Local Enterprise Partnerships approved

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, announced the approval of twenty four local enterprise partnership proposals earlier today. Those approved included the following from the West Midlands:

• Birmingham & Solihull with E. Staffordshire, Lichfield &Tamworth
• Coventry & Warwickshire
• Stoke-on-Trent & Staffordshire
• The Marches

Those not approved at this stage included:

• The Black Country
• Worcestershire
• The West Midlands overarching proposal

Read more on the Birmingham Post website

A map of approved local enterprise partnerships is available from geocommons.com

What will spending cuts mean for the West Midlands?

Tomorrow sees the long awaited publication of the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review. It will end months of speculation by setting up where the cuts in government spending will fall and how deep they will be. But what might it all mean for the West Midlands?

To try and answer this question, the Observatory has carried out a number of pieces of work over the last few weeks. These are summarised in a new report published today.  Amongst its findings are that:

• An estimated £43 billion as spent on public services in the West Midlands in 2008-09 and the public sector employed nearly half a million people
• More than 80,000 public service jobs could be lost in the West Midlands by 2016
• Up to 300,000 private sector jobs are at risk due to spending cuts, although actual job losses will be lower than that
• The places which will be hardest hit in the short term are those with concentrations of public sector jobs, such as Birmingham, Bromsgrove, Dudley, Shrewsbury, Stafford, Wolverhampton and Worcester
• In the longer term, some of these places are likely to recover well, but others will continue to suffer because they have weaker economies. Places most vulnerable in the longer term include Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Stoke-on-Trent, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Wyre Forest (Kidderminster)

The report draws on information from a number of other reports published by the Observatory in recent weeks. These include a briefing paper on the local impact of public sector job cuts, a series of projections based on our Policy Assessment Model and a report identifying locations vulnerable to cuts in public sector spending.

New Fit for the Future articles published: what’s your vision of a low carbon future?

We’ve launched a new website as part of our Fit for the Future project. Earlier this year we asked:

In your view, what would a successful low carbon economy look like and how should the West Midlands transform its economy to meet that vision?

The new website presents five articles given in response, written by contributors working in manufacturing, local government, education, public and voluntary sectors.

We want the articles to stimulate a debate so, this year, we decided to present the articles in an online commentable form. Please do visit the website, have a read and add your comments to the articles.

Local impact of public sector job cuts featured on BBC Politics Show

In advance of the government’s spending review announcement on Wednesday 20 October, the BBC Politics Show West Midlands discussed the impact of public sector job losses in the West Midlands.

They interviewed Andy Phillips, Head of Skills Research at the Observatory, and featured our recent briefing paper which examines the local impact of public sector job cuts (pdf, 351kb).

The story is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer for the next six days.

Efficient use of water – a great opportunity

Once more the West Midlands Regional Observatory joins Blog Action Day. This is an annual event held every 15 October and unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year’s topic is water.

Our low carbon research has highlighted that the greatest opportunities for moving towards a low carbon economy are related to ‘decarbonising’ the current business processes. In other words, have more efficient processes in place. This can be achieved either through using resources more efficiently (for example water, electricity and raw materials) or by reducing the amount of waste produced.

Businesses in the West Midlands are already taking advantage of these opportunities. Here are a few examples of companies using water more efficiently.

We’re moving…

From 22nd October, our offices will be based at:

3 Priestley Wharf,
Holt Street,
Birmingham,
B7 4BN.

Our new telephone number will be 0121 503 3333.

New direct lines for staff are listed on our website.

The website, this blog and email addresses will remain unchanged.