Queen’s spending drops 5% to £32.1m

Reduction in maintenance bill for royal residences helps to reduce monarch’s annual costs The Queen cost the taxpayer £32.1m in the last year – a drop of more than 5%. Her keeper of the privy purse, Sir Alan Reid , said that it was partly achieved by a pay freeze across all the royal staff, which will be continued this year, and by deferring spending on property maintenance – but warned that it will be difficult to cut spending any further. The Queen’s accounts – released as the attention of royal watchers is on the positive publicity being generated by her grandson and his new wife on their Canadian tour – show that spending has been cut by 19% in real terms over the past five years. They contrast strikingly with the accounts released last week for the Prince of Wales , which show that his income increased by 4% or £1m including money from the taxpayer, and his spending particularly on overseas travel also increased. The Queen’s travel spending was also significantly higher – reflecting many overseas events including her historic first state visit to Ireland – up from £3.9m to £6m, but her income from the civil list was down from £14.2m to £13.7m, and grants for property maintenance were down from £15.4m to £11.9m. In a statement Sir Alan said: “The Queen is very keen that the royal household should continue to reduce its expenditure in line with public expenditure reductions.” “The decrease in expenditure is due mainly to increased income generation, the deferral of property maintenance expenditure and the implementation of a pay freeze. This pay freeze will continue onto this year. However he warned the palace can not continue cutting at the same rate: “Over the past five years The Queen’s official expenditure has reduced by 19% in real terms and while the royal household will continue to identify efficiencies it will be very difficult for overall expenditure to reduce very much further without impacting on the royal household’s activities in support of the Queen and the long-term health of the estate.” Legislation is currently before parliament to change funding the Queen’s official spending to a new system called the sovereign grant, the biggest shakeup since the creation of the civil list – when the crown surrendered revenues from estates and assets in return for an annual grant – in the mid 18th century. Announcing the change in October, the chancellor, George Osborne, announced that the taxpayer’s funding of the Queen would remain frozen for a further year, and that royal spending would be expected to reduce by 14% by 2012-13. The Queen Monarchy Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 4, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.