One year on: The word on the Street, from Andy Street
- Published
The West Midlands mayor acknowledges he faces daunting challenges, especially in the areas of skills, productivity and social care
Street's road test
If the American President can deliver an annual State of the Union address, why shouldn't the Midlands' Conservative metro mayor present his own more localised version?
After all, we were told at the outset of this mayoral project that, for good or ill, it was indeed more "presidential" than the traditional British political leadership model since it's elected not from within the legislature but directly, by the people.
So how is President Street doing so far, after his first year in office?
Rather well, it seems.
At least in his own estimation.
A news release pointing towards that promised "state of the region" event next week tells us that over the past 12 months, the West Midlands has enjoyed the largest increase in employment and the second biggest reduction in unemployment in any region, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Coventry will be the UK City of Culture in 2021
Record exports and business start-ups complete his compilation of economic success stories, topped-off with the icing on the cake: Coventry City of Culture in 2021 and Birmingham hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2022.
Mr Street's Labour critics say these examples indicate something else he is also quite good at: taking credit for things for which he was not wholly, nor sometimes even partly, responsible.
The Birmingham Erdington MP Jack Dromey points out it was the Labour councils in Birmingham and Coventry who put in the hard work securing the games and City of Culture.
I imagine Mr Street's party colleagues at Westminster might also argue that eight years of Conservative-led government could have something to do with whatever economic successes have come the Midlands' way.
Equally, the government does have an obvious shared interest in helping Mr Street to make his mayoralty a success.
The £5bn investment in local transport, including links to HS2 with extensions to the Metro tram system and suburban rail services, plus £350m towards building 215,000 homes by 2031; together this is clear evidence the Chancellor Philip Hammond is putting the Treasury's money where Mr Street's mouth is.
The road ahead
And in 2022 Birmingham will host the Commonwealth Games
The advance billing suggests Mr Street will also acknowledge he still faces daunting challenges, especially in the areas of skills, productivity and social care.
During last year's election campaign, among his top priorities were finding affordable accommodation for rough sleepers and improving the region's poor performance on skills and productivity.
A recent modest decrease in rough sleeping here contrasts sharply with increases in other urban areas of nearly 50% year on year.
But reducing what Lord Heseltine once called the Midlands' "long tail of under-achievement" has posed intractable problems for successive governments and council administrations.
It's best summed-up with the catchphrase "jobs without people, people without jobs".
Employers desperate for skilled workers struggle to find them where they need them.
People living in deprived areas complain the employers never come near; presumably because they do not think they will find the skills they need there.
Birmingham and Coventry are on the shortlist to be the new home of Channel 4's national headquarters
And so this vicious circle goes on and on and on....
Result: our own north-south divide, of which I have written several times in my recent posts.
The centre of Birmingham may be booming, but within its city limits are five of Britain's 10 most deprived parliamentary constituencies.
Wolverhampton has much to celebrate with Wolves' return to the Premier League.
But the city's economic productivity remains stubbornly near the bottom of the division.
The key measure, Gross Value Added, or GVA, shows the city generates 25% less per hour to the economy than does Solihull, famously the home of Land Rover.
Tortured negotiations
And then there's Channel Four.
Andy Street has undoubtedly been at the forefront of the campaign to bring the publicly-owned TV channel's national headquarters to the West Midlands.
When the shortlist of rival cities was announced last week it read like this: Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Greater Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and West Midlands (Birmingham and Coventry).
This takes us right back to the tortured negotiations that led to the creation of a combined authority led by an elected mayor in the first place.
In order to placate traditional rivalries between the Black Country, Coventry and Birmingham it was agreed that, unlike Manchester, the names of England's Second City and of the home of the motor industry should take their places among the list of seven council areas in the combined authority.
Will each of those two cities named within those infernal brackets be accorded the same degree of care and attention as those listed in their own right when the judging panel make their way around the country between now and when the decision is announced in October?
We'll have more on this in this weekend's Sunday Politics in the Midlands.
Andy Street will be among the guests joining me in the studio.
So too will James Morris, Conservative MP for Halesowen and Rowley Regis. And Valerie Vaz, Labour MP for Walsall South.
I hope you will join us too, in our usual 11.00 slot on BBC One this Sunday morning, 10 June 2018.