Palace accounts revealed yesterday that the cost of the Royal Family fell over last year. After a round of tightening finances and the Queen ‘dipped’ into her savings a bit the household required seven pence less to run per taxpayer, totalling to 62p per taxpayer.
A spokesman for the family said that it was mainly due to less overseas travel via commercial charter flights over last year, and a refund of the lease rentals on the helicopter for the Queen, which was replaced in 2009.
In addition, the Queen also used her reserve fund in order to boost her income for civil list up to £6.5m. This is the most that has ever been taken out of the account, which is the accumulation of civil list money from the 1990s.
The cost of keeping the monarchy decreased during the 2009-2010 financial year according to Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir Alan Reid who stated that the household was aware that the economic climate was rocky and thus took care to reduce its total civil list costs.
Reid continued to say that they are taking a close look at each vacancy to see if the jobs really need replaced. He also said that the household is looking at other ways to generate income from assets since in the longer term the estate will need some maintenance work done.
If the Queen were to continue to use her reserve fund, it would be dry near the start of 2012 which is also the year of her Diamond Jubilee.
