West Midlands Combined Authority – Culture and Devolution

Culture Devolution:

The West Midlands Trailblazer Deeper Devolution Deal agrees a Regional Culture and Heritage Framework to support greater funding alignment, joint investment and strategic collaboration between cultural arm’s length bodies and WMCA, development of a Social Economy Accelerator Programme and Growth Fund and work by the West Midlands Growth Company to become a Local Visitor Economy Partnership. WMCA will work with DCMS and ALBs to establish a terms of reference for the framework and agree a forward plan, before finalising the framework in 2024. This work could include increased alignment around funding, and programmes including Commonwealth Games legacy funding, heritage action zones, and the rollout of a new accreditation system for local destination management organisations. Investment decisions should consider strategic priorities, such as Arts Council priority places and levelling up for culture places, Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games legacy plans and other policies to develop identified cultural and heritage hubs and support skills, health and wellbeing.

Autumn 2024 Budget:

The first integrated settlement for West Midlands will be introduced from 2025-26, delivering a single flexible pot of funding with a single outcomes framework to support MCAs to deliver growth. The government will invest £115 million in 2025-26 to deliver Connect to Work, a new supported employment programme matching people with disabilities or health conditions into vacancies and supporting them to succeed in their roles. From 2026-27, this will support nearly 100,000 people a year. West Midlands will receive even greater flexibilities than local authorities to tailor their delivery of Connect to Work in ways that meet their local needs, with funding included in their Integrated settlement. The government will extend Innovation Accelerators into 2025-26 to continue to bolster high-potential innovation clusters in the West Midlands.

Culture Strategy:

West Midlands Combined Authority outline their commitment to the Cultural and Creative Sector via their Culture and Creative Industries hub: they define their primary role around Culture as an enabler and influencer to ensure their arts, cultural and creative sector can thrive. Their culture priorities include:

Ensuring the wider benefits of arts, culture, and heritage are embedded across other WMCA policy areas such as Housing and Land, Public Service Reform and Skills
Advocating for projects that bring wider benefits to our region
Enabling research and data-driven innovation within the sector
Advocating for our arts and cultural sector nationally and internationally, and developing a deeper devolution deal for the region working with government and arm’s-lengths bodies
Developing a WMCA Cultural and Heritage Strategic Framework
Delivering several projects and providing direct streams of funding for regional organisations and creatives.

The heritage sector employs over 46,000 people, creates £1.2 billion direct GVA and £559m indirect GVA, generates an additional £1.26 GVA for every £1m by our heritage sector, heritage tourism spend is worth £780m for West Midlands.

Current Culture Projects:

In 2022, the West Midlands delivered the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games. This saw an underspend of £70 million, which the government agreed should be spent in the region and for the region. As part of the Commonwealth Games Legacy Enhancement Fund, the £4.1 million CWGLEF Cultural Pillar has been established to support the legacy of the Games by investing in its creatives through projects and funds accessible to everyone. These projects, with an ultimate leading goal of diversity and inclusion, seek to empower the cultural and heritage sector and ensure artists and creatives obtain a longstanding benefit from the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
ACTIVATE is a programme to grow the cultural and creative ecosystem of the West Midlands that will empower freelancers and small organisations to advance their career through a series of tailored workshops, mentoring, masterclasses, networking opportunities, and wellbeing support. Running September to December 2024.
The WMCA Ownership Hub works to establish more worker co-operatives and employee-owned businesses, as a way to enhance business performance, boost local economies and empower people in their working lives. The focus for the West Midlands region is on supporting freelancers, creatives and businesses in the arts, culture and creative sector to explore and adopt worker employee ownership.