Buckingham Palace has released its annual accounts, revealing just how much money is being spent to maintain royal residences and lifting the lid on the royal family’s biggest spenders. The figures, which cover April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, reveal that the Queen received a 13 percent pay raise, though she’s not the biggest spender in the family.
The royal family cost each British taxpayer 69 pence last year (up 4 pence compared to last year), with courtiers insisting the royal family is “excellent value for money.” The royal family’s independent commercial property arm, the Crown Estate, also returned £329.4 million to the public Treasury in the last year, a £12.7 million increase from the year before.
For the first time, the Sovereign Grant, which pays for the salaries of the Queen’s household, official travel, and upkeep of palaces, now includes £30.4 million to fund a major and much-needed renovation of Buckingham Palace, which will commence next spring. Some urgent repairs, including the ceiling of the State Dining Room at Buckingham Palace and the Banqueting Hall at St. James’s Palace, have already been carried out to ensure the safety of the 2.5 million visitors to the Palace each year.
The accounts also reveal that the Prince of Wales, who carries out the lion’s share of overseas travel and more engagements than any other senior member of the royal family apart from Princess Anne, is the costliest royal. Charles spent £362,149 visiting India, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore aboard the RAF Voyager, the royal family’s jet. He also used the royal train, the most expensive mode of transport, on seven occasions, with each journey costing in the region of £20k. Courtiers insisted both modes of transport were “appropriate” given the nature of the trips where the Prince of Wales was representing the royal family overseas.
Accounts released by Clarence House, the Prince of Wales’s household, reveal that Charles is spending more money than ever on his sons and the Duchess of Cambridge, who are now full-time working royals. Charles spent £4,962,000 this year, compared to £3,529,000 the previous tax year, roughly a 40 percent hike. The amount is billed as ‘’other expenditure,” and while a spokesman declined to elaborate further on the figure, the increase coincides with Prince Harry’s engagement to Meghan Markle. The couple carried out a number of official engagements around the country ahead of the royal wedding, funded by the Prince of Wales. Now that Meghan is a member of “the Firm,” the Prince of Wales will finance all of her official royal activities, her staff, and her working wardrobe.
Meanwhile at Buckingham Palace, where wiring, plumbing, and general maintenance to all wings of the Palace will commence next spring, courtiers revealed that the Centre Room, which leads out onto the famous balcony where Trooping the Colour takes place each June, will be renovated. The ornate green cream and gold-painted ceiling, which is badly cracked, has been monitored using high-tech 3-D surveying technology that allows a team of specialist constructors to monitor just how bad the damage is. “It’s a very complex program, but the 3-D technology is brilliant. It enables us to see how much movement there has been and the extent of the damage. Previously, we’d have used tape to measure the cracks, now we have state-of-the-art technology,” a courtier explained.
The renovations, which will also include the behind-the-scenes work of replacing boilers, generators, and switchboards, will mean temporarily relocating 120 staffers from the East Wing. One of the biggest feats will be relocating 10,000 pieces of art from the Royal Collection. Some of the paintings and wall tapestries will be loaned to museums and art galleries (at no cost), while others will be re-housed in other royal residences or kept in storage.
The Palace said that despite the work it will be “business as usual.” While staff offices will move, the Queen’s living quarters will be unaffected. Most important for tourists, the Palace will remain open to visitors during the summer.
