As the dust settles on her phenomenally successful Golden Jubilee celebrations, the Queen has taken another step towards modernising the monarchy. From now on, the royal matriarch is to publish her “civil list” accounts on an annual basis, confirmed Buckingham Palace on Sunday, giving the public a unique insight into her household’s spending habits.
The civil list consists of the £7.9 million in state funds that the Queen receives annually for household staff, entertaining visiting heads of states, cars, uniforms and stationery. Until now, the itemised list of operating costs has only been published every 10 years – something senior courtiers say that the Palace has been trying to change since the mid-Nineties.
“The royal household prides itself on being the most transparent and accountable user of public funds in the country, and probably in the world,” says Sir Michael Peat, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, who will move from Buckingham Palace to St James’s Palace this summer when he becomes Prince Charles’s private secretary.
The first set of annual accounts will be released June 27. The civil list is just one of many state sources of income for the Queen. Other yearly allowances, which are already declared publicly each year, include £7.25 million for travel, £15 million for maintenance of royal palaces and £500,000 for communications and information.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
The civil list consists of the £7.9 million the Queen receives from Parliament annually, two-thirds of which goes to funding for household staff
Photo: © Alphapress.com
“The royal household prides itself on being the most transparent and accountable user of public funds in the country, and probably in the world,” says Sir Michael Peat, the Keeper of the Privy Purse
