Royal Wealth and Finances 2: Sep 2022 -


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Welcome to the thread Royal Wealth and Finances, Part 2
Commencing September 1st, 2022 ​

The previous thread can be found here
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Not sure if this is a silly question, but if a king term working royal such as Princess Alexandra or the Duke of Kent was to retire due to old age or I'll health, would they still be granted a grace and favour residence? And would their royal stipend continue?
 
royal-blue said:
Not sure if this is a silly question, but if a king term working royal such as Princess Alexandra or the Duke of Kent was to retire due to old age or I'll health, would they still be granted a grace and favour residence? And would their royal stipend continue?
Click to expand...


I certainly believe that there would be a residence for them and that the late QEII had likely ensured that KCIII would provide for her cousins.
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66045447

The Royal Household's official spending rose by 5% last year, to £107.5m, while its funding from taxpayers remained at £86.3m, annual accounts have revealed.

This meant drawing on reserves for what royal officials called an "exceptional period of transition" following Elizabeth II's death.

It was also confirmed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have vacated Frogmore Cottage, in Windsor, Berkshire.

The accounts also show royal heating is kept at 19C - to cut energy use.


*But spending was almost £21m higher than the Sovereign Grant, with palace officials attributing the extra costs to:

-the continuing renovation of Buckingham Palace
-extra expenses for the queen's funeral
-the King's accession
-rising inflation



The full report can be viewed here:
https://www.royal.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2023-06/Sovereign Grant Report 2022-23.pdf
 
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Obituaries of the recently deceased Earl of Airlie, who served as Lord Chamberlain 1984 to 1997, contain some very interesting reading on how he spearheaded dramatic reforms to the British royal finances and organization in the 1980s and 1990s.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-earl-of-airlie-obituary-xg7v0nbjs (archive link)

[The Earl of Airlie] came to Buckingham Palace in December 1984 after running the merchant bank Schroder Wagg. He found an organisation burdened with outdated practices, symptomatic of which was the reluctance of his predecessor, the popular Lord Maclean, to discuss anything of significance on the telephone — Maclean preferred to commit it to paper and then dispatch the missive to its destination by a liveried footman.

[...]

He also found little to criticise in the private secretary’s office, which dealt with the Queen’s official engagements and her relationship with the prime minister and the government. In most departments of the palace, however, he detected a general lack of integrated long-term planning, and he decided to get the Queen on side and persuade his colleagues into accepting a corporate style of management.

Airlie’s long-term aim was to make the royal household master of its own destiny. Over the years it had been subsumed into the civil service and that, he said, was not a good thing. He told colleagues: “It is the job of the household to provide a strong, independent support and bastion for the sovereign.”

The household then employed more than 400 people and the maintenance of the palaces had been run for years by the environment department. The Queen’s collection of paintings and art treasures lacked staff and funding, and the office of the privy purse was having to cope with the effects of inflation and short-term cash injections, under the wary eye of the Treasury in Whitehall.

Airlie’s reforms transformed the creaky internal management, with resulting cost-effectiveness. The palaces regained control of their own maintenance and the royal collection, which had been run by the lord chamberlain’s department, became independent and profitable, mounting innovative exhibitions and starting social outreach programmes. For the first time in a century it was able to buy new works.

Airlie then started negotiating a new arrangement for the civil list (now the sovereign grant), the method by which the government reimbursed the Queen and other members of the royal family for the cost of carrying out public duties. In 1990 the drip-feed annual review, agreed in the 1970s, was replaced with a ten-year settlement which assumed an annual 7.5 per cent inflation rate. A side-effect was the avoidance of the perennial “Queen gets pay rise” headlines favoured by the popular press. Two years later, government financing of royal expenses was ended for all members of the royal family except the Queen, Prince Philip and the Queen Mother.

The civil list settlement was reached at a time when public and political opinion was out of sympathy with the Queen over her exemption from paying tax on her private fortune. She was expected to challenge any proposals to remove this privilege but in 1993, to the surprise of her advisers, she capitulated after the briefest of discussions. Airlie had prepared the ground by winning over Prince Philip, knowing well that as far as domestic issues were concerned the Queen invariably bowed to his opinion.
Click to expand...


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituar...ie-obituary-lord-chamberlain-queen-schroders/

When Airlie proposed a thorough review, the Queen gave him full authority to carry it out – effectively changing the Lord Chamberlain’s ancient ceremonial and non-executive role to that of chief executive. According to one of his successors, Airlie proceeded to “read the riot act” to department heads, telling them that they must work to budgets and co-operate with each other: “And that didn’t half rattle a few cages.”

