Overview

This Standard is about working effectively in the cultural heritage sector. It includes clarifying your responsibilities and setting targets, working in line with heritage principles, philosophies, ethics and guidelines, developing approaches to deal with new situations, liaising with other people and evaluating your performance.

This standard is for anybody who works in the cultural heritage sector.

Performance criteria

You must be able to:

  1. ensure you have clarity about your role; what you need to do, by when and to what standard
  2. identify your areas of responsibility, clarifying where you can make decisions and when to seek advice from others
  3. take responsibility for the care and conservation of cultural heritage within your influence
  4. agree targets with appropriate people against which to assess your performance and evaluate your work
  5. undertake your work with respect for the cultural, historic and spiritual context of objects and structures in line with the heritage sector’s principles, philosophies, codes of ethics, guidelines and practice
  6. deliver your work on time, to budget, to the standards expected and in line with legislation
  7. keep line managers and relevant colleagues informed of your progress, highlighting any successes or areas of concern
  8. monitor and assess the results of your work and work processes on a regular basis
  9. deal with other people in an ethical and professional manner, reflecting on your interactions with them and gaining their feedback about your work and the way in which you conduct it
  10. exchange knowledge and skills with others you work with and ask for help when you need it
  11. interpret problems and new situations and find solutions to achieve optimum conservation outputs

Knowledge and understanding

You need to know and understand:                       

  1. the importance of taking responsibility for your work, self evaluation and reflection
  2. reporting lines, procedures and objectives including what you are responsible for and what is outside your remit
  3. the roles and responsibilities of other people, departments and the organisation
  4. how to set targets and assess and evaluate your performance and work outputs including analysing others' perspectives and testing out different approaches
  5. the other people that you may work with including the public, employers, clients and colleagues and how and when to interact with them and gain feedback from them
  6. how to complete the organisation's evaluation and appraisal procedures
  7. the ethical basis of conservation and the responsibilities of conservation professionals to cultural heritage and to wider society
  8. the wider heritage contexts in which conservation is carried out and how conservation practices and their heritage context can affect one another
  9. the ethical principles of care and conservation in general and the specific philosophies and guidelines relevant to your practice including national and/or international principles and those required by your professional body
  10. how to identify the cultural, historic and spiritual context of objects and structures
  11. legal requirements and obligations, including those relating to health and safety, employment and contract law and any international agreements
  12. the limits of your own understanding, abilities and responsibilities, and how and when to ask for help
  13. how to seek and apply relevant information, valid methods and approaches for novel situations and problems