The West Midlands economy is influenced by a complex range of related issues and driven by business, place and people; plus the need to provide a powerful voice for the region.
Economic Inclusion is one of five key challenges specific to the West Midlands Economic Strategy, “Connecting to Success”; the others being skills, enterprise, innovation and transport.
Economic inclusion is important to supporting a healthy and dynamic business base, improving the places for business and people to thrive and developing opportunities for people to create wealth and employment.
What we mean by economic inclusion
Economic Inclusion is the term used to describe policies, programmes and interventions targeted at groups of people or places which are not fully able to participate in economic life either as a consumer, producer or both. It is not just about being in employment – people can be excluded from other elements of the economy such as access to financial services; many people are in and out of employment on a regular basis.Our role in economic inclusion
As the leader for economic development, Advantage West Midlands is responsible for ensuring that the critical issue of future prosperity of the region is addressed by enabling access to economic opportunities for all. We aim to do this in two main ways: Firstly, our strategic leadership role; that is providing direction on economic inclusion and working with partners; and secondly the use of our resources.
For more information on our work on economic inclusion please read our economic inclusion policy.
Equality and Diversity
The Economic Inclusion element of the West Midlands Economic Strategy is supported by three principles, one of which is, “pursuing equality and reaping the benefits of diversity”.
Advantage West Midlands has developed a four year equality and diversity action plan that will help focus our work on this principle by creating economic opportunities for all.
In addition to the equality and diversity action plan we also are guided by our equality schemes on disability, gender and race as well as our equality and diversity policy and associated statement.
Our resources support a wide range of interventions to address these complex issues. In particular, we work through six Regeneration Zones and the West Midlands' Market towns to target funding.