Now even Queen is feeling the pinch

Family is back on duty, but palace income takes £18m hit after pandemic

THE Queen will continue to tighten her belt as a post- pandemic credit crunch bites even at Buckingham Palace.

Sir Michael Stevens, the monarch’s Keeper of the Privy Purse, said yesterday that while her annual review reflected ‘something of a return to normality’ for the royal household – with travel, investitures and garden parties starting up again – it also continued to be a ‘challenging’ time for the monarchy.

Expenditure was £102.4million last year – a rise of 17 per cent – with the majority being siphoned off by the major ten-year-programme of building works going on at Buckingham Palace. There was a 41 per cent increase in spending to £54.6million on the rennovations alone.

Income at the palace was £18million down because of the pandemic.

The Sovereign Grant – the pot of taxpayers’ money provided by the Government to cover the cost of the Queen’s official duties and residences – remained static at £86.3million.

The palace managed to raise a further

‘Our own efforts and efficiencies’

£9.9million through visitor opening and other money-generating schemes. But there was still a shortfall of £14.6million in the royal finances, which was met by dipping into the palace ‘reserves’.

Sir Michael stressed that the use of these savings was ‘not unexpected’.

He explained that the palace had been wisely saving money from the start of the palace re-servicing project, when costs were lower, in preparation for when they would cost more. However, he also admitted that, like all major institutions, the palace was still suffering as a result of the covid pandemic.

The loss of visitors and other income during lockdown amounted to an £18million ‘ hit’ over three years, he said, with income still 50 per cent from prepandemic levels. Royal officials say it will take another two to three years for their finances to get back to an even keel.

And it is likely that they will be forced to put some of the money they had earmarked for general property maintenance towards the palace building works in order to keep the £369million project on time and budget.

Sir Michael said: ‘Looking ahead, with the Sovereign Grant likely to be flat in the next couple of years, inflationary pressures on operating costs and our ability to grow supplementary income likely to be constrained in the short term, we will continue to deliver against our plans and manage these impacts through our own efforts and efficiencies.’

Royal aides stressed that the works on Buckingham Palace were necessary to save it from ‘catastrophic’ failure – the electrics haven’t been replaced since the Second World War – and it would continue to be the base for the monarch and her family.

Yesterday’s report, officials said, demonstrated that the Queen, 96, continues to be ‘highly active as head of state and head of nation’.

She and her family conducted 2,300 engagements in the UK and overseas last year, with the sovereign undertaking 201 personally. The total cost per person of public funding to the royal family is £1.29 – excluding the cost of security.

For the first time, all three royal households published their diversity figures. Buckingham Palace employs 9.6 per cent of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared to 8.5 per cent in 202021. Clarence House fares better with 10.6 per cent, while Kensington Palace – who have never published their figures before – say their BAME workforce equals 13.6 per cent.