Mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns asks for £147k to help answer emails

The mayor of Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority (GLCCA) Dame Andrea Jenkyns has asked for a £147,000 increase in her office budget to employ people to help her.

“I literally have zero people in my team,” she said. “I have over 2,500 emails each month from constituents. I’m staying up until three o’clock in the morning answering some of them myself.”

Dame Andrea’s request was made at a meeting on Wednesday, which also heard GLCCA council leaders plan to ask the UK government to cover a £630,000 overspend of the mayoral election that appointed her.

The election, held in May, cost an estimated £2.3m instead of the approved budget of £1.7m. The final bill is still being worked out.

GLCCA board member, North Lincolnshire Council’s Conservative leader Rob Waltham, said it was “perverse” that the combined authority was expected to fund it.

The combined regional authority was created after the government formally approved a devolution deal in September last year.

The deal promised an additional £24m per year for the next 30 years and the transfer of more powers from Westminster, enabling greater local decision-making.

But the mayoral election bill came to £630,000 more than expected, with postal costs contributing to the increase, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Waltham put forward an amendment, backed by GLCCA members, to write to the government, urging it to contribute to the costs.

“To think that the combined authority going forward would end up spending 5% of the money it gets from the government every year just on creating a reserve ready for the next election seems perverse,” he said.

“The government needs to put the money where their mouth is, trust devolution and make sure we’re funded appropriately.”

Dame Andrea, who ran for Reform UK, agreed with Waltham’s proposal and said she would rather see the money spent on local projects. She said she needed to hire staff to respond to residents’ concerns.

“We need to get the capacity in there so people get the best service, that they’re responded to and supported with their concerns,” she said.

A GLCCA report stated the mayor’s office budget is currently £115,000. This has been proposed to rise to £262,000 within the next financial year.