The Queen is broke; long live the Queen!
07 Jul 2011
The Queen of England is low on funds as usual. Reports have been emanating from Buckingham Palace for the last couple of years about the royal family's inability to meet basic maintenance needs and almost necessarily regal lifestyle, but austerity measures by the UK government have increasingly put the throne under financial pressure.
Accounts released by 'Buck Palace' last week show there is a growing backlog of repairs to the queen's official residence as well as other royal residences like St James's Palace and Windsor Castle, which could all fall into disrepair as funding from the public exchequer steadily dries up.
The cost of repairing the crumbling facade of Buckingham Palace alone is estimated at £3.5 million – which has been granted; but other key projects have been on hold. These included replacing lead and slate roofs, refurbishing state rooms and overhauling antiquated heating systems.
In 2010, the monarch received £11.9 million from the public purse or 'civil list' to maintain and repair her homes. But because of a pay freeze she can only carry out emergency repairs to the buildings, and says she will need more money to stop the royal households from falling apart at the seams.
The official Buckingham Palace report claimed that as well as postponing projects, the Queen has tried to balance the books with increased revenues from her estate. "However, these initiatives alone are unlikely to be successful in averting the growth in backlog in future years," it said.
While more money is required for work on the royal residences, the cost to taxpayers of supporting the Queen actually fell by £1.8million in the last financial year. The monarch's expenditure dropped by 5.3 per cent, from £33.9 million in 2009-10 to £32.1 million.
