Written question asked by Ken Purchase (Labour) on Wednesday, 10 March 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 12 March 2010. It was answered by Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Labour) on Tuesday, 30 March 2010 on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Advantage West Midlands

Question: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how much Advantage West Midlands has allocated to the West Midlands since the agency's creation.

Answer: The Advantage West Midlands spent £2,177 million grant-in-aid from 1999-2000 to 2008-2009 and this has been put to very good use in the region. For example;"Business Link West Midlands (funded by AWM) assisted 139,000 regional businesses and helped create 6,500 business start ups during 2008/09.""Since 1999, when we created the RDAs, AWM has helped attract 880 inward investments resulting in safeguarding or creating 138,500 jobs in the process.""Since 2002 the West Midlands Manufacturing Advisory Service has helped more than 5000 manufacturing companies to improve efficiencies and in the process helped add £150 million to their turnover."

Secondary information