The West Midlands’ Integrated Settlement is live! What it is and what it means 👇 www.linkedin.com/pulse/west-m...

Positive to see extra resources on their way to places to help people into higher living standards. In the WM, our excellent skills team has secured over £700m to-date for skills and training - but many of the levers to help people into work lay outside of the classroom/workbench.

One of the main transport lessons we can learn from some European countries is - as well as comparing build costs - from their approaches to meeting running costs. New capital infrastructure will mean very little without getting this important bit right.

Interesting angle by the @neweconomics.bsky.social showing we are building more homes on the periphery of places that are dependent on cars. Part of the fix will be to allow places to crack on with building & planning new developments and public transport together, moving away from siloed budgets.

At the end of Sept, I’ll be moving into a new role at Skills Federation. If you’re interested in taking up the best job in employment & skills devo, you can find out more here. Please share and get in touch if you’d like to discuss: careers.wmca.org.uk/jobs/job/Hea...

UK councils demand extra cash and end of Right to Buy to boost social housing on.ft.com/47bugiG —> Which will become more pressing should growth start to pick up, which will eat into the disposable incomes of those who have least without extra social homes.

Plugging two good podcasts from the past month about what it’s like working at the top of local government. Well worth a listen for people with an interest in the sector. lnkd.in/e6Gmx_2y - with the bosses of Halton and (formerly) Wigan lnkd.in/e3jYz27p - with the bosses of Leeds and Manchester

A great ode to #Wolverhampton from @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social. Lots of work underway locally to celebrate and build on local heritage strengths (links below), which we would love to show you. www.thetimes.com/article/466e... H/t @andywestwood.bsky.social for sharing.

MHCLG published a good analysis earlier this year setting overall public funding flows from across government into places - Birmingham pictured* - which shows the total size of the possible prize of an approach like this. * Other areas and context: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/661408...

The broader outlook for household finances isn’t rosy, but benefit uptake campaigns, as launched by DWP this week, are a good idea - though possibly an expensive one given the vast number of people eligible for entitlements but not accessing them (h/t JRF for the data). www.gov.uk/government/n...