Business Growth Strategy

Executive Summary

The Strategy sets out the borough’s Business Growth ambitions and plans within Walsall. It seeks to address two key objectives by working closely with local and regional partners:

• To Grow the Business Base: address the relative fall in the business numbers and the low business density which exists in Walsall.
• To Secure More Competitive Economic Activity: ensure growth in more higher value business functions in Walsall. 

The productivity gap with our West Midlands neighbours has steadily widened over the past decade and requires focus. The factors that impact productivity are complex, and not unique to Walsall, so require coordination and close working with partners, and specifically with the regional partners including the Economic Development Vehicle (EDV). The Strategy provides the Council with flexibility to support and influence regional and national programmes. It recognises, in the context of limited budgets, the importance of prioritising business support interventions to create the greatest impact and of exploring local solutions to enhance existing provision. 

Strategic Ambitions

To deliver these objectives, the Strategy outlines three priority areas: 

1. Investor Engagement: Ensuring our sites and businesses are effectively promoted to potential investors and that support is in place to help potential investors realise their plans. 
2. Business Engagement: Ensuring Walsall businesses can easily access and understand the support available to them and that more intensive support is targeted to maximise impact. 
3. Business Growth Support: to ensure Walsall businesses have access to a menu of support that they can draw from to accelerate their journey to growth. 

Each priority area has a series of Action Areas with further detail contained in the associated Action Plan. The action plan contributes significantly to the Innovation and Business pillar of the Walsall Economic Framework and appropriate governance arrangements will be put in place to help maintain an overview of progress of the framework actions and to support momentum on Walsall’s long-term progress towards its economic vision. 

Key Areas of Focus

• Develop a compelling, professional inward investment service and a proactive and responsive investor liaison service that works with expanding and in-moving businesses to maximise the chances of success.
• Targeting support to businesses with greater growth potential to generate strategic outcomes for Walsall. 
• Increased accessibility of business support, including close working with regional partners to better coordinate support provision, and increased coordination and communication between the Council’s business facing functions. 
• Ensure the regional business support offer meets the needs of Walsall businesses by proactively working with and influencing regional partners including the new EDV. 
• Explore opportunities to fill gaps in business support provision to meet the specific needs of Walsall businesses.

The Case for Change

Challenges

• Widening productivity gap compared to the West Midlands and England average
• Low business density (28.4 businesses per 1k people) compared to the regional average (30.5)
• Low job density with 36% of residents commuting out of the borough for work
• Falling proportion of businesses in higher value sectors including business administration, information and computing and professional services

Strengths and Opportunities

• Strong business birth rate and increased total number of businesses
• Relatively large population of young people who are entering the labour market
• Around 1,000 businesses with high growth potential (around 8% of the total)

Measures of Success