Devolution

Devolution is working in West Yorkshire. With greater powers and flexibilities, the journey of transformational change through strong partnerships is delivering impact. Devolved powers have allowed design approaches that are tailored to the unique needs of the region. Further and deeper devolution will strengthen this ability.

Building on strong foundations

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority is a partnership that delivers. This has been shown through improving skills, support for business and delivering transport investment. It has also been shown in the decisive and fast response to challenges brought on by the cost-of-living crisis.

The Local Growth Plan builds on successful delivery of the Leeds City Region Strategic Economic Plan, the West Yorkshire Strategic Economic Framework and most recently the region’s Economic Recovery Plan. This track record of delivery must be viewed in parallel with local district strategies for economic growth and a wide range of supporting strategies aimed at capitalising on the opportunities of devolution and transformational infrastructure.

Delivery success

Placing the region at the cutting edge of innovation in healthtech and space and support to leverage funding
Making training and skills available for everyone, including digital skills to prevent digital exclusion and boosting the supply of skills for the green economy
Award-winning transport infrastructure improvements
Launching a Fair Work Charter
Attracting major institutions such as Channel 4 to relocate to the region and multinationals like Microsoft to locate new facilities here
Bringing buses back into public control through a Bus Franchising scheme
Establishing a Strategic Place Partnership with Homes England to boost the supply of houses across West Yorkshire
Working with local authorities to unlock access to employment land
Delivering an entrepreneurship programme to encourage innovation, with cohorts that reflect the diverse population
Collaborating with universities to drive research and development levels in the region
Establishing a task force to understand challenges in manufacturing to generate more jobs
Setting up a Green Jobs Taskforce to create 1,000 jobs to power the green economy

Towards a single integrated settlement: The future of West Yorkshire is bright, but priorities of this Local Growth Plan cannot be delivered in isolation. The long-term, multi-departmental integrated funding settlement for West Yorkshire will give flexibilities and freedoms to make bold decisions for the future. It will allow the Combined Authority to invest for the long-term and to direct funding where it will have most impact. This is central to realising the ambition set out in this Local Growth Plan.

Progressing the integrated funding settlement specific to the needs and opportunities of West Yorkshire will enable more effective delivery of priorities in the Local Growth Plan, which will have particular benefit to accelerating economic growth. Without the certainty of long-term and flexible funding, there is a risk that momentum on delivering necessary growth is lost and may fail the most disadvantaged communities.

Alongside an integrated settlement, West Yorkshire should be given the tools to support local revenue raising to enable greater investment and local contribution to major infrastructure projects and priorities.

Partnerships for growth

West Yorkshire’s success is dependent on all parts of the region thriving, contributing, being championed and being celebrated. Local, regional and national partnerships are vital to the success of the Local Growth Plan and the opportunities presented by devolution. At the centre of this approach is our strategic and close relationship with the five West Yorkshire local authorities. The Combined Authority will facilitate scalable opportunities at the right spatial level, diffuse good practice and represent the region on the national and international stage.

Strategic networks bring together key regional actors and experts to ensure best practice is being shared with evidence to meet regional goals. Active networks include:

Academic and best practice insight from the West Yorkshire Innovation Network, the West Yorkshire Scientific Advisory Group and the Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement and Research Network
Business insight that ranges from the large regional employers in the Mayor’s Council to small business representatives of the Business Board
Further and Higher Education institution membership bodies including Yorkshire Universities and the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges
Strengthening the strategic relationship with the Voluntary and Community sector building on existing good practice including thematic networks on policing and the safety of women and girls.

A truly diverse and dynamic set of partners inform every stage of development and delivery of regional activity. Enhanced devolution will enable deeper relationships with key bodies including Innovate UK, the British Business Bank and central Government. This builds on existing models of good practice such as the Strategic Partnership with Homes England.

The Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector in West Yorkshire plays a vital role providing specialist support and provision across a range of areas including reducing health inequalities and promoting population health. We will ensure we meeting the needs and aspirations of all communities through working with the diverse and dynamic voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector in West Yorkshire. As well as boosting the number of social enterprises in the region, we want to deepen partnerships to build resilience and align priorities. This will enable the specialist support needed for all parts of our region to flourish.

The power of mayors

Opportunity spans political boundaries and strengths can be found in every part of the UK. Working across the North gives the Combined Authority scale.

