatic (and not wishing to degrade its original connotation), I would call that an archaeological holocaust.

I did note one statistic from 'Pro. the Prof' that I found interesting and I am sure could be used to gauge the extent of our problems. The average age of a working archaeologist in 2008 was 39 for boys and 36 for girls. I would interested to see that statistic reviewed in a years time as I am sure that the lack of opportunities for youthful 'predators' at the bottom of the archaeological pond is going to result in an alarmingly older set of fat ducks floating on its surface. I wonder if it is possible even to create a direct correlation between the average age of the archaeological workforce and the size of the workforce e.g does the average age rise by 1 year for every 10% of the work force wiped out?

If the average age rises to 50+ Peter it will probably be a toss up between you and I as to who gets to turn the lights off....}

[BAJR Host]

Click


"Gie's a Job.."
Prof. 'Dolly' Parton

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

"Crisis? What crisis? A way forward?"
How about another look at the original question, are we talking of solutions "in house" to the crisis that archaeology is in, i.e lets get our own house in order (which to me seems the short term solution) or are we talking of the long term solution, which basically means legislation in parliament in the form of the Heritage Bill which would have been in the new Queens speech, but due to the crises the whole economy is in the government have decided that there is more important things to sort out than heritage or archaeology.
With that being the case I don't think there is a lot any of us can do but try and weather the storm.
Even getting our own house in order is going to be difficult now without legislation when we look at how many units don't want any part of the IFA and any form of regulating over work ethics.

[Velociraptor]

After looking at the comments on this thread so far, my opinions are:

1. Next year, anyone who has lost a "permanent" archaeology job recently, will only be returning (if they are lucky) on a "temporary" contract.

2. The "tendering process" between units, given there might be less work available, will see units keep their prices DOWN, to get the jobs? (Low tenders in turn mean that digger wages will not rise and contracts will be "temporary" so as to lay-off diigers between jobs. Also, post-ex and report writing will have to be kept "minimal" - or should I more politely say, "more selective"?)

3. In theory, the IFA is the organisation to watch/guarantee standards BUT, in practice, since not all units are in the IFA, the "people" that will "really" be monitorring their local sites and reports (standards) will be the specific county Curators/Community Archaeologists/Planning Officers.
It is a case of the minimum standards that "they" will accept?

Finally, I apologise for using the phrase "minimum standards" but this is what will happen, as units try to stay within their tender budgets?

[BAJR Host]

Agreed that there are two levels to this....

Shrt term.... what do we do now!
medieum-long term... how do we turn into a real profession, with solid govt legislation to back it up... PLUS an organised ways of being grown up

"Gie's a Job.."
Prof. 'Dolly' Parton