The Big Lottery Fund is giving communities and voluntary organisations a reason to celebrate this New Year as they receive National Lottery grants to support people across the West Midlands region. £2,680, 932 will be shared between 67 groups, including projects in Shropshire, Birmingham, Warwickshire and Staffordshire, which aim to help improve local communities and the lives of people most in need.

The West Midlands Police force has been criticized for lack ethnic minority officers, making It unrepresentative of the public it serves. Figures released to The Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that the force was one of the least representatives of Black, Asian and ethnic minorities in the country. Less than nine percent of the West Midlands Police force is comprised of ethnic minorities, despite the fact that eighteen percent of applications received between 2006 and 2014 were from a minority group.

A pilot project designed to encourage people to dispose of litter responsibility has been hailed a success by Birmingham City Council. The Bin it for Good initiative, run for three months between September and November 2015, has led to a five per cent reduction in litter on streets in the main retail areas of the city centre.

After the long Christmas break with family, many people will be feeling refreshed and ready to return to work. However, Independent Age, the older people’s charity, has already received a number of calls from concerned relatives of older people worried about how their mum, dad, elderly aunt or uncle are coping at home on their own after spending time with them during the festive period.

Wolverhampton will remember the victims of Nazi persecution, the Holocaust and other genocides around the world when the city marks Holocaust Memorial Day later this month. The Mayor of Wolverhampton Councillor Ian Brookfield will lay a wreath during a service at the Cenotaph in St Peter's Square on Wednesday 27 January, 2016 – the 71st anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

A fifth of West Midlands parents (20 per cent)  struggle to get their children to “unplug” and take part in activities away from television, phone and computer screens, according to a survey published by Action for Children. When asked which behaviour they found most difficult to control in their children, more West Midlands parents said they struggled to limit technology-based activity (20 per cent), than do their homework (10 per cent) or getting them to take a bath (3 per cent).