<
The Sovereign Grant, which covers everything from the cost of staff
to the cost of maintaining the royal residences, was introduced by
Parliament in 2011 to replace the Civil List and other grants to
The Queen in order to simplify royal expenses and make them easier
to track. Since then, the Monarchy’s annual finances have been
audited by Parliament.
Although the money The Queen receives comes from the Treasury, the
amount is determined by the profits of the Crown Estates – property
portfolios that belong to the Sovereign in right of crown – with
15% of the value of the Crown Estate’s profits being given to Her
Majesty as funding.
Expenditure in the Sovereign Grant included the £4.5 million
renovations to Kensington Palace over the last few years to bring
it up-to-date with repairs, including the removal of asbestos,
repairing of the roof and resolving issues with plumbing and
wiring. The cost of the furnishing and decoration of the apartments
for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was met privately by the
Prince of Wales through his Duchy of Cornwall.
The cost of maintenance on royal properties rose from £4.2m to
£13.3 as the Royal Household attempted to tackle some of the
backlog of repairs needed to the royal palaces.
Maintenance costs were also incurred for some other royal
residences too, with £800,000 being paid to remove asbestos from
the basement of Buckingham Palace and a further £900,000 for
the removal of lead roofing from Windsor Castle.
Despite these costs, the Royal Household were under budget
this year by £400,000 from the allocated amount – this surplus will
be put into the reserve fund for use in future if needed.
Royal travel costs within the UK were down by £200,000 over the
last year. Prince Charles, however, incurred £1m travel costs
in the last year due to an increased number of engagements
performed representing the UK and The Queen overseas.
According to figures from the Palace, the Monarchy cost each person
in the UK just 56 pence last year.
Only The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh receive public funding
however. The Prince of Wales funds himself, his wife, the Duke and
Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry’s activities as royals from
the Duchy of Cornwall and The Queen herself funds other members of
the Royal Family’s activities from her personal income.
Whilst the cost of security is not published, doing so would be
largely academic because no other country publishes the cost of
securing either its president or Monarch in this way and as has
already been the case with anti-monarchist group Republic, this
leads to false comparison.
photo credit: Mikepaws via photopin
cc]]>