His aim was to regain control of palace purse strings from the Treasury and to make the case for a more realistic Civil List income to fund royal activities; to do so, he had first to demonstrate that the monarch was running a tight ship.

To that end, he brought in the accountant Michael Peat (later private secretary to the Prince of Wales – Prince Charles, as he was then). Peat’s firm KPMG were already the Household’s auditors and they in due course produced a report proposing 188 reforms, ranging from rationalisation of staff dining rooms to preparations for the opening to the public, on a self-financing basis, of the Royal Collections.

[...]

Evident hostility to suggestions that taxpayers might foot the Windsor [Castle fire of 1992] bill confirmed how far the family’s popularity had withered: as Airlie also remarked, it was “the very nadir of our stock market”.

If Elizabeth II was largely credited with restoring royal popularity in her later years, Airlie helped her regain ground in the mid-1990s, both by persuading her of the wisdom of paying tax and meeting most of Windsor’s restoration costs herself, and by convening the “Way Ahead” group of senior family members and aides to discuss the future of “the firm”.
Click to expand...
 
If William was to pass away while he is was Duke of Cornwall, what would happen to the proceeds from the Duchy of Cornwall? Would Catherine still be able to receive an allowance from it to fund the royal duties and lifestyle of herself and her children?
 
My guess is yes. George would be the new Duke, right? But he still a minor.
 
royal-blue said:
If William was to pass away while he is was Duke of Cornwall, what would happen to the proceeds from the Duchy of Cornwall?
Click to expand...

That money would go to the King, and the Sovereign Grant would be reduced by the same amount. George would then receive a grant from the Treasury. Until he's 18, it would be 10% of the proceeds of the Duchy of Cornwall. Afterwards, 100%. (Since he'd never be Duke of Cornwall, he'd never get it directly from the duchy.)

I think Catherine would be responsible for administering that 10% since she'd be George's sole guardian, but I imagine that she would have to go back to having her duties and living arrangements funded by her father-in-law.
 
SLV said:
My guess is yes. George would be the new Duke, right? But he still a minor.
Click to expand...

No - in the scenario where William dies before Charles then George is never the 'eldest son of the Sovereign' and so would never be eligible to be the Duke of Cornwall or hold any of the Scottish titles.

To be Duke of Cornwall or Duke of Rothesay George has to met two criteria - heir apparent AND eldest son of the Sovereign. Fulfilling one isn't enough.

He would, though, inherit Duke of Cambridge as those titles have the standard remainder 'heirs male of the body'.

George III was in that situation and was never Duke of Cornwall and never had any of its income while the heir apparent after the death of his father.
 
An interesting article from the Gaurdian about the so-called bona vacantia.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ly-profiting-from-the-assets-of-dead-citizens

Apparently in some parts of the (ceremonial?) county of Lancastershire people who die without a will or next of kin automatically leave their possessions to the the Duchy of Lancaster. The last ten years 60 million pounds were collected. The proceeds seem to go to various charities.
 
I thought I knew royal greed – but King Charles profiting from the assets of the dead is a disgusting new low

"For decades, parliament has been far too lenient about the royal family’s finances. This avaricious practice needs to end"

The Guardian continues it's anti-monarchy campaign and they've found a particularly emotive issue. Whilst I don't think the monarchy should be punished for turning the two Duchies into financially successful institutions; I also don't think the RF should be given special treatment and exceptions.

The issue of bona vacantia will have to be addressed if it was announced that the practice would be to donate the proceeds to charity if in fact, according to The Guardian, they are being used to generate profit. It's not the monarchy's fault people don't have their finances in order for when they pass away, or have no next of kin, but the use of that money is certainly a sensitive subject.
 
I live in historic Lancashire. No-one ever talks about bona vacantia. Yes, it exists, but the Guardian makes it sound as if it's a big political issue. I doubt that more than one person in a thousand has ever even heard of it.
 
Alison H said:
I live in historic Lancashire. No-one ever talks about bona vacantia. Yes, it exists, but the Guardian makes it sound as if it's a big political issue. I doubt that more than one person in a thousand has ever even heard of it.
Click to expand...

Yes, much of The Guardians recent campaigns against the Monarchy haven't quite exploded politically the way they'd like, we'll see how this story settles.

