WMCA Integrated Settlement Outcome Delivery Plan

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Background & Definitions

The first multi-year Integrated Settlement for the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) covers the three-year period from April 2026/27. It consolidates funding under six ‘thematic areas’: Economic development and regeneration; Transport and local infrastructure; Skills and employment support; Housing and strategic planning; Environment and climate change; and Health, wellbeing and public service reform.

The functional responsibilities determined by Government, set the scope of the Integrated Settlement and the funding lines that will be consolidated under each thematic area. The funding lines for the multi-year period have been published along with the Outcomes Framework – which was jointly agreed between Government and WMCA.

The outcomes and targets set out in the Outcomes Framework are for WMCA to deliver. The Outcome Delivery Plan (ODP) sets out in greater detail our process and plans for doing so. This document will be redrafted at the start of each Spending Review period, when the scope, funding lines and outcomes of the Integrated Settlement are renegotiated. WMCA will review the ODP every six months to ensure that plans and delivery documentation are up to date.

WMCA Strategic Priorities

West Midlands Growth Plan Priorities:

Empower the people of the West Midlands to get on in life.
Enable the businesses of the West Midlands to become more productive and provide good jobs.
Make the places of the West Midlands more prosperous and resilient.
Tell the West Midlands’ story and strengthen its partnerships.

Mayor of the West Midlands’ Priorities:

Jobs for Everyone: Skills, training & apprenticeships.
Homes for Everyone: Social/ affordable homes & communities.
Growth for Everyone: Business growth & innovation.
Journeys for Everyone: Accessible, safe, affordable travel.

The Integrated Settlement will be used to implement the West Midlands Growth Plan, which articulates the region’s vision to increase living standards in all parts of the region through realising our long-term (ten-year) priorities.

The region’s strategic priorities are rooted in our commitment to inclusive growth, equalities and place. The WMCA’s Investment Prospectus sets out the region’s priority ‘Place Portfolios’, which will drive growth and public and private investment across the West Midlands.

The Integrated Settlement accounts for around 60% of WMCA’s financial resources for 2026/27 – 2028/29. While this is the majority of our financial resources, it is not the total. The Three-Year Corporate Plan sets out WMCA’s medium term strategic priorities and a broader set of three-year outcomes that will drive transformative change in the region. While each of the six thematic areas will have activities and priorities that extend beyond the Integrated Settlement (the remaining 40%), the purpose of the ODP is to ensure transparency and clarity of Integrated Settlement spending.

The remainder of the document will follow the structure below:

A summary paragraph of the ambition of the thematic area over the next three years and links to the plans which set out how we will deliver outcomes and priorities across the portfolio.
The functions of the Integrated Settlement related to the thematic area.
A list of the agreed Integrated Settlement Outcomes. A summary of the portfolio delivery approach and links to key delivery documentation, where approved.

Economic Development & Regeneration

The WMCA’s Economy Portfolio is IS Functional Responsibilities used to deliver relevant aspects of the West Midlands Growth Plan, Mayoral priorities and place portfolios to achieve inclusive, sustainable growth across the West Midlands, raise living standards, boost productivity, and reduce spatial and social inequalities. The Pillar supports the Growth Plan’s four transformational shifts: Empowering People, Enabling Businesses, Revitalising Places, and Telling the Region’s Story; reflects the Mayoral priority of ‘Growth for Everyone’ and our #2041 net zero ambition.

IS Functional Responsibilities

Activity that promotes place-based economic development including growth in the visitor economy, improves productivity, and aims to reduce interand- intra regional spatial economic disparities.
Coordination and delivery of local programmes to drive business productivity whilst ensuring integration between local and national business support activity, enabling businesses to access support.
Regeneration, place-making, and improvements to local infrastructure.
Activities that promote pride in place, including but not limited to measures to improve social cohesion, the improvement of public facilities and the public realm, for instance on high streets.

IS Outcomes

Improve business productivity in the West Midlands, boosting local economic prosperity and living standards.
Increase the trading income for social economy organisations in the West Midlands to boost local economic prosperity and living standards.
Deliver infrastructure needed for placebased growth.

Selected Targets by March 2029

935 supported businesses demonstrating improved practice.
4,275 jobs created in local priority sectors.
542,588 m2 additional floorspace unlocked by the WMCA.

