Newly-published Sovereign Grant accounts show King Charles has begun his reign with royal expenditure, funded by the taxpayer, rising for the second year running.
The figure for net expenditure increased by £5.1 million, or 5 per cent, to £107.5 million for 2022-23, which royal aides said was due to the change of monarchs, inflation and the continued costs of Buckingham Palace’s reservicing programme, a 10-year project to update the electrical cabling, plumbing and heating.
The Sovereign Grant remained unchanged at £86.3 million during 2022/23.
Here are some of the key figures from the royal accounts for 2022-2023.
– £86.3 million – The total taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant, made up of £51.8 million for the “core” funding and an extra £34.5 million for the reservicing of Buckingham Palace.
– £107.5 million – Official net expenditure by the monarchy, a rise of £5.1 million or 5% from £102.4 million in 2021/2022.
– £1.6 million – Amount spent from the Sovereign Grant on the late Queen’s funeral.
– £700,000 – Amount spent from the Sovereign Grant on the Platinum Jubilee (including £300,000 from 2022-23)
– 517 – Full-time equivalent staff paid for from the Sovereign Grant, including fixed term contracts, up from 491.
– £27.1 million – The wage bill for staff, up £3.4 million, or 14%, from £23.7 million the year before.
– £2.4 million – Cost of housekeeping and hospitality for the royal household, up £1.1 million from £1.3 million.
– £3.9 million – Cost of official royal travel, a drop of £0.6 million or about 13%, from £4.5 million the previous year.
– £1.02 million – Cost of 179 helicopter journeys made by members of the royal family.
– £186,571 – Cost of charter flights for the King and Queen to Rwanda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
– £146,219 – Charter flights for the King and Queen’s first official state visit, to Germany in March 2023.
– £25,687 – Cost of a residence-to-residence charter flight for the King, when he flew from Aberdeen to Northolt in October 2022.
– £1.29 – Cost per person in the UK of funding the total Sovereign Grant
– 77p – Cost per person of the “core” part of the Sovereign Grant for official duties, not including funds for the long-term Buckingham Palace works.
– 183,207 – Items of correspondence received by Buckingham Palace in 2022-23 including 67,693 before the Queen’s death, and 115,244 afterwards, making it the busiest year on record for incoming post.
– 9.7 per cent – Proportion of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds working for Buckingham Palace, compared with 9.7 per cent in 2021-22 and 8.5 per cent in 2020-21. The target was 10 per cent and is now 14 per cent.
– 16.3 per cent – Proportion of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds working for Kensington Palace. (13.6 per cent last year)
– More than 2,700 – Official engagements by members of the royal family in the UK and overseas, compared with 2,300 last year.
– £5.9 million – Prince of Wales’s private income from the Duchy of Cornwall landed estate – for about six months he spent as a new heir to the throne in 2022-23.
– £6.9 million – Amount of money kept by the landed estate for day-to-day running, instead of going to William as salary.
– £12.8 million – Salary the King received as the Prince of Wales from the Duchy.
– £24 million – The total annual Duchy of Cornwall profit for 2022-23, which would ordinarily have been William’s full salary.
Related: Rising corporate profits ‘largest contributor to inflation’ over past two years – IMF
