West Midlands Combined Authority

History

The abolition of the West Midlands County Council in 1986 left the county without a single authority covering the whole area, although some council functions continued to be provided jointly, through the West Midlands Joint Committee, the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority, West Midlands Police (initially under the oversight of the West Midlands Police Authority and currently overseen by the directly elected West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner) and West Midlands Fire Service.

Organisation

The authority's initial priorities will involve co-ordinating the city-region to act as one place on certain issues, such as international promotion and investment; reforming public services such as mental health services; and improving internal and external transport links.

Transport for West Midlands

Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) is the executive body of the WMCA that oversees transportation (road, rail, bus and Metro) within the metropolitan county. The organisation carries over the previous responsibilities of Centro and the WMITA. TfWM currently has similar powers to Transport for Greater Manchester; from 2017, TfWM will take over responsibility for franchising bus routes, alongside the ability to set standardised fares across all operators, similar to Transport for London.

TfWM's initial priorities will be the expansion of the Metro through East Birmingham, Brierley Hill and Birmingham Airport, improvements to the M5 and M6 motorways, and new cycles routes as part of a metropolitan cycle network. There are also plans to work with central government over the future of the underused M6 Toll.

Housing and planning

The WMCA has the ability to create a regional spatial development strategy, similar to the London Plan and the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework. While local planning will remain in the hands of the seven boroughs, the WMCA will be able to analyse county-wide brownfield sites and decide where new homes should be built.

Health

A mental health commission was formed in order to create a reformed mental healthcare system in the county. The WMCA will not, however, have control over a devolved NHS budget as is the case in Greater Manchester.

Mayor of West Midlands

From 2017, the West Midlands, along with several other city regions, will elect a 'metro mayor' with similar powers to the Mayor of London. The date of the first mayoral election will be 4 May 2017.

A directly-elected mayor for the combined authority area was described as 'inevitable', as such a role has been stated as a conditional requirement for a more powerful devolution deal. The WMCA shadow board submitted proposals for a combined authority with and without a mayor leader, and decided which plan of action to take based on the devolution proposals from the government for each. Powers sought for a regional metro mayor and the WMCA were first revealed in a leaked bid document first reported by Simon Gilbert, of the Coventry Telegraph. Those powers included the ability of the mayor to levy extra business rates from companies in the region. Negotiations also included the desire to take away the ability of local councils to retain future business rates growth and to hand that cash to the WMCA, who would decide how it was spent across the region instead of by individual local authorities.

Membership

The authority consists of the seven local authorities of West Midlands as constituent members, three Local Enterprise Partnerships as non-constituent members, and several local authorities covered by the LEPs as non-constituent members.

The membership of the combined authority is expected to be as follows:

Potentional Observer organisations

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