Delivery Approach: Our business advice support has been refined through a hub and spoke delivery model, ensuring all businesses have an equal level of support regardless of their location within the West Midlands. Over the multi-year period, the WMCA will focus support on high growth potential businesses; decarbonisation; transitioning businesses into new industries and technologies; the creative and cultural sector; and social enterprise and good work. Regional programmes such as Made Smarter, High Growth and Supply Chain Transition provide specific focused business advice that complements the generalist offer. All seven Local Authorities will deliver localised business support services which meet their areas specific needs, this support will be complemented by a self-service model linking businesses to regional and national support programmes.

The West Midlands Investment Zone (WMIZ) capital investment is directed to making sites ready or attractive for investment and is focused on three sites:

Coventry & Warwick Investment Zone site (formerly ‘Gigapark’) - The WMIZ funding is aimed at providing foundational infrastructure for battery manufacture and development.
Wolverhampton Green Innovation Corridor - The sites, immediately adjacent to the Wolverhampton Science Park, are being remediated to cover a spectrum of occupancy to complement the activities and growth of the Science Park and aspirations of the Green Innovation Corridor.
Birmingham Knowledge Quarter - WMIZ investment is being directed towards transport and highways projects that will reconnect the innovation district to the city core (encouraging investor interest through enhanced accessibility) and integrate existing assets in the IZ site overall.

Activity supporting residents to access employment and progression has been delivered across all seven Local Authority areas through employment support programmes. Delivery has been explicitly designed to respond to local need, while contributing to shared regional objectives around economic inactivity, skills development and progression into work.

Transport & Local Infrastructure

Transport is a key enabler to empower our people to get on in life, help our businesses to become more productive and create good jobs, and support making our area the best place to live, work and visit. Our Local Transport Plan (WMLTP5), along with our Growth Plan and Spatial Development Strategy, sets out a long-term plan for how we can reimagine our transport system to deliver journeys for everyone.

We will support better choices to help people travel sustainably and reduce the impacts of travel on people and places. Our measures will improve accessibility by integrated public transport network and unlock new developments and help people choose to walk, wheel, cycle or scoot. We will also need to continue to invest in measures to better manage and maintain our highway network.

IS Functional Responsibilities

Oversight and delivery of the area’s transport strategy. This includes developing local transport plans and considering how transport will support wider objectives such as employment, housing and net zero.
Working with their Local Highway Authorities on delivery of local transport capital projects, including but not limited to highways maintenance and small-scale renewals as well as transformational local projects. This excludes strategic national transport infrastructure.
Managing local public transport services, including but not limited to the local bus network, mass transit, local rail integration, integrated multimodal fares, network information and branding, promoting safety and tackling anti-social behaviour.
Delivery of the local active travel strategy and schemes.
Delivery of local transport decarbonisation schemes, such as the local electric vehicle infrastructure funding programmes.
Strategic oversight of the local road network and promotion of road safety.
Undertaking scalable, feasible, and tangible transport innovation, including trialling new transport-related products and processes, improving existing services via technological upgrades, and implementing regulatory changes or best practice.

IS Outcomes

Improve accessibility to key amenities through public and active transport.
Reduce traffic and improve safety and security across the transport system.
Reduce transport’s contribution towards harmful emissions.

Selected targets by March 2029

7.93% - Trips made by public transport
254m - Passenger journeys made by bus
-46% - Reduction in road casualties (KSI)

Delivery Approach: The Local Transport Plan sets out the key areas of focus for the multi-year period:

Behaviour Change. WMCA, working with transport operators, local authorities and public sector partners to develop incentivisation programmes as well as making our transport system function most effectively for the customer - as part of our journeys for everyone priority.

Public Transport and Shared Mobility. We will use funding to maintain the current bus network and deliver the transition to take local control of our bus network. This is alongside local transport levy investment to provide discretionary travel schemes supporting people who face affordability challenges. We will also continue to deliver the bus, Sprint, metro and rail delivery programmes and Very Light Rail deployment.

Walk, Wheel, Cycle and Scoot. WMCA and authorities working together to build active travel infrastructure.

Accessible and Inclusive Places. We will undertake continued development and delivery of place-based priorities and Local Network Improvement Plans (LNIPs). We have identified four growth corridors, which will support housing and employment growth and improve accessibility.

Safe, Efficient and Reliable Road Network. We will manage the local and regional road network to deliver on policy priorities. Opportunities exist to enhance relationships between WMCA and authorities regarding road safety and network management/operations.

