The funding of professional archaeological practice in England

Aitchison, Kenneth ORCID: 0000-0001-6594-1408 (2000) The funding of professional archaeological practice in England. Cultural Trends, 10 (39). pp. 1-32.

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Abstract

Professional archaeology in England is funded from a variety of sources. This chapter of Cultural Trends presents research tracing the route by which this has developed, examining and quantifying the sources of funding for professional archaeological practice in 2000. This is the first study to quantify archaeological funding from all sources in the last decade. Since 1990, governmental planning advice has switched the financial burden of recording archaeological remains from the state to private sources. This has allowed a great expansion of archaeological work to take place, through the requirements of the planning system, and funded from private sources. While central government funding has remained static (falling in real terms) over the last decade, private – developer – funding has become the norm. It is calculated that approximately £120 million was spent on professional archaeological practice in 2000, with over half of that sum coming from private sources. This chapter examines and quantifies all the sources of funding for professional archaeology, considering developer funding in detail. Undoubtedly the expansion of developer funding has brought great benefits to professional archaeology, not least in terms of the greater scale of work required, but it has also raised problems, allowing archaeological practice in 2000 to become a weakly regulated, market–led activity. Local government, as the regulator of the planning system, has a key role to play. As archaeological services in local government are not maintained on a statutory basis, they are open to budgetary pressures. The chapter concludes by examining the key issues relating to development and archaeology in the near future, and suggests an alternative approach to funding that might better suit developers, planners and archaeologists alike. © 2000, Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Item Type:	Article
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Histories, Languages and Cultures
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	04 Dec 2023 08:20
Last Modified:	04 Dec 2023 08:20
DOI:	10.1080/09548960009365127
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3176588