It will combine its assets, strengths and opportunities with partner combined authority areas to achieve shared objectives.

The collective power of Mayors can unleash growth. Representing West Yorkshire on the Council of the Nations and Regions and the Mayoral Council for England will provide a strong platform for closer collaboration and shared endeavour around a joint mission for growth.
Pan-Northern initiatives in areas of shared strength will be spearheaded by Mayors to turbo-charge growth opportunities.

Collaboration between Mayors is already leading to success, this will be built on across Yorkshire and the Humber where the shared ambition of the three Mayors to achieve good growth working collaboratively on Local Growth Plans, champion the region and improve vital infrastructure spanning boundaries.

Mayoral success: One Creative North

Mayor Tracy Brabin is driving the One Creative North initiative to unleash the economic potential of the creative industries from Liverpool to Hull and from Sheffield to Newcastle. Creative industries are a priority sector in the Invest 2035 green paper. One Creative North is a pan-regional collaboration with other mayors, BBC, Channel 4, Arts Council England and others. It has three pillars:

A Creative Bank established through securing £50 million
A life-long approach to training and retaining creative talent
Connectivity and networks

Affordable creative workspace is one of the greatest barriers to growth. Work is developing with local authorities, arms-length bodies and others to scope an investment-ready property portfolio, with emphasis on breathing new life into heritage assets while simultaneously preserving them for future generations.

Connect across the system: Realising the ambition of the Local Growth Plan requires partnership working with Government towards a common purpose of modernisation and public service reform, with new models of service delivery and creative solutions to complex problems.

The West Yorkshire economy comprises complex economic, environmental, social and political relationships amongst people, networks, and organisations within an evolving system. No single entity can provide the functionality or the outcomes that its participants want and need.

The Local Growth Plan provides a system-level response to the challenges and opportunities in West Yorkshire. It provides a mechanism to set out not just the what, but the how and the who – identifying clear interdependencies, levers, implications and consequences. The vision of a truly inclusive economy cannot be realised through separate and siloed governance, policy interventions and provisioning.

The adoption of ‘missions’ signals commitment to a systems approach. Missions are purposely cross-disciplinary with measurable goals that require systemic action. This approach will be embedded across delivery, wherever appropriate.

The review of business support and engagement ecosystem in West Yorkshire explored opportunities for transformation. It aimed to address longstanding challenges of access to information, networks, finance, premises and markets.

In parallel, the new operating model for an integrated employment and skills system will set out an effective relationship management framework to ensure cooperation and collaboration. It will identify the opportunities to maximise impact and also identify and integrate the role of partners to ensure a truly universal and comprehensive approach.

Redesign public services

The whole-systems approach should open capability within the partnership network to use public service reform as a tool for tackling the interrelated nature of the challenges and opportunities present in West Yorkshire. The partnership is significantly mature and impactful, so provides the conditions to identify and agree how the Combined Authority and its partners can pivot to address barriers to growth and tackle the layers of disadvantage in innovative ways.

Throughout the Local Growth Plan, the groundwork for new ways of working is being laid:

In consideration of the role of high-quality early years education and childcare in raising aspiration and in labour market participation
In redesigning an approach to supporting people into meaningful work, focused on removing health-related barriers and accelerating into-work support, with people at the centre of provision
Through advocacy for reform to support young people to access and maintain meaningful work through Youth Hub provision
Through prioritising productivity and increasing resilience in the everyday economy, which is often characterised by large-scale low-pay employment, to drive up better employment and good work.

This will inform a strengthened devolution agreement with Government to deliver across each priority of the Local Growth Plan.

Outcomes and monitoring

Measuring Success

The challenges and opportunities set out in the Local Growth Plan are complex and mutually reinforcing, with interdependencies across all priorities.

The Combined Authority’s Performance Management Framework establishes the vision, governance and approach to managing performance for the Local Growth Plan. Its purpose is to transform the Combined Authority’s methods to provide clear, objective and transparent insight on impact.

The Framework confirms that the outcomes the Combined Authority monitors to measure success come from the West Yorkshire Plan. These indicators are formally reviewed on an annual basis through State of the Region reporting.