Whilst I don't agree with The Guardians motives, they do bring up many good points and issues the monarchy should address for longevity's sake.
 
And its not just limited to the Duchy estates and land. For the rest of the UK the money from bona vacantia goes to the government which spends it on “public services” so its not like the government give it to charity and the Duchy now doesn’t. (Tbh is it that different- the uk gov uses it to pay for services its already budgeted for, the duchy for work it would usually pay for)

Interesting how the Guardian’s latest claims there are questions over” the £14million” when the original article made it sound like much more than that.

Its always hard to overlook and see beyond the Guardian’s avowed republican stance when it comes to articles and issues like this.
 
Royal biographer Hugo Vickers wrote a piece about wills of British royals for the Telegraph.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-f...eth-ii-aunt-kept-secret-prince-frank-of-teck/

Some excerpts:


[...] Up until 1911, it was only the sovereign’s will that was kept behind closed doors. That all changed due to the antics of Prince Frank of Teck, the wayward brother of Queen Mary (Princess Mary’s mother).

The gambler and troublemaker – he’d been expelled from Wellington College, Berkshire, “for throwing his housemaster over a hedge to win a bet” – had had an affair with society beauty Ellen, the wife of the Earl of Kilmorey, and thus bequeathed her the famous Cambridge emeralds in the will he wrote in 1902. (He died in 1910.) To cover up the scandal and recover the jewels, Queen Mary succeeded in getting his and all subsequent wills of extended Royal family members sealed.

[...]

While we do not know what is in most royal wills, in respect of the dispositions within them, we do know how much money they left in total, because that is published. For example, we know that Princess Mary [who died in 1965] left a total of £347,626, reduced to £328,224 after death duties, which works out at around £5.6 million in today’s money.

[...]

[Queen Mary] persuaded her son Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, to appoint two of Queen Victoria’s spinster granddaughters, Princess Helena Victoria and Princess Marie Louise, as godmothers to his sons, William and Richard (the present Duke). As Queen Mary hoped, the princesses left their estates to the boys.

[...]

Some kept things blissfully simple. The Queen Mother, for example, left everything to Elizabeth II, who then distributed a selection of bequests to members of the Royal family as a way of saving death duties. Others, meanwhile, were just plain irritating: upon her death in 1959, Princess Arthur of Connaught, Duchess of Fife left the striking Mar Lodge estate in the Cairngorms to one nephew, Captain Alexander Ramsay… and its contents to another, the Duke of Fife.

[...]

One will that was emphatically blown open, however, was that of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1998. Hers was made public by her lawyers at Mischcon de Reya, as it was deemed to be in the public interest – and by the time of her death, she was no longer technically a member of the Royal family. Her estate of £21,711,485 was largely divided between her sons, William and Harry with £50,000 given to her butler, Paul Burrell, and certain keepsakes to her 17 godchildren. Evidently there was controversy: the original plan was that all of her jewellery and 75 per cent of her personal belongings (“chattels”) be passed on to her two sons and 25 per cent to her godchildren, but her mother and sister challenged this in the probate court. In the end, the godchildren merely got “tacky mementos” (so the story goes), while her sons’ age of access to their inheritance was raised from 25 years to 30.

In earlier times there were monarchs who tried to alter the line of succession in their wills. Michael Nash, who has made a comprehensive study of them – Royal Wills in Britain From 1509 to 2008 – digs deep into the many shenanigans. Amongst other things, he tells us that Queen Adelaide’s will was deemed invalid when presented for probate, and that Elizabeth I and Queen Alexandra were so suspicious of lawyers that they refused to make wills at all.

[...]​
 
Interesting how godparents are used as a way to enrich your family/children.
 
www.thetimes.co.uk

The Sunday Times Rich List 2024 revealed

It features the King, the prime minister, inventors and industrialists, as well as some new names, but what does the record fall in the number of billionaires mean for Britain?
www.thetimes.co.uk www.thetimes.co.uk

The annual Sunday Times Rich List - out this weekend - estimates the King's wealth at £610million (making him the =258th richest person in the UK)


Interesting that not long before the coronation the Guardian estimated his wealth to be in the billions. If nothing else, it shows how the media really have no clue either way what the King and RF are worth.
 
tommy100 said:
www.thetimes.co.uk

The Sunday Times Rich List 2024 revealed

It features the King, the prime minister, inventors and industrialists, as well as some new names, but what does the record fall in the number of billionaires mean for Britain?
www.thetimes.co.uk www.thetimes.co.uk

The annual Sunday Times Rich List - out this weekend - estimates the King's wealth at £610million (making him the =258th richest person in the UK)


Interesting that not long before the coronation the Guardian estimated his wealth to be in the billions. If nothing else, it shows how the media really have no clue either way what the King and RF are worth.
Click to expand...
That is the Guardian for you. Probably added the value of the Crown Estate, the Royal Collection and the Duchy ofLandcaster!
 
