£86.3 million from your back pocket: A breakdown of how the royal family spends taxpayers’ money each year
The total taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant came to £86.3 million in 2021-2022
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Your support makes all the difference.Here are some of the key figures from the royal accounts for 2020-2021:
£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.
£102.4 million – Official expenditure by the monarchy – a rise of £14.9 million or 17% from £87.5 million in 2020/2021.
£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.
9.6% – Proportion of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds working for Buckingham Palace, compared to 8.5% in 2020-21. The target was 10%.
10.6% – Proportion of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds working for Clarence House.
13.6% – Proportion of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds working for Kensington Palace.
£63.9 million – Spending on property maintenance – up £14.4 million or 29% from £49.5 million in 2020-21.
201 – Official engagements carried out by the Queen in the last financial year – 88 more than the 113 she undertook in 2020-2021 during the pandemic.
Almost 2,300 – Official engagements by the royals in the UK and overseas, compared to 1,470 last year.
491– Full-time equivalent staff paid for from the Sovereign Grant, with the wage bill coming to £23.7 million.
£1.3 million– Cost of housekeeping and hospitality for the royal household – an increase of half a million or 55%.
£4.5million – Cost of official royal travel, a rise of £1.2 million or around 41% from £3.2 million the previous year.
£4.4 million – The Prince of Wales’s bill for the Cambridges’ activities, plus Charles’s other expenditure including his capital expenditure and transfer to reserves. Charles no longer pays for the Sussexes.
£1.2 million – Decrease in this bill over two years since 2019-2020 when Harry and Meghan were full-time working royals.
£23 million – Charles’s annual private income from the Duchy of Cornwall landed estate, up from £20.4 million in 2020-21.
£3.3 million – Charles’s non-official expenditure for himself and his family including salary costs of personal staff and a proportion of costs of gardeners and estate workers and the cost of Highgrove and Birkhall.
£107,000 – Official costs of Charles’s London office and official residence Clarence House.
£5.9 million – Charles’s tax bill.
£226,383 – Cost of official travel for William and Kate’s controversial Caribbean tour.
£138,457 – Charles’s travel costs for trip to Barbados to mark country’s transition to a republic.