Developing a Programme Business Case to secure nearly £25m to accelerate creative industries growth: Creative Places Growth Fund

West Midlands Combined Authority

We were commissioned to develop a robust Programme Business Case on behalf of WMCA to support the approval of nearly £25m investment for the Creative Places Growth Fund (CPGF). Working to HM Treasury Green Book principles and the Combined Authority assurance requirements, we translated a complex policy and funding opportunity into a clear, decision-ready case for investment—supporting approval to drive creative sector growth over a three-year period.

The Creative Places Growth Fund is a multi-year programme to accelerate growth in the creative industries through a mix of revenue and capital interventions. In the West Midlands, the programme is designed to support business growth and innovation, creating the conditions for long-term sector resilience and regional economic growth.

CPGF funding required a compelling, evidence-based justification that connected national creative industries priorities with regional need, and translated them into a deliverable investment programme. The business case needed to demonstrate: strategic fit, clear outcomes, value for money, delivery readiness, governance, and compliance—while balancing revenue and capital requirements and setting a framework that individual projects could later build on.

Our work involved:

  • Rapid discovery and scoping: confirmed programme parameters, assurance expectations, and the decisions the business case needed to enable.

  • Stakeholder input and alignment: led a series of workshops with Local and regional government leaders, industry, and WMCA policy, finance, legal, and procurement teams, ensuring the case was approvable and implementable and stakeholders were bought in.

  • Evidence-led narrative: built a clear case for change, drawing on sector evidence, local market intelligence and in-house regional analytical approaches to articulate why investment was needed and what it would unlock.

  • Optioneering and delivery models: supported an optioneering process to identify a preferred approach that balanced high-growth subsectors with cross-cutting interventions.

  • Decision-ready documentation and procurement options: produced a structured Programme Business Case that set out governance, risk, commercial considerations, and a framework for downstream project business cases.

  • Iterative assurance support: worked through review cycles to strengthen clarity, completeness, and compliance, ensuring the final submission met the required standard.

The completed business case supported approval of nearly £25m in funding for CPGF, giving WMC a clear programme framework to mobilise delivery and to develop subsequent project-level business cases. The programme is designed to strengthen the creative economy through a blend of targeted and cross-cutting interventions over three years.