Jayne Dowle: Come reign or shine, Queen’s team has had head in sand over state of palaces

As I look around my own estate, which is not quite as big as the Queen’s, admittedly, I feel a big sisterly hug of sympathy coming on. I’ve got leaks. I’ve got a central heating system which racks up astronomical bills. I’ve got cracks in the walls and a hole in my finances. For once, though, I feel lucky. It’s large. However, it’s nowhere near as large as £50m, the estimated cost of getting a man in for all the Queen’s essential jobs. And although my rickety old Edwardian house is always full of other people’s children demanding food, I don’t have a responsibility to the nation to keep it going.

Whatever your views about the Royal family, you cannot deny that they are good for British business. The inevitable republican voices have been shouting up, demanding to know whether the Royals are worth the investment. Bringing party politics into it is irrelevant, though. Thousands, if not millions, of tourists visit this country every year just to see where the Queen and her family live. Americans already think we’re shabby because we don’t have proper showers. We can’t have them going back home telling Idaho that Buckingham Palace is falling down. And don’t forget, we’re talking about some of our most important historic buildings. We can’t let them rot.

It sounds like the Royal Household has been avoiding the issue for years. According to the Committee’s report into the Sovereign Grant, the sum awarded to the Queen to support her public duties, much of the cost for the maintenance work has not even been estimated. This is irresponsible in the extreme. I’m always getting estimates for one job or another. In fact, I wake up in the night doing four (and five) figure sums in my head. And scarily, there is only £1m left in the Royal coffers to pay for all those repairs. I’m no psychologist, but I detect a severe case of head-in-the-sand here. Any decent financial adviser – or indeed, anyone with an ounce of common sense – will tell you that avoiding budgetary problems because they seem insurmountable is never the way to tackle them.

Surely it is not beyond those who run her affairs to address the issue and take action. It makes you wonder what they are paid for. The Royal Household has 53 executives earning £50,000 or more a year. Some of them have fancy titles such as “Comptroller of the Royal Chamberlain’s Office”, which suggest a degree of fiscal clout. And some of the top management have had pay rises in the region of £7,000 a year while low level staff have had their wages frozen. If the Royal Household was a local council, there would be a righteous outcry. It needs to look to its own financial practices as a matter of urgency. It’s our taxes which
help to pay their wages. They should be responsible and accountable.

If this lot could afford the rates of any decent management consultancy, they would be told that streamlining their systems has to be a priority. As we know, though, effecting change in the Royal Family is akin to turning round a very sluggish oil tanker. It takes years, if not decades. What’s needed are some quick-fix money-making schemes which won’t scare the Royal horses – or the tourists away.

Here’s my advice, for free. When outgoings outweigh income, