Who can carry out an archaeological field evaluation

An archaeological field evaluation has to be carried out by an organisation or individual whose competence the local planning authority's archaeological adviser will accept, working to a written scheme of investigation approved before any ground is broken. When developers ask about archaeological evaluation and who can do it, the practical answer is a Registered Organisation under the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists scheme, or a team led by an accredited member, appointed by you but working to a brief written by the curator. That relationship, client-appointed and curator-directed, is what makes archaeological procurement different from other surveys.

The role of the archaeological adviser's brief

Most local planning authorities take advice from a county archaeologist, a specialist within the authority, or an advisory service shared between councils. That adviser holds the Historic Environment Record and issues the brief that defines what the evaluation must cover.

The brief is not negotiable in the way a fee proposal is. It sets the objectives, the area to be evaluated, the technique or combination of techniques, the reporting requirements and the archive standard. Where trial trenching is specified, the brief usually sets a sample expressed as a percentage of the site area, with the trench positions to be agreed. The trial trenching strategy then works that sample into a layout that tests the anomalies the desk-based work identified.

Ask for the brief in writing before you go out to tender. And do it early, because advisers work across several councils and turnaround can run to weeks. Three contractors pricing against three different assumptions produces a spread of fees that tells you nothing.

What a registered organisation means

The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists operates a Registered Organisation scheme, under which practices are assessed against the Institute's standards and code of conduct and inspected periodically. Individual accreditation runs in parallel at practitioner, associate and member grades.

For a client, the distinction matters in three ways. A registered organisation has been assessed on quality systems rather than only on the experience of the person writing the tender. It is bound by a complaints and disciplinary process. And curators, who cannot inspect every contractor, use registration as a shorthand for competence when they approve the scheme of investigation.

That does not make registration a legal requirement. There is no licensing regime for archaeological fieldwork in England comparable to the licensing of ecologists working with protected species. But a curator can decline to approve a written scheme of investigation from a team whose competence has not been demonstrated, and that is a delay you pay for.

Where human remains are likely, a licence from the Ministry of Justice is required for exhumation, and scheduled monument consent is needed for any work affecting a scheduled monument. Both sit outside the planning permission and both take time.

Writing and approving the scheme of investigation

The written scheme of investigation is the contractor's method response to the curator's brief. It covers the aims, the methodology, the staffing and their experience, the recording system, the treatment of finds and environmental samples, health and safety, the post-excavation programme, and where the archive will be deposited.

The approval sequence usually runs like this:

1. The desk-based assessment identifies the archaeological potential and the constraints.
2. The curator issues a brief specifying the evaluation required.
3. Your appointed contractor prepares the written scheme of investigation.
4. The curator reviews it and advises the authority to approve it.
5. The authority confirms approval, discharging the relevant condition or satisfying the pre-determination requirement.
6. Fieldwork starts, with curator monitoring visits agreed in advance.

Where evaluation is required before determination rather than by condition, that whole sequence sits on the critical path of the application. National policy expects applicants to describe the significance of any heritage assets affected, including any archaeological interest, and where that cannot be done from existing records a field evaluation is the way it is established. An Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment done early is what tells you whether you are facing that programme risk.

Monitoring and post-excavation obligations

Fieldwork is the visible part and rarely the expensive part. What follows it is:

• Assessment of the stratigraphic record, finds and environmental samples, reported against the objectives in the scheme.
• Specialist analysis where the assessment shows it is warranted, covering pottery, animal bone, palaeoenvironmental material, radiocarbon dating and conservation.
• Publication at a level proportionate to the results, from a note in a county journal to a monograph.
• Deposition of the ordered archive with an accredited museum, with the museum's own fees and deposition standards.
• An entry on the national online index for archaeological investigations.

Curators condition these outcomes, and a permission is not properly discharged until they are met. On a scheme where the archaeology turns out to be more substantial than expected, the post-excavation cost can exceed the fieldwork several times over. Ask about the museum's deposition policy at tender stage: some are closed to new archive material, which creates a problem the contractor cannot solve alone.

Programme and cost implications

Evaluation is weather dependent and machine dependent, and it competes for the same excavators as everything else in spring. Waterlogged ground in midwinter makes trenching slow and the recording poor, and a curator can reasonably ask for work to be repeated where conditions prevented proper observation. Allow for mobilisation, the fieldwork window, a period for the curator to comment on the results, and then the decision on whether mitigation is needed.

Mitigation options run from preservation in situ through design changes, to a strip, map and record exercise, to full open area excavation. The choice is driven by significance rather than by cost, so the sequence to protect is: desk study, evaluation, then design. Fixing the layout before the evaluation results are in is how a foundation redesign becomes unavoidable.

Where a Archaeological Field Evaluation is likely, build it into the programme at the same point as ground investigation, because the two can often share a mobilisation and a set of site constraints.

Reviewing a contractor's proposal

A proposal worth accepting answers the brief point by point. Check for these before you compare prices.

1. Registration status of the organisation and the accreditation grade of the named project officer.
2. A staffing schedule with named individuals and their relevant period and site type experience.
3. Trench layout drawing referenced to the brief's sample requirement and to the geophysical or desk-based results.
4. A clear statement of what is included and excluded, particularly specialist analysis, radiocarbon dates and conservation.
5. A stated allowance or a defined mechanism for additional work if significant remains are found.
6. Archive deposition arrangements, including the receiving museum and its fees.
7. Insurance, including professional indemnity at a level matching the scheme.
8. The programme, with the curator monitoring visits and the reporting date identified.

A proposal that prices only the trenches, with everything after them as a provisional sum, is not the cheapest option. It is the one whose final cost you cannot predict.

For sign-off and review of drafted heritage documents by an appropriately qualified reviewer, the professional directory is the route PlanScope provides. Archaeological work is an area where councils expect a suitably qualified author and professional review is strongly advised. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Curators' briefs and validation requirements differ between authorities, so check the position with your local planning authority before relying on it.