Big Society and Aerodrome Heritage

Not sure if this has been covered before on AIX, but the government's Big Society is in the news again.

Question: can we use the Big Society to help save aerodrome sites and individual buildings? Does anyone know what the Big Society is? If so, please feel free to tell all.

Perhaps the 25% of trainee officers at Cranwell , due for the sack, will fly aircraft in combat zones as part of a charity. Big society to me seems to be replacing real jobs with voluntary work. OK if you can afford it. Would be good to see people who can helping to save our airfield heritage though. Discuss.

Mick

Does anyone know what the Big Society is? If so, please feel free to tell all.

Put simply central government, local government and the public sector has become bloated, inefficient and self serving. Furthermore their tendency to intrude in every aspect of life costs the taxpayer a fortune, stifles initiative and fosters a culture of neediness in society. - That is Big Government - Small Society.

In a Big Society government trusts the people (within reason) to manage their own affairs. When the handouts stop only genuinely worthwhile initiatives will flourish because it is they that will have to attract the support (and the money) of the population.
Big Governments create masses of "social" laws that stifle local and individual enterprise - In a Big Society the government will do away with unnecessary bureaucracy and encourage enterprise. - Everyones a winner!

As for the Big Society helping to preserve historic buildings the answer must be yes - if we can explain our case well enough and generate sufficient funds through our own industry The Big Society will be there to help us navigate through the expensive, self serving red tape nonsense and administrative bodies that created the inefficient and wasteful 'grant' culture we currently endure.

None of this has anything to do with Bankers Bonuses or the Credit Crunch - but (arguably) The acceptance for the principles of The Big Society is one of the few benefits to emerge from the ashes.

I doubt anyone will admit to agreeing with any of the above - but in a nutshell that's what it's all about.

WiganMick59;68242 wrote:

Big society to me seems to be replacing real jobs with voluntary work.

Spot On!

A bit OT, but -

QUESTION: What is the connection between the following: ANS. They are both quoted by current and past government with monotonous regularity.

Big society to me seems to be replacing real jobs with voluntary work.

It's the "real jobs" that it's all about surely. Big Governments are highly adept at "real" job creation - that's what Big Governments do best until they inevitably run out of money to pay for them.

Governments in the recent past have tried to take ever more interest in telling us how to run our lives and interfering with almost every aspect of everything.

Anything which gets rid of such high levels of government interference has to be good..

As always there will be winners and losers...many of the losers will be those recently employed to administer crackbrain schemes such as the overly zealous Criminal records checks for those involved in conact with youth. I had to be checked when I joined the local amateur radio club - why? Because we meet in the local scout hut - but not when there are any scouts there ......crazy.

Kill of crazy stuff like that...kill of the quangos.... .

Another manipulative government trend over the past 14 years was to increase the school leaving age (cuts down on the apparent unemployment figures)and the idea that everyone should go to university .

No matter what you may think we will always need a large number of those happy to do the unskilled work.... they neither need nor want a University education.

Lastly - cut down immigration to the bone ...no matter where they come from or the colour of their skin.This includes Aussies(is there anyone actually left in OZ?), Irish and everyone else)...only let in those we need.
Make sure those who come are prepared to integrate and abide by the customs as well as the laws of this country.

Without in the least trying to be narrow mindeed , the fact is that this country can hardly afford to look after the population it already has .

If the "Big Society" goes some way towards sorting out all the above then I am all for it.

Ladies and Gents...

The original poster Philip asks

PNK;68295 wrote:

Run local and central government like a business. Nothing goes ahead without criteria for success or failure. This was ther subject of a Yes Prime Mininster episode.

Like a lot of other things - a great idea but the chances of any government run scheme(national, county, local or even at parish level) ever being economically successful are remote.

I am sure many of the readers here have worked in one way or another for HM Government.

I am equally certain that those of us who had that dubious honour are only to well aware of the vast sums of money wasted within government departments....and I am not refering just to the major visible wastages like scrapping projects (TSR2 etc) but also to the accumulated minor wastages ( like little departments within departments rushing to spend up their budget before the financial year ends just to ensure they get the full allocation next year).

Until we we can instill in our civil and public servants (at all levels from Ministers to road sweepers) some sense of being genuinely economical ,there is little likelihood of any real success for the Big society ( or any other
political pipedream).

AiXAdmin;68265 wrote:

Put simply central government, local government and the public sector has become bloated, inefficient and self serving. Furthermore their tendency to intrude in every aspect of life costs the taxpayer a fortune, stifles initiative and fosters a culture of neediness in society. - That is Big Government - Small Society.

In a Big Society government trusts the people (within reason) to manage their own affairs. When the handouts stop only genuinely worthwhile initiatives will flourish because it is they that will have to attract the support (and the money) of the population.
Big Governments create masses of "social" laws that stifle local and individual enterprise - In a Big Society the government will do away with unnecessary bureaucracy and encourage enterprise. - Everyones a winner!

As for the Big Society helping to preserve historic buildings the answer must be yes - if we can explain our case well enough and generate sufficient funds through our own industry The Big Society will be there to help us navigate through the expensive, self serving red tape nonsense and administrative bodies that created the inefficient and wasteful 'grant' culture we currently endure.

None of this has anything to do with Bankers Bonuses or the Credit Crunch - but (arguably) The acceptance for the principles of The Big Society is one of the few benefits to emerge from the ashes.

I doubt anyone will admit to agreeing with any of the above - but in a nutshell that's what it's all about.

I broadly agree with all of it. In fact it's refreshing to hear someone else saying it!

Personally, I don't think Cameron has gone far enough to explain the actual ideas and philosophy behind it all. Also I remember when Labour tried to launch something similar years back - it was billed as the "Stakeholder Society". It quietly disappeared, almost without trace!