Monitoring indicators will be introduced against measurable actions, outputs and organisational outcomes associated with specific project delivery. These will be reviewed monthly through the Combined Authority’s Performance Board and quarterly through the Committee structure. The role played by Combined Authority to deliver on the priorities will be driven by evidence and based on the most effective means to reach the intended target. This includes where activity is commissioned, directly delivered, or supported.

The core principles that sit at the heart of the Local Growth Plan must cut across every priority. There will be activity that directly contributes towards the core principles, for example action to decarbonise homes, support business sustainability, or boost the number of people with skills for the green economy. Targeted activity to engage trusted voices and networks will ensure business support is understood and can be accessed by everyone, while good work will be proliferated and celebrated through the Fair Work Charter.

While not all activity will directly contribute towards the core principles, all interventions must demonstrate how they have been considered and whether they could inadvertently have an adverse impact. For example, all projects supported by the Combined Authority must complete a Carbon Impact Assessment alongside an Equality Impact Assessment.

Each Local Growth Plan priority is aligned to a set of delivery ambitions. These will be monitored for progress to determine the effectiveness of the Local Growth Plan. For some areas of action, detailed plans and strategies are already in place. Others will require focused work to shape the priorities into deliverable projects. What unites each area of work is the common framework and core principles which provide a focus for all the Combined Authority’s activity.

Evaluation

Progress monitoring will sit alongside a comprehensive programme of evaluation. The West Yorkshire Evaluation Strategy sets out the Combined Authority’s approach to evaluation. This will be applied to the Local Growth Plan initiatives.

An Outcomes Framework is under development setting out core outputs and outcomes with common definitions and metrics. The aim is to ensure a joined-up approach to monitoring and evaluation, helping to generate evidence of impact and insights into what works. This approach supports alignment between the strategic objectives set out on the Local Growth Plan and the outputs and outcomes measured across projects and programmes. Consistent monitoring and evaluation ensure the comparability of data and enable aggregation across associated workstreams, informing the development of meaningful insights that support informed decision making.

The Policy Framework

A diagram showing the structure of the policy framework. With the West Yorkshire Plan at the top, followed by the local growth plan, local transport plan, police and crime plan, climate and environment plan, with thematic delivery plans and local economic strategies at the bottom

Core Supporting Strategy	Summary	Timeframe
Mayor’s West Yorkshire Local Transport Plan	The West Yorkshire Local Transport Plan is a statutory document that assesses an area’s transport needs and challenges and sets out different ways in which to tackle those challenges. It guides all transport policy and investment in the region, setting the strategic direction for the future of transport across West Yorkshire, as well as the policies and investment that will help get there. Delivery of the Local Transport Plan is fundamental to the region’s growth ambitions, connecting residents and businesses to opportunities across the region.	The Local Transport Plan will be in place by March 2026
Police and Crime Plan	The West Yorkshire Police and Crime Plan is a statutory document setting out the priorities for local policing and how they will be addressed. It plays an important role in supporting growth by ensuring that people are able to participate.	2024-2028
Climate and Environment Plan	The Climate and Environment Plan sets out how the Combined Authority can achieve ambitions to be a net zero region by 2038. It contains priority actions for the period 2025 to 2028. Sustainability is a core principle of the Local Growth Plan and transitioning to net zero presents an economic opportunity for the region.	Priority actions for 2025 – 2038
Housing Strategy	The West Yorkshire Housing Strategy sets out the Combined Authority’s approach to offer good quality, truly affordable and adaptable housing across the region. It sets a strategic direction for housing delivery and improvement as part of a long-term framework to 2040.	The Housing Strategy provides a framework to 2040
Digital Blueprint and Digital Skills Plan	The West Yorkshire Digital Blueprint sets out an approach to maximise the leading strengths of digital capabilities in West Yorkshire, attract investment for the sector and ensure people and businesses have the skills they need.	To 2030
Local Nature Recovery Strategy	The Combined Authority is the responsible authority for the West Yorkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy, agreeing priorities for nature recovery across the region.	Will be published in 2025
Culture, Heritage and Sport Framework	The Culture, Heritage and Sport Framework has four themes of people, place, skills and business. Each theme covers areas where there will be investment, collaboration and brokerage activity.	2025- 2028
Local Economic Strategies and supporting plans	Each local authority has a locally delivered strategy for economic growth. These local plans have informed development of the West Yorkshire Local Growth Plan. Local Area Energy Plans will translate national Net Zero targets into local energy system action.