Green Transport Revolution. The West Midlands Zero Emissions Vehicle Charging and Refuelling Infrastructure Strategy sets out priorities for this key area. TfWM and Local authorities play a key role in supporting installation of public charge points in priority locations across the region and delivering wider net zero neighbourhoods.

Skills & Employment Support

Our goal is to create an integrated employment and skills system that provides a clear skills ladder and progression routes for residents, thereby stimulating economic growth. This involves collaborating with a wide range of partners across the region to effectively utilize new funding and flexibility as part of our devolution deal. This deal enhances the WMCA’s policy influence with our system partners, the DWP and DfE.

Through a streamlined funding structure for adult skills, encompassing the Adult Education Budget, Free Courses for Jobs, and Skills Bootcamps and the Connect to Work programme, we are aligning investments across employment, skills, health and communities. The opportunity created by the Get Britain Working White Paper and the West Midlands Works Plan also paves the way for further devolved responsibility for employment support working in partnership with DWP.

IS Functional Responsibilities

All non-apprenticeship adult skills funding and functions, including but not limited to:

Ensuring that residents aged 19 and over in their area, who are eligible for funding, have access to appropriate education and training
Encouraging and providing adults with the skills and learning they need to equip them to progress into, or within, work; or equip them for an apprenticeship or other learning
Provision of statutory entitlements to provide free courses for adults
Working with employers and education providers in the construction sector to deliver bespoke training, sector workforce development activity and increase provision to grow and retain the local construction workforce.
Ensuring that residents who are over compulsory school age but under 19 or who are aged 19 or over, and for whom an Education, Health and Care plan is in place, have access to suitable education and training (sufficiency of places and diversity of provision).
Leadership and co-ordination and provision of services in the area to support young people (aged 19+) who are NEET, or who are at risk of becoming NEET, to access skills support which enables them to move into education, employment or training.
DWP and the CA will work together on the joint actions and priorities identified in their local Get Britain Working plan, including relating to how they will work closely with the Jobs and Careers Service to ensure an integrated approach to local and national employment support and a locally responsive system that maximises outcomes for residents and employers.
Responsibility for supporting individuals who face barriers to employment, including disabled people, people with long-term health conditions, and, at a minimum, other agreed disadvantaged groups who are economically inactive or at high risk of becoming so, to move towards, enter and sustain work through delivery of evidence informed personalised employment support, outside of healthcare pathways other than those agreed.

IS Outcomes

More West Midlands residents will achieve at least a Level 1 qualification, with increasing numbers progressing to Level 2. A growing share will attain Level 3 qualifications in key growth sectors, unlocking better jobs and career opportunities.
We will expand and strengthen our construction workforce, supporting residents to progress into skilled and specialist construction careers. Accessible entry pathways, improved teaching capacity, and strong industry partnerships will ensure more people can enter and advance within the sector.
Disabled residents, residents with long-term health conditions, and other agreed disadvantaged groups with complex barriers are supported to sustain work through delivery of supported employment.

Selected targets by March 2029

170,100 - Residents achieving L1 / entry qualifications
86,460 - Residents achieving L2+ qualifications
5,989 - Connect to Work first earnings achieved

Delivery Approach: Our adult skills provision already incorporates a strong place-based approach, working with local authorities to codesign and co-commission delivery activity.

We understand that for many residents, gaining a Level 3 qualification will provide access to higher level employment and boost regional productivity. Therefore, we have refocused our Level 3 provision towards the sectors where the region has greatest employment growth opportunities - Advanced Manufacturing, Construction, Digital and Creative, Health and Medical Technologies, and Green Industries.

The Connect to Work programme will continue to be delivered through a Local Authority‑led, collaborative model that enables genuinely place‑based supported employment. The integration of C2W within existing provision ‘hides the wiring for residents’, allowing them to transition more smoothly between offers and strengthening referral pathways, including clear and effective routes into C2W for young people.

Housing & Strategic Planning

Housing is recognised as a foundation IS Functional Responsibilities for improving residents’ quality of life and a key driver of regeneration and place-making investment. Over the next four years, WMCA will lead a transformative housing agenda that delivers affordable, sustainable, and well-connected homes to meet the needs of a growing and diverse population. Housing will be a cornerstone of inclusive growth— supporting economic opportunity, social equity, and better living standards across the region.