Interesting reading (i'm a geek for these each year) - a few key points IMO:

The Kings Helicopter flight is getting two new helicopters in this coming year - the two currently in use are 15 years old

The Foreign Office paid for two trips overseas directly as the Household couldn't fit them in their budget (not heard of that before) - the King to attend COP28 and Princess Anne to attend the state funeral of President Geingob in Namibia. Earthshot paid for William's travel to Singapore and the Foreign Office again paid for William to visit the UN during the General Assembly.
Personally I don't see why - whilst stating the money came from the FCDO they still can't state the cost - it looks a little like going back to the old days when each government department picked up the bill for this and that so teh cost of the monarch's work was never clear.

Apartment 1 at KP (the Gloucester's old apartment) will undergo work next year "to optimise occupancy and rental income across the Occupied Royal Palaces estate" - given the Gloucesters moved out in 2019 this seems rather a long time to leave it but hey ho - it may eventually be used to bring in more income via rental.

Also in future work "The gas lamps across the estate were turned off during the recent energy crisis and this is the first phase of a programme to convert them to electrical fittings whilst retaining as much of the historic fabric as possible" - just reminds us how much sometimes the royal household is working with quite old things in a modern age!

The gender pay gap was almost halved from 4.16% last year to 2.23% this year.

The report confirms (seemingly for the first time officially) that the Princess of Wales appointed Lt Col Tom White as her private secretary

The cost of the coronation to the Sovereign Grant was £800,000

The number of royal engagements fell from 2700 to 2300

Still no mention of an annual report for William or his household (which Charles did for decades as PoW) - but the Duchy of Cornwall accounts show he received £23.3million.

Apparently "the report shows" they increased their staffing from 50 to 66 and "Diversity figures show 14 per cent of staff were from an ethnic minority background, down from 16.3 per cent of staff the year before." But that is all coming from a Hello! article, I can't see those figures in the actual report, nor a separate report for the Wales' Househould - I assume maybe those figures were given to the media at the briefing about royal finances but no report published. Either way, hate to say it, but not sure its really acceptable for the Wales not to publish a report long term.

www.hellomagazine.com

Prince William's salary revealed by new royal accounts

The Prince of Wales receives money from the Duchy of Cornwall
www.hellomagazine.com www.hellomagazine.com

Hence reports like this now appearing in the usually very pro monarchy Telegraph
archive.ph

Prince William refuses to reveal how much tax he pays

archived 23 Jul 2024 23:20:38 UTC
archive.ph archive.ph
 
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It sounds like William is quite hands-on with the Duchy. Of course, he is not in the business of the day-to-day running but being available (without any private secretary getting in-between) for texts 7-days a week and responding quickly and in-depth shows his commitment.
 
Somebody said:
It sounds like William is quite hands-on with the Duchy. Of course, he is not in the business of the day-to-day running but being available (without any private secretary getting in-between) for texts 7-days a week and responding quickly and in-depth shows his commitment.
Click to expand...
I am not surprised. But I get the sense that Charles was very hands on as well when it came to the Duchy.
 
What surprised me a bit: Bunte online, the German tabloid, claimed, the Duchy of Cornwall has a value of 1.5 billion, but still the Prince receives only 23 million pounds out of it.

Normally agriculture rakes in a profit rate of around 4 percent. (That is not much, but a sure profit rate regardless of inflation!). But 4 percent would be 60 million and not 23!

Does anybody have an explanation for this shortcoming?
 
I don't have an answer for that but you can read the Duchy's annual report here:


In short, they show the Duchy earned revenue of £36.6million and had operating costs of £14.5million. William was given a surplus of £22.6million.

The Duchy is made up of a mix of agricultural land, investments, residential and commercial property. I guess it probably isn't as simple as saying 4% of the total value of the estate.
 
