Portable Antiquities Scheme: Millions of Pounds "Spaffed up the Wall"?

Over on a metal detecting forum near you, we can find an enlightening post on "PAS recording" by a metal detectorist from Carlisle, Cumbria calling themself "Richelli" (Sun Nov 22, 2020 6:17 pm):

So I have a few items that although won’t make the news, I would like to have recorded. Now some of the items come from areas I would rather not divulge with an exact location of long/lat because not much at all has come out of that area. I don’t mind giving the parish etc but I don’t like the idea of giving the exact location away. I know some will say you should, but I have spoke to some who won’t give that info to the local flow [sic]. I’m just wondering how many people give exact co ordinates and does the flo kick up a hissy[sic] for it you don’t.

MILLIONS of pounds have gone into trying to educate folk ("finders") like this about why we record artefacts. It's gone right over the head of this bloke, I doubt he's done very much reading up about the whys and wherefores of this hobby of his and how it relates to outside concerns. So he'd "like" to have something recorded at public expense (why, he does not say) but he's not going to share with the FLO the findspot beyond parish level. 

He asks the forum members to give him the answer on a plate: how many give the exact coordinates? Like all of them, he wants everything on a plate. Yet, it's easy to check, "Richelli", a mere mouse-click (I know, exhausting) away is the 2018 PAS annual report, the latest available. Table 6 tells us that "over 70% have at least an 8-figure NGR" and a six-figure NGR is the minimum accepted by the PAS (p. 4). But of course since the PAS report tells us (p. 4) that "4,028 individuals offered finds for recording", it means that some 19000 of the 27000 artefact hunters in England and Wales have not recorded anything at all with the PAS. That's your answer "Richelli".

On the other hand, when you think about it, where is a bus driver, or whatever "Richelli" does for a living, to get the information from the PAS output just "why" that findspot is important, and what can be done with it? From the "PAS Bumper Loose Finds Identified" book? Or their equally object-centred "50 best loose finds from..." series? Or from anything, anything at all, on their website? There's a lockdown going on in the UK, some 40 PAS staff members are sitting at home again, and this would be an ideal opportunity to sit down and knock out some online resources that actually inform the public that pays for them about archaeology. Sadly, nobody in PAS head office sees the opportunities this offers.