Black Country worth £20bn a year

As the area recovers from what Chancellor George Osborne this week dubbed 'The Great Recession', the number of people in work across the Black Country has risen to 439,200. That is 6,800 more in just 12 months.

That includes 68,600 employed in the key manufacturing sector – the highest figure for five years.

Across Wolverhampton, Walsall, Sandwell and Dudley there are now 32,085 active companies – with local entrepreneurs starting up another 4,485 just in 2013.

And, for the first time, the value of goods and services sold from the Black Country has broken the £20 billion barrier.

The JLR engine plant on the i54 site, part of the Black Country Enterprise Zone, represents the biggest single industrial investment the area has even seen - but it is only one of a string of projects across the Black Country that are adding to an economic renaissance.

Sarah Middleton, chief executive of the Black Country Consortium, this week presented the 12th Black Country Economic Review, laying out the current state of the area and its economic performance.

The review keeps track of progress towards delivering the Black Country's 30-year Strategic Economic Plan, with a string of targets to improve employment, education, housing and the quality of life for people in the area.

Councillor Roger Lawrence, leader of Wolverhampton City Council and chairman of the Black Country Consortium, said: "The annual review clearly indicates that we are making progress in key areas including employability, competitiveness and infrastructure, building on our unique competitive assets to ensure that more of the products made in the Black Country are sold around the world."

Stewart Towe, chairman of the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), said:

"Our 12th annual review demonstrates that the Black Country is evidencing success across many key areas and in some instances delivering over and above national averages, particularly across manufacturing sectors."

The LEP is the body that brings together local business leaders and the heads of the four councils with the job of boosting the Black Country economy and increasing employment. It spearheaded the Black Country's bid for a slice of the regional growth fund money last year, securing promises of £162 million for projects including a bigger junction 10 over the M6, new college buildings in Dudley and Halesowen, new jobs, homes and revamps for Wolverhampton railway station and the Civic Halls.

While the money will pay for headline-grabbing major projects, in the background steady work has been going on for a decade to improve the Black Country economy, and with it the lives of the people living here.

A key target is improving education and skills, making local people more employable. For decades the Black Country has been plagued with low achievement, but the latest figures show that over the 10 years to 2014 there was a marked reduction in the proportion of people with now qualifications.

There are currently 150,000 people living in the Black Country who are being educated to NVQ Level 4 or above, while schools across the four boroughs have a higher proportion of students who achieve A* and A grades in STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths – than both the national and regional average.

But the proportion of students achieving five or more GCSE's at A* to C grade has fallen by 8.5 per cent to less than half – 49.5 per cent.

Another key job is improving the competitiveness of the Black Country and the businesses that work here. A key measurement is Gross Value Added, or GVA, which is the sum of all the goods and products made and sold in the area.

Between 2012 and 2013 this rose by 4.5 per cent, to £20 billion. It was the second highest increase of any area covered by one of the UK's 39 Local Enterprise Partnerships. 2013 also saw 4,485 new businesses created in the Black Country.

The Black Country LEP area – covering Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley and Sandwell – is ranked first in the country on the proportion of surviving start-ups that reach £1m turnover. At 5.7 per cent it was even better than London, which was in second place with 5.2 per cent.

At the same time as encouraging more businesses to set up and grow, the Black Country needs to make sure there is the right sort of premises for them. Over the last year the amount of high quality employment land has increased by 62 hectares (153 acres), with 40 acres coming through the i54 site on the outskirts of Wolverhampton.

The site is part of the Black Country Enterprise Zone, which leads the UK for job creation with more than 2,000 jobs projected by the end of this year.

And the Black Country needs to encourage more people to stay here or move to the area, bringing fresh skills. To that end, it needs to build more homes. Another 2,200 were built last year and the Black Country now has 482,410 homes accommodating 1,152,500 residents.

The area has seen 17, 631 new homes built since 2006, but there is still a long way to go to the target of adding 45,369 homes by 2026.

However, Sarah Middleton said sites have already been identified that would provide around 30,000 new homes, and work was now concentrating on opening those sites up for development.

She added: "I think the report shows that we are moving in the right direction."

While jobs have been dramatically cut in the public sector since the recession, in the Black Country they have been more than outweighed by private sector job creation, so the area now has more people in work than it did three years ago.

But it is not all good news.

The health of people in the Black Country is worse than the national average, with higher levels of deprivation, a greater proportion of children living in poverty and more people diagnosed with diabetes.

"I think health is one of our major concerns here in the Black Country," said Sarah Middleton. "There are worrying figures for the obesity rate among children, which is going to have an economic impact.

"And generally we still have issues over poverty and deprivation we we need to tackle."

To download a copy of the report visit: http://www.the-blackcountry.com/intelligence/intelligence-reports/annual-economic-review