I think a lot of people are very shocked and dissapointed in what has happened with the Royal Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. With such large management teams running them, many staff very highly paid, the welfare side is shock and the money taken from the NHS, Government Defense Departments and charities that people give to is horrifying. None of this needed to happen. It's greed, Parliament tried to investigate this lack of management transparency by extemley well paid tweedy gloating people a number of years ago and were fobbed off, with men in expensive suits drawing a veil over the money. It would have been better to have been sorted out back then in the 2000s and the books fully opened.

I hope there can be a big cultureal change in terms of who they employ. Not people who ignore saftey reports from Geologists and forelock tug as they enjoy a very comfy life. Yes, I have met some in the South West. It can be better, people deserve better from a Royal Family any Royal Family. I believe most Royals in the job wouldn't behave this way towards people (in terms of allowing profiteering from public insitutions in dire need of money) remembering the vows taken by the monarch to serve etc. Such a huge dissapointment to see this happen under the monarchs watch and hopefully there can be a change of direction that will benefit people and keep a Royal Family to avoid a Republic. The Insider deal interior style contracting that Camilla's sister got for decades at the Duchy was probably a warning of bigger internal problems sadly. I believe we need a Royal Family, one that cares and isn't drawing off huge sums each year and more in touch with people. This is so sad and a waste of public good will and hard work by more junior Royals and C and W who are heading the Duchies that should probably be taken to court. I feel this was all avoidable and people didn't need to suffer this way. £11m given back to the hospital Trust in London and £30+m back to the court system for Dartmoor Prison if I recall correctly could do a lot of good.

C and W should have CEO oversight and some of these things are very serious, for them not to be informed should be a sackable issue and for them to have known would be heartbreaking. Hopefully this can get sorted out fast and people moved into better housing and moneis repaid to the NHS, struggling state schools and all other institutions. I feel it flys in the face of traditional Royal behaviour and the positive aspects of monarchies. I pray the monarchy survives the Windsors, well the Mountbatten-Windsors money managers and a corrupt unchristian ethic.

I saw the Channel 4 Dispatches program almost by accident as I thought it would be talking about something else going on in the British Royal Family regarding finances that's in the press at the moment and we've all heard far too much about; i.e. more York family mess ongoing since the mid 1980s.

I believe this can get fixed and problems taken away with safeguards against insider hires etc in the future but it will need to be done as soon as possible.
 
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RabbitRabbit said:
I think a lot of people are very shocked and dissapointed in what has happened with the Royal Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. With such large management teams running them, many staff very highly paid, the welfare side is shock and the money taken from the NHS, Government Defense Departments and charities that people give to is horrifying. None of this needed to happen. It's greed, Parliament tried to investigate this lack of management by extemley well paid tweedy gloating people a number of years ago and where fobbed off, with men in expensive suits drawing a veil over the money. It would have been better to have been sorted out back then in the 2000s. It can be better, people deserve better from a Royal Family any Royal Family. I believe most Royals in the job wouldn't behave this way towards people (in terms of allowing profiteering from public insitutions in dire need of money) remembering the vows taken by the monarch to serve etc. Such a huge dissapointment and hopefully there can be a change of direction that will benefit people and keep a Royal Family to avoid a Republic. The Insider deal interior style contracting that Camilla's sister got for decades at the Duchy was probably a warning of bigger problems sadly. I believe we need a Royal Family, one that cares and isn't drawing off huge sums each year. This is so sad and a waste of public good will and hard work by more junior Royals and C and W who are heading the Duchies (the Duchies) that should probably be taken to court.

C and W should have CEO oversight and some of these things are very serious, for them not to be informed should be a sackable issue and for them to have known would be heartbreaking. Hopefully this can get sorted out fast and people moved into better housing and moneis repaid to the NHS, struggling state schools and all other institutions. I feel it flys in the face of traditional Royal behaviour and the positive aspects of monarchies. I pray the monarchy survives the Windsors, well the Mountbatten-Windsors money managers and a corrupt unchristian ethic.

I saw the Channel 4 Dispatches program almost by accident as I thought it would be talking about something else going on in the British Royal Family regarding finances that's in the press at the moment and we've all heard far too much about; i.e. more York family mess ongoing since the mid 1980s.
Click to expand...
The interior design issue was a tender (contract) and offered to others. They chose Camilla’s sister because she obviously knew their taste and would be discreet. It wasn't a scandal, the only person who made it seem a scandal was Richard Kay, a pro-Diana journalist who was implying that Charles was paying Annabel for favours for “keeping secrets” which is silly. That case was not shady or corrupt and cannot be compared to this issue
 
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