Sub-standard reporting came up again at a LA liaison group yesterday. A good consultancy should be able to advise their client if the report being commissioned is unlikely to be accepted by the regulator --- and it's not just the small consultancies. A good regulator should be explicit in his or her minimum requirements by publishing them on their website --- but it's all there in the technical guidance. On a more positive note, I feel now for the first time that I am seeing 'damaged land brought back into beneficial use' on a useful scale. Cheers, Don.
Land & Air Quality Technical Officer
Fife Council, Kingdom Avenue KY7 5LY
Telephone: 03451 555 555 ext. 440459
Mobile/Working at Home: 07984 516122
-----Original Message-----
From: Contaminated Land Management Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David E Jackson
Sent: 07 August 2015 16:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Small developments on contaminated land
What is required is an environment where good consultants prosper and bad ones wilt on the vine, where clients are encouraged to see the value in better quality work and where poorer quality work results in higher, not lower costs.
Clients will always choose cheap over quality - just look at Lidl and Aldi - so how can an industry reverse the slow but inextricable decline in standards observed over the last twenty years of my working life. Clearly, Govt doesn't want to reverse the trend - economic growth trumps everything! - and clients don't want it (why should I pay more than 25p per litre for milk), so who will draw a line in the sand?
Unfortunately it is down to you, the consultants, to get your own house in order! Not by more guidance to prop open your doors, but by educating your own clients about the value of your work, even at the risk of giving up a contract or two, by expelling the poor practitioners from your various clubs, by naming and shaming the poor performers, by investing in your staff training and by realising that the fundamental importance in your job is not to make money at all costs, but to do something far more valuable, to actually safeguard public health and improving the environment for your children and grandchildren - all very hippi-dippi I know!
You, the consultants need to realise that what you do is important and deserves to be done to the very best of your ability, and yes you have the right to be paid properly for that work. And yes, I can see LA/EA regulators giving you all the support you need to do better work. It is in their interest too. If they hold the line, you can step up over the line and do something even better.
Assessing and cleaning up the contaminative legacy of our fore-fathers is not formality or a box to be begrudgingly tick, it is an opportunity to make a difference, not only for the betterment of your children, but for the betterment of mine!
Halleluiah brothers and sisters!
David
[Fife Council - Association for Public Service Excellence Council of the Year 2014] <http://www.fifedirect.org.uk/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.display&objectid=7E3F0D3B-9791-5B7B-37CFCA8574D6736A>
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