Mayor defends hiring comms director on up to £138k

The job advert says the new director of communications will "reflect the mayor's voice"

The West of England mayor Helen Godwin has defended advertising for a director of communications on a salary of up to £138,000 per year.

She said it was a "really important job", in order to "tell our story better" to residents and to the government.

As metro mayor, Ms Godwin earns around £90,000 per year. She was elected just over three months ago, taking over from the previous Labour mayor Dan Norris.

In an interview to mark her first hundred days in office, Ms Godwin said she was "impatient" to make a difference to people's lives.

'Tell story'

The director of communications advert said the successful applicant will be able to "craft the narrative" and "shape a compelling story".

Ms Godwin defended the salary of between £102,000 and £138,000, which is understood to have been set after an assessment of communications roles at similar organisations.

"Because the combined authority hasn't performed as well as I think it should have done, we are not in a good position to really tell our story to government", she told BBC Radio Bristol's John Darvall.

Under her predecessor Dan Norris, the combined authority was put into special measures because of concerns about its performance.

"If we want more money from government", Ms Godwin said, "I need government to look at what we do over here and say 'ok they know how to do it, they're spending that money well, they're making a difference to their resident's lives'.

"Whether we like it or not, how we communicate and tell that story is a really important job", she added.

One of Ms Godwin's first decisions was to offer under-16s free bus travel across the region during the school holidays. She estimates just under 400,000 journeys have been taken as part of the scheme so far.

"Having teenagers myself, seeing them get their independence, going out and exploring, has been wonderful", she said.

Asked about the proposed expansion of Bristol airport to carry 15 million passengers per year, Ms Godwin said she was "concerned" about the timing, the lack of public transport, and the impact on the airport's net zero operations target.

"It's important for the region that we have a decent airport", she said. "But most importantly I think we need a decent route from the airport into the major centres.

"We cannot have people going by car as the primary route into that airport any more, that has to change."