Palace to cut staff

Press, 29 March 1982, Page 9

Palace to cut staff

NZPA London The Queen has ordered that the staff of the Royal household should be cut. ’ K Buckingham Palace is finding it hard to make ends meet despite an 8 per cent rise to $10,866,400 in Civil List payments to the Royal Family, the “Sunday Telegraph” reports. Some domestic and clerical work at the Palace was being contracted out to private companies while word processors and modern telephone systems had been introduced in a drive to make the organisation behind the Royal Family more efficient. Last year, Buckingham Palace staff was reduced 20 to 346 but more jobs would go this year, the newspaper said.

The Queen had cut her personal staff to the mini-

mum requirement of dressers and valets.

The cost of stationery and office services was reduced $115,600 or so last year, the “Sunday Telegraph" said. Buckingham Palace acknowledges hundreds of thousands of letters from the public each year.

When Prince Charles became engaged such was the avalanche of letters and congratulations that the Palace called in members of the W.R.N.S. (Women’s Royal Naval Service) to help with replies.

Unless the letters are insulting or obscene, they are all acknowledged. .In that work, word processors have been invaluable in cutting office staff.

The red-and-gold liveried footmen have also been given a multi-purpose role in

a bid to make maximum use of staff.

The Queen's press secretary, Michael Shea, said: “Footmen don’t just lurk in corners any more: They wait and act as messengers and porters.”

The Civil List payments, which are not salaries paid to the Royal Family, but reimbursements of expenses incurred in the performance of its public duties, fall short of inflation.

It is likely that the Palace will run at a deficit in the financial year, 1982-83, and' that the Queen will have to subsidise spending as sovereign from her private purse.

She contributed $251,337 from her private fortune to make up a shortfall in Government funding over Royal spending in 1980.