WMCA Annual Business Plan 2022 – 2023

We work closely with local authorities and other partners in the region and beyond to secure new funding and Government and industry support, develop innovative policy solutions like Help to Own and diverse new initiatives as well as supporting local plans and master planning.

We provide the land, expertise, advice, brokering and financial support to turn sites and opportunities into new homes, jobs and communities.

The Directorate is also responsible for the operation and delivery of high quality and sustainable services at our head office as well as the strategic management of the wider WMCA estate portfolio.

In 2021 the Directorate oversaw the deployment of £100m+ to invest in housing, commercial and regeneration schemes in the region, heavily prioritising brownfield sites. Funding through our landmark bespoke Single Commissioning Framework secured an average 25% affordable housing and saw investment create genuine additionality, including in design quality, innovation, density and zero carbon. Some of these schemes were on the nation’s largest and most challenging brownfield sites which in some cases had been stalled and derelict for decades. We continued to build new and strengthen existing relationships as we launched the West Midlands’ first Public Land Taskforce, progressed our programme of industry-led taskforces on town centres, zero carbon, modular construction and commercial development, signed a strategic partnership with St Modwen and progressed innovative partnership working with regional housing associations. We strengthened relationships with local authorities through our work supporting local plans and master planning, hybrid working, new investment propositions, comprehensive business cases to Government and further project pipeline development. We also led the transformation of 16 Summer Lane to support hybrid working and our wider WMCA property and estate management goals.

We expect 2022 to bring more devolved funding, opportunities and support to the region so we can step up our land, property, investment and regeneration work. We’ll see partnerships, vehicles, collaboration and joint ventures emerging between WMCA and Homes England, housing associations and industry, and a deepening of our relationships with local authorities. Securing brownfield funding and demonstrating delivery on the ground will remain critical to drive private sector confidence and trust and deliver wider placemaking changes, which will continue to be important for economic recovery, inclusive growth and sustainable delivery. 2022 will see us launch new products supporting organisational priorities, hybrid working and key approved deliverables including low carbon and inclusive growth; a Public Land Charter, a new Investment Prospectus, a WMCA Acquisitions and Disposals Framework and a new Business Continuity Plan. We’ll be driving the low carbon agenda in all our work by supporting the delivery of Zero Carbon Homes milestones, reviewing our own estate and working to accelerate growth in the regional Advanced Methods in Construction industry.

Key facts and figures

Ed Cox

During 2021/22 the Inclusive Growth and Public Service Reform Directorate worked with partners from every sector across the region to find new ways of tackling some of the West Midlands’ most complex and deep-rooted challenges: from social, economic and health inequalities to making the shift to a zero carbon region by 2041. Covid shone the spotlight on some of the inequalities that exist in the West Midlands. As a directorate, we worked with partners to identify the solutions that will help us recover from its impacts, delivering on the priorities identified by our Citizen Panel and contained in our Community Recovery Plan.

• Our Thrive Into Work programme has helped 250 individuals with additional needs to gain, or retain, employment ; while an estimated 270,000 employees are experiencing enhanced workplace wellbeing through Thrive At Work.

• Our social prescribing pilot has encouraged walking and cycling in place of medical intervention and the Include Me has put the West Midlands on the map as an exemplar region for disability inclusiveness.

• The Homelessness Taskforce has worked to design out homelessness for a further 130 people in 2021/22, bringing the number accommodated through its Housing First programme to 500.

• We have supported creative new ideas from community groups across the region through our Community Recovery Innovation Challenge and launched a social economy growth strategy.

• And we have established the West Midlands as a net zero leader with a new Five Year Plan to cut carbon emissions, a national pathfinder for smart energy solutions, action plans for the Circular Economy and the Natural Environment, a Community Green Grants scheme and a pioneering Net Zero Neighbourhood programme to demonstrate new approaches to housing retrofit.

• In the coming year, as much of this work folds in with new strategy, public policy and research and intelligence functions, we will develop new programmes to create a fairer and greener West Midlands. This will include:

• Leading the region in the development of a Trailblazer Devolution Deal In response to the government’s Levelling Up White Paper.

• Enhancing the WMCA’s research and intelligence functions to put evidence-based policy-making and analysis at the heart of our work.

• Supporting the Young Combined Authority to make sure the voice of young people has an impact across the WMCA’s corporate plan.

• Continuing to embed our approaches to inclusive growth and social innovation across the organisation and driving forward implementation of the West Midlands’ Social Economy Growth Strategy.

• Implementing practical environmental and energy solutions to tackle the effects of climate change.

Essential to achieving our plans for 2022/23 is the recovery of our transport system, following the Covid-19 pandemic. The challenges over the last two years have been significant but we maintained services for our customers, responded to an ever-changing environment whilst carrying out our business-as-usual activity and forging ahead with our investment commitments.

Our investment in infrastructure to build and improve rail stations, extend the Metro and enhance our roads to make bus journeys more reliable and road users safer is keeping us busy and will support our customers, businesses, economic recovery, and preparations for the Commonwealth Games. For the first time, through the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) funding, we have the ability to deliver longer term, sustainable transport investment with an established programme of projects.

We are also about to embark on a huge programme of change for our bus services through the implementation of the Bus Services Improvement Plan (BSIP). This will include Bus Service reform and changes to registration powers, welcoming an all-electric bus city at Coventry and introducing hydrogen buses onto our network.

We cannot miss the opportunity that the pandemic has presented, which is why we will be putting cycling at the heart of a green recovery, and with our local authority partners, we will be improving the 500-mile Starley Network and introducing the West Midlands Cycle Hire Scheme.

