APPAG report met with deafening silence !!!

The long awaited All Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group (APPAG) report has
been met with a deafening silence from organisations responsible for archaeology.
The report, entitled 'The Current State of Archaeology in the United Kingdom,' was
published over a month ago. But neither the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), English Heritage (EH), the Institute of Field Archaeologists (IFA) nor even the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) has made an official comment about it. In a special article, The Digger lifts the lid on what APPAG has discovered, and reveals why some of the changes it recommends may be unpalatable to those in charge.

APPAG consists of 139 members of the Houses of Parliament who invited submissions and arranged select-committee type hearings to gather evidence for their wide-ranging report.

The report makes ten key recommendations for change in the way archaeology is organised. These include making Sites and Monuments Records and museums statutory, boosting the teaching of archaeology, the abolition of class consents so farmers can't plough up sites like Verulamium, and much more. This article will concentrate on the parts that have most impact on field archaeologists, but it's also worth reading the full report; even the most hackneyed heritage worker will learn from (and be shocked by) some of its findings.

The government plays a vital role in the organisation of archaeology, but the report
highlights how fragmented this is. Responsibility is split between DCMS, EH, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Department for Education and Skills, the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Transport and others. Not surprisingly, there is a 'lack of coordination' between these bodies; the report recommends the establishment of a DCMS-chaired committee 'at ministerial level' to bring them together.

Another key recommendation that diggers will cheer is that: 'There is an urgent need
to improve pay and conditions for employment in field archaeology so that they are commensurate with graduate entry level in allied professions, such as local authority planning officers, civil engineers and university lecturers.'

The IFA together with EH and the union Prospect should create a training structure
linked to career development, the report says. Employers not meeting training
standards would not be allowed to bid for developer funded work. 'In the longer term, the current fragmented commercial unit system which has resulted from competitive tendering should be replaced with a more stable regional, or more local framework of archaeological organisations.'

So how much would we get if this recommendation became law? The report
doesn't put a figure on it, but our research shows that graduate level entry in the professions mentioned is about £16,000-19,000 pa. That's not too bad, it beats the Petition for Change that only demands the European Decency Threshold figure of £14560 pa minimum for diggers. The report recognises that archaeologists are 'insecurely employed, poorly paid and generally itinerant.' We're also 'excluded from training ... [which] prohibits promotion to more secure senior posts.' There is 'no clear career development path'. Why is this? The report is explicit: 'This is in large part due to the effects of the system of competitive tendering' and because of 'a weak professional structure.'

Developer funding may be worth '£75 million per annum', but competitive tendering comes in for a real bashing. The report acknowledges that 'Competition on cost tends to drive down the quality of work, impair morale and career structure, and to remove costs ... such as training'. Competition for every job 'results in great inefficiencies and unnecessarily large overheads' for units because of the cost of preparing tenders that do not succeed. It is expensive, information is not readily local communities from archaeological activity. Even the group that should benefit from the current system perceives it as unfair, the report finds. 'A developer in one place may have no planning constraint, whereas an identical development next door which happens to affect an archaeological site may have a prohibitively expensive constraint.'

Many submissions to APPAG suggested a 'developer tax,' but although the report says this suggestion should be 'carefully considered', it does not feature in the recommendations. Instead the report should be given to replacing the present system of competitive tendering in developer-funded archaeological investigations by a local franchise system.' The report reveals little about how such a system would work except that 'Franchises should be offered after consultation with the relevant local and national authorities and would need to be reviewed at regular intervals.' Who would award the franchises? This 'will need to be discussed,' says the report.

The idea of franchises is not a new one, it was mooted in British Archaeology in 1996. The article 'Let us have franchises in archaeology' was penned by John Walker, now Chair of the Standing Conference of Archaeological Unit Managers and Director of the York Archaeological Trust. He argued that a regulator, 'Ofarch', would specify levels of performance, and the contractor who provided the best quality at a reasonable cost would win the franchise. Franchises could be awarded for each county, with the winner sub-contracting if necessary.

But would it work? A franchise system may simply reproduce all the problems of competitive tendering. What would stop a developer (or a consultant in his pay) acquiring a franchise and then sub-contracting out all the work on a tendered basis? What would stop larger units driving smaller ones to the wall? How would a unit that lost its franchise sustain itself and the post-excavation work it was committed to? Even the word 'franchise' has unfortunate associations. It conjures up dodgy burger bars and train companies ripping off passengers while running down the rail network. Even as a starting point for discussions about the best system to replace competitive tendering, the idea of franchises is flawed.

One key recommendation that will stun many observers is that the CBA, the IFA and other lobbying groups should merge, or at least clarify their functions. It seems reasonable enough that there should be 'a single voice to make the public case for archaeology,' and APPAG says that it 'stands ready to advise on this process.' But the CBA and the IFA are very different organisations, and although they have overlapping aims, it's hard to see how merger would work. The CBA gets 'core funding from the British Academy,' and both the CBA and the IFA 'are in receipt of major funding from EH.' No doubt the government would be licking its lips at the prospect of cutting back funding for the new streamlined CBA/IFA.

A phrase in the report generating more attention that it perhaps deserves is this one: 'watching briefs ... could be most appropriately serviced by local amateur/voluntary groups.' Some professionals fear that this means an army of unqualified volunteers will soon be appearing on the horizon to take work off us.

It is a sad symptom of the way the current system has divided us that we see amateur involvement as a threat. The best amateur societies already undertake watching briefs, often on sites that would otherwise go unmonitored. The first ever archaeologists were amateurs. Amateur involvement is an expression of the public's fascination with archaeology. We'd do better to nurture this enthusiasm rather than dismiss it; after all, public campaigning and support reprieved the Gloucester unit recently and saved the Newport ship.

So why the silence from official bodies?
The motive force behind APPAG, Lord Redesdale, has described the way archaeology is organised as 'a bit of a mess.' This is embarrassing for EH and DCMS, a minor government department with little interest in archaeology. As for the CBA and IFA, a merger may attract cuts in their government grants. The findings on pay and training underline how the IFA has failed those at the bottom of the profession. Some people will be wishing that this report would just go away.

The report has its flaws. Even though the sub-text is that UK heritage needs more money, the report shies away from recommending anything as drastic as an increase in general taxation, or even a developer tax, to pay for it. Franchises, too, are a non-starter. But overall, the report is a step forward. The people who make the laws have acknowledged the problems with low pay, training and career structure caused by competitive tendering. Now they've acknowledged it, maybe it's time we put pressure on them to do something about it too.

You can download a copy of the report from http://www.sal.org.uk/appag/, or send a £3 cheque payable to 'The Society of Antiquaries' at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BE.

The CBA is also hosting an email discussion list about the report at http://www.britarch.ac.uk/lists/APPAG/.