West Midlands Business Council Successes – January to July

With a number of colleagues breaking up today for a well deserved break, I wanted to update you on some of the practical successes we have gained from the beginning of the year to now.

While you have  considered the structural changes to our organisation, we also wanted to assure you that the day to day work of the West Midlands Business Council to provide added value to you and your members during this difficult time remains our concern.

So far, major successes that we have gained during 2009 have included:

·         National accredited workplace training programme for all engineering firms – partly subsidised – via the Train to Gain programme. We will work to ensure such services exist for all business sectors;

·         Police operations have continued this year against criminals involved in truck crime due to the launch of Midlands Truck Watch which we understand has had a very practical impact – Scottish police forces are also now part of this operation;

·         Agreement by the Environment Agency to bring forward work to deal with flood defences in the River Wye area;

·         Small scale transport improvements now in the West Midlands conurbation after calls first made at a City Region level and later led by Birmingham Chamber of Commerce;

·         Two fifths of Olympic contracts have gone to West Midlands regional firms further to our business support programme;

·         Islamic finance market developments in the region further to our work in this area;

·         Success in helping to ensure there is a soft loans bridge funding scheme for regional firms;

·         Success in helping to ensure the gap funding scheme for developers continues;

·         Successful in persuading House of Commons West Midlands Select Committee – all made of up Labour MPs – to back our proposals for short term action to mitigate the impact of the recession upon your members. We are now awaiting the Government response to this report.

From August to December, we are expecting a number of additional successes including:

·         £1 million campaign to help rural firms get online;

·         Agreement to roll out next generation broadband across the West Midlands conurbation and Telford and the Wrekin;

·         Business Crime Action Plan  - that will lead to very practical actions in tackling crime for all business sectors;

·         Construction Action Plan – that will lead to very practical action to help the hard hit construction sector;

·         Clothing Textiles Action Plan – that will lead to very practical action to help this critical sector.

We continue to pursue other issues – from regional planning – where a final decision on some of the key issues we have been lobbying on will be made by Ministers in Spring 2010 – to skills and transport – from help for tourism to real and practical action to help with the development of north Staffordshire and a host of other issues.

The changes we will be introducing will enhance our work in these and other areas – and we will continue our focus to ensure you and your members weather this difficult time – and prosper during the recovery.

West Midlands Business Council will be working throughout August but for those of you taking a well deserved break in August, may I wish you a happy holiday.