During 2022/23, TfWM will continue to work with partners to ensure we deliver operational services, improvements, and investments across the region that meet the WMCA’s core objectives around social, environmental, and economic outcomes for our residents and businesses, and the many visitors we will see during the Commonwealth Games.

This is an exciting time for TfWM as we embark on a new and exciting agenda transforming our infrastructure and services as well as resetting our statutory transport plan which sets the framework to meet the challenge ahead and truly ensures transport provides access to journeys that help moves the region forward.

Key facts and figures

The Directorate of Economic Delivery, Skills and Communities seeks to ensure that every resident has the skills needed to find a good job and progress at work, and that businesses in the region have access to support that will accelerate productivity and deliver economic growth. And we are committed to working with local partners to ensure that all of our communities are able to benefit from this growth.

The team is committed to driving an inclusive regional economy through its policy leadership, commissioning and delivery of economic and skills programmes and championing opportunities for good growth. We will do this by working closely with local authorities, Local Enterprise Partnerships, universities, the West Midlands Growth Company, businesses and business representative groups, colleges, providers and a range of Government partners and agencies as diverse as UKRI, DWP, the British Business Bank and the British Film Institute.

In 2021/22, we invested over £150m of adult skills funding to ensure training provision across the region is both strategically aligned to economic need and targeted at those who need it most. We responded quickly to emerging labour market demand, investing in new provision aligned to key economic sectors in construction, manufacturing, digital and business and professional services – with a 20% increase in job outcomes across our offer. We were ahead of the game in developing and delivering HGV driver training in response to emerging sector pressures – providing a blueprint for subsequent national developments. We successfully delivered the first set of digital bootcamps tailored to in demand job roles. These delivered participation of 50% BME and 50% female participation – with two- thirds of participants finding work.

We have also led the development of the West Midlands Plan for Growth, which sets out the focus by which the region can catalyse above-forecast growth in significant and nascent clusters where the region has comparative advantage and the private sector has confidence to invest.

We have convened fortnightly Economic Impact Group meetings with a diverse range of business voices across the region, chaired by Mayor Andy Street. This has helped partners pinpoint issues, including energy costs and trade priorities, which we have then used to collectively lobby government and inform regional delivery.

We have led delivery of the West Midlands Innovation Programme and overseen the successful commissioning of the Made Smarter West Midlands Programme. And we have supported Create Central to deliver its cluster growth programme for the creative content industry, including stimulating Digbeth’s transformation as a centre for creative content production; signed a five year partnership deal with the BBC to boost activity in Birmingham and the wider region, and trialled the Apprenticeships Training Hub scheme.

In the coming year, we will continue to promote strong and inclusive economic growth across the region and ensure everyone has the opportunity to benefit by:

• Championing further devolution, through our trailblazer devolution agreement to extend local leadership of economic, skills and employment support interventions working through simpler and stronger relationships with local authorities and other partners through the Economic Growth Board.

• Leading a regional approach to new economic interventions, including the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, a new Innovation Accelerator, and the commitment to double public R&D investment in the region by 2024/5.

• Continuing to lead a regional approach to the development and delivery of an integrated employment and skills offer across every part of the region, closely aligned to current vacancies and to emerging sectors within our economy.

We will also lead on the WMCA’s work on health and communities. This will include:

• Working alongside the new Integrated Care Partnerships to develop programmes to tackle health inequalities at their source.

• Continuing to support mental health in the region through our Thrive programmes and the Mental Health Commission.

• Driving out homelessness in the region through programmes such as Housing First, led by the Homelessness Taskforce.

The Finance and Business Hub (FABH) was brought together under one team in April 2021 as part of the ongoing WMCA business transformation programme. The aim was to achieve excellence in our professional services, keeping the organisation safe, supporting its performance and enabling its transformation.

WMCA Professional services of Organisational Planning, Performance, Finance, HR, Commercial and Investments, Appraisal and Assurance, Procurement, Insurance and Risk were consolidated into our New Finance and Business Hub, creating a team of 111 professionals working across the entire organisation.

Over the past few years not all of our professional services have received the investment needed in our capacity and capability to deliver the huge diversity of activity our Organisation is responsible for. As a team, we have taken time to review, reshape and invest to ensure we can deliver the excellent and agile support everyone needs and to be fit for the future.

Our Team Vison :

Helping to deliver the future ambition of WMCA by growing a cohesive team of forward thinking, insightful, innovative, respected and high performing professionals who act as value adding enablers, underpinned by modern integrated systems that provide a single version of the truth, to enable delivery of outstanding services to our customers within a sound internal control framework.

We are already seeing benefits of this new joined up working within our team, sharing intel, knowledge, resources, best practice as well as delivering an improved integrated planning process for the 22/23 financial year linking activity, finances and resource planning to ensure we get best value from our funding. Our Single Assurance Framework and Risk Frameworks have also been reviewed and are being embedded organisation wide and we have developed a brand new ‘One source of the Truth’ performance monitoring framework, reporting and tool which will launch from April. We have also helped keep the WM economy afloat by delivering an average payment time on our invoices, from receipt to payment, of an average of 8 days.

We have a balanced budget for 22/23 and we can now focus on the financial sustainability strategy heading into 23/24 and we will continue to support everyone as we move into our new ways of Hybrid working. There is new funding, such as City Region Sustainable Transport fund and opportunities from the Levelling Up agenda, Trailblazer Devolution and UK Shared Prosperity funds. In addition, we continue with work on our transformation of systems and processes with the aim to free up and empower the organisation...we have loads to do!