Working with key partners Jobcentre Plus and the Learning and Skills Council, Advantage West Midlands has led a series of measures to try to reduce the impact of the global economic downturn in the region.
In the difficult economic climate, additional funding hass assisted both new entrepreneurs and existing businesses address two of the key challenges facing our region’s economy – underperformance in productivity and business start ups.
The priorities:
In addition to these immediate priorities, focus reamined on the long term challenges to restructure the regions economy so all of this work has taken place within the context of the West Midlands Economic Strategy Connecting to Success.
To co-ordinate this work, Regional Minister Ian Austin has created two new groups:
West Midlands Council of Economic Advisors
AWM Chairman Nick Paul is a key member of the West Midlands Council of Economic Advisors, a new forum to enable businesses to feed back their first-hand experiences of the economic crisis to decision-makers at regional level and in central government.
Economic advisors on the panel include business figureheads Chris Clifford, regional director of the CBI, and David Caro, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, regional MPs Ian Austin, Pat McFadden, Ian Pearson and Sion Simon.
West Midlands Taskforce
Advantage West Midlands has also set up The West Midlands Taskforce to ensure that public sector agencies and business support organisations are working together to address the impact of the crisis so that more effective support can be provided to the businesses, individuals and communities that are being affected.
Key areas of work for the Taskforce include workforce retention and rapid response to lay offs; job replacement and retraining following large scale redundancy; enhanced Business Support through Business Link and the Manufacturing Advisory Service and financial assistance for companies.
As part of its work, the Taskforce has launched a new website, www.supportwm.co.uk, which will act as a signpost to existing regional and national support. The site links to wide-ranging support with links to Business Link (Opens in new window), MAS WM (Opens in new window), ACAS (Opens in new window), Job Centre Plus (Opens in new window) and LSC (Opens in new window).
A number of additional measures have been introduced by Advantage West Midlands in response to the current economic downturn:
Transition Loan Fund
Advantage West Midlands has also committed £4 million to set up a Transition Loan Fund that is helping to address the problems businesses are already facing in obtaining credit through banks and other traditional routes.
The fund will be based on the successful loan rescue package established in the wake of the MG Rover collapse at Longbridge in 2005. The Advantage Transition Bridge Fund threw a lifeline to MG Rover’s supply chain companies, making loans totalling £5.4 million, safeguarding around 1400 jobs.
The Transition Loan Fund will offer viable businesses loans of between £50,000 and £250,000 to help bridge the gap for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) suffering short-term funding problems due to the current financial crisis.
Support for Small Businesses
Another £6.5 million – of which £2.25 million comes from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the rest from Advantage West Midlands – will be available next year for lending to small business via a variety of lenders. These include members of the Fair Finance Consortium – a group of West Midlands-based not-for-profit business lenders, and the Prince’s Trust.
In May 2008, £1 million was provided to Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) through the Advantage Small Loan Programme (ASLP) to address the early impact of the credit crunch.
In addition, there will be increased capital investment grant support for small and medium sized businesses throughout the region via the Selective Finance for Investment in England (SFIE) scheme.
The Agency is removing the scheme’s £100,000 grant limit for SMEs throughout the region, enabling companies to expand, modernise, boost productivity and create jobs. Nearly £10 million of SFIE was paid out to companies in 2007/08.
Infrastructure Funds
In September 2008 nearly £61 million of infrastructure funds for development were announced, comprising £48 million Gap Funding initiative, until 2010, to encourage commercial property developers into the market, and a £13 million Regional Infrastructure Funding programme that will act as a catalyst to lever additional funding into projects that might not otherwise be delivered in current market conditions.
Housing, Property and Economy Programme (HPE)
In October GVA Grimley were commissioned to undertake a mapping study of priority housing, infrastructural and economic policies. The findings were discussed in December 2008 leading to the Agency’s initial support activities on assisting with setting up growth point housing and infrastructural developments to add to existing wider economic initiatives in Stoke (NSRP), Black Country and Coventry where proposals and partnership structures are most advanced.
Decentralised Energy Programme
A Decentralised Energy Programme is being set up to bring forward pilot projects to trial new energy solutions (low carbon, renewable etc) helping with the development of priority sites, reducing business energy costs, and diversifying supply. Proposals under this also include a Rural Regeneration Zone business advice project ‘Rethink’ and the development of a public/private network of energy providers and site developers looking at opportunities for decentralised energy solutions.
Waste Programme
Following changes in legislation and the wide impact on business cost, the Agency has established a Waste Programme. The £5 million Waste Infrastructure & Recycling Development (WRAP) project was approved in November and will reduce barriers faced by businesses to recycling and support the development of waste infrastructure including recycling facilities.
Acquire Additional Strategic Landholdings
A number of key sites are being pursued or investigated across the region including purchasing additional land at Longbridge, Browns Lane in Coventry and Warwickshire Cricket Ground in Edgbaston. Other projects are under review in Stoke, Stafford and Birmingham.