Chancellor chooses Coventry's 'faculty on the factory floor' to announce devo deal

The chancellor George Osborne chose the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME) in Coventry to announce the long-anticipated West Midlands devolution deal this morning.

The institute – a collaboration between Coventry University and Unipart Manufacturing Group (UMG) – played host to the signing of the historic 'devo' deal by council leaders across the region.

Mr Osborne and the business secretary, Sajid Javid, met with the institute's leaders – including Coventry University's vice-chancellor, John Latham, AME director Carl Perrin and UMG managing director Carol Burke – and with students studying at the UK's first 'faculty on the factory floor'.

John Latham said:

It's a testament to the growing reputation of our Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering that the government chose the facility to host the signing of this significant initiative for the West Midlands.

We were delighted to welcome the chancellor and the business secretary, both of whom were impressed with the institute. Many of the key themes in today's devolution deal are reflected in AME, particularly the investment that we have made in creating a facility to meet the skills and productivity gap and attract state-of-the-art R&D projects to the region.

Through AME's 'faculty on the factory floor' approach, we're pioneering a new way of producing the next generation of industry-ready graduates, and we're confident this will play a significant role in bolstering the West Midlands' long-term engineering and manufacturing capability and helping the region to make the most of its newly devolved powers.