IS Functional Responsibilities

Regeneration via enabling and improving local housing supply.
Delivery of capital investments to unlock additional housing and regeneration.

IS Outcomes

Increase the provision of land and infrastructure to unlock housing development.

Selected targets by March 2029

3,700 - Homes unlocked by WMCA intervention
1,528 - New starts on site
299 - Contracted homes completed

Delivery Approach: WMCA will use the flexibility of the Multi-Year Integrated Settlement to deliver a targeted, outcomes-focused housing investment programme that accelerates housing delivery, unlocks brownfield regeneration and supports place-based growth across the region. This approach builds on the strong performance achieved through the 2025/26 Integrated Settlement and aligns with the region’s ambition to meet housing need, increase the supply of good quality, affordable and secure homes, and create more prosperous and resilient places.

A key principle of the programme is the recognition that different sites require different levels of intervention. WMCA used the flexibilities of the 2025/26 Integrated Settlement to create two complementary funding routes: a Standard Delivery programme, focused on accelerating housing delivery through a typical intervention rate of £25,000, and a Regeneration programme, designed to support more complex schemes requiring higher levels of public sector intervention while delivering wider placemaking benefits.

This approach enabled WMCA to support transformational projects that would otherwise have remained stalled due to viability challenges. For example, £18.3 million was contracted to support the delivery of 331 homes at the Smithgate development in Wolverhampton, while £19.7 million was approved to support the regeneration of Mell Square in Solihull. These schemes demonstrate how targeted investment can unlock significant housing delivery while also supporting wider regeneration, town centre renewal and economic growth objectives.

Building on this proven model, WMCA will deploy £175 million of housing funding through the MYIS between 2026/27 and 2029/30. Investment will continue to be split between Standard Delivery and Regeneration programmes, with the latter expected to play an increasingly important role in addressing viability-constrained projects capable of delivering wider placemaking outcomes. Alongside capital investment, WMCA will continue to use settlement flexibilities to support pipeline development, including revenue funding for predevelopment activity, ensuring a strong flow of deliverable housing and regeneration projects across the region.

Environment & Climate Change

The WMCA and Energy Capital partnership’s vision is for a just energy transition, where investment is appropriately channelled to meet the needs of our diverse communities, to enable timely decarbonisation and to create a thriving market for clean-tech innovation and economic growth. The region is working together to ensure that by 2041, the region achieves net zero and the West Midlands will have trailblazed the route to a smarter UK energy system, creating prosperity for the region and enabling a fairer net zero transition for our communities.

The environment shapes both our quality of life and the strength of our economy. In the West Midlands, environmental challenges are significant and unevenly felt; disadvantaged communities often face the worst air quality, limited access to nature, and greater vulnerability to extreme weather events driven by climate change. The WMCA’s environment programme builds regional partnerships to make the West Midlands a place where the environment enables people and businesses to thrive, aligned with four programme themes: nature, air quality, circular economy and climate adaptation.

IS Functional Responsibilities

Retrofitting social housing; and all other residential buildings focusing on households at risk of fuel poverty in the local area.
Decarbonising public sector buildings managed by the MCAs or their constituent authorities and, where deemed reasonably practicable by the DESNZ Secretary of State, by wider public sector actors.
Overseeing the Local Nature Recovery Strategy to coordinate action, funding and monitoring for nature recovery and wider environmental delivery across the range of delivery partners in the region.

IS Outcomes

Reduction in direct carbon emissions from domestic buildings, with reduced fuel poverty gaps for treated households in, or at risk of, fuel poverty (Buildings Retrofit).
Reduction in direct carbon emissions from public sector buildings (Buildings Retrofit).
Effective local leadership of local nature recovery strategy.

Delivery Approach: The retrofit programme brings together funding streams including the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund, Warm Homes: Local Grant and the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. It will provide funding to Local Authorities, Housing Associations and Public Sector Organisations to support essential upgrades to buildings, making them more energy-efficient, reducing fuel costs and helping to meet climate goals.

The programme will also produce the following benefits:

Energy Savings - By improving the energy efficiency of buildings, the Retrofit Pilot will help reduce households and public sector energy bills.
Climate Goals - Retrofit projects are a key step in cutting carbon emissions and making the region more sustainable.
Economic Growth - The programme supports jobs and investment in the local retrofit market, helping to build a resilient, skilled workforce.
Innovation and Capacity Building - with flexible funding, the Pilot encourages new ideas and helps build regional expertise in energy efficiency solutions.

In November 2025, the WMCA Board approved the West Midlands Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) and the West Midlands Nature Delivery Plan. The LNRS brings together in one place a detailed, unified view of nature in the WMCA region, along with a strategic vision, clear priorities for nature recovery and target locations for action.

The LNRS:

Maps the most valuable existing areas for nature
Agrees priorities for nature recovery
Aligns local actions with broader regional and national priorities for biodiversity and ecosystem restoration
Maps specific proposals for creating or improving habitat for nature and wider environmental goals (adopting nature-based solutions) with guidance on actions

Over the period of the MYIS, WMCA will ensure strong local leadership of the LNRS, including through convening a West Midlands Nature Delivery Group. The Group will oversee the delivery of activity including the launch of a Nature Investment Hub, a regional approach to Biodiversity Net Gain and the production of wider resources and guidance to support others in delivery.

Selected targets by March 2029

10,700 - Social homes upgraded
1,500 - Private low-income homes upgraded
On Track - LNRS Leadership status

Health, Wellbeing & Public Service Reform

Our goal is to improve life outcomes for all citizens in the region and reduce long-term demand on public services through action on agreed regional health priorities and public service innovation in the design and delivery of more integrated, preventative and personcentred services. We want to create more inclusive public services that intervene earlier and better support people, helping to prevent the ultimate form of exclusion that is homelessness. WMCA’s Health and Public Service Innovation Pillar is central to delivering the ‘People’ priority within the West Midlands Growth Plan, supporting inclusive growth through improved homelessness, health, early years and youth outcomes, alongside sustained reform in how public services work together.

IS Functional Responsibilities

Setting the regional ambition on homelessness, in partnership with local authorities, and develop regional structures to deliver these ambitions.
Encouraging a preventative approach to homelessness and rough sleeping.
Convening homelessness and rough sleeping partners, including in the voluntary, community and faith sectors, to strengthen services across the region.
Delivering, as appropriate, regionspecific interventions that will enhance the statutory work of local authorities and relevant public sector partners with respect to homelessness and rough sleeping.

IS Outcomes

Get back on track to ending homelessness and rough sleeping through strong regional leadership and convening local partners.

Selected targets by March 2029

On Track - WMCA 'on track' with coordinated strategic approaches to tackling homelessness and increasing good quality supported housing supply across the region

Delivery Approach: Mayoral Combined and Strategic Authorities do not have direct statutory homelessness duties. Their role is to provide strategic leadership and leverage their convening power to unite regional partners in coordinating homelessness responses. The WMCA fulfils this convening and strategic leadership role through its Homelessness Taskforce, which brings together organisations, people and resources from across the region to support and add value to the work of our local authorities and other partner organisations involved in the prevention and relief of homelessness.

To achieve the outcome and functional responsibilities, the WMCA will convene partners through its established Homelessness Taskforce to renew, refresh and deliver our plans and approach to designing out homelessness.

This strategy has four broad components:

Setting the regional ambition on homelessness.
Encouraging a preventative approach to rough sleeping and homelessness.
Convening regional partners – including in the voluntary, community and faith sectors – to strengthen services in the West Midlands.
Delivering region specific interventions that enhance the statutory work of local authorities and relevant public sector partners.

How we will monitor & evaluate the Integrated Settlement?

Monitoring, Reporting & Evaluation Framework

Monitoring and Reporting:

Within the WMCA, monitoring of Integrated Settlement outcomes is done on a quarterly basis. An integrated Power BI dashboard allows senior leaders to view progress of Integrated Settlement outcomes alongside other performance metrics. Quarterly reports are considered by the WMCA’s Executive Board.

Reporting to Government takes place on a six-monthly basis to the HMG Programme Board. Following the HMG Programme Board, the six-month report is taken to WMCA’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee to provide accountability to elected members on the continued delivery of outcomes.

Evaluation Plans:

In line with relevant departmental guidelines, programmes funded through the Integrated Settlement have preexisting monitoring and evaluation arrangements, which have continued to be applied. For the multi-year period, we are developing logic at programme or project level aligned to our threeyear strategic outcomes and regional priorities, alongside recognising Government aims and are establishing evaluation capacity to support with related process and impact evaluations. WMCA is also actively contributing to the development of MHCLG’s Integrated Settlement devolution evaluation approach, helping to shape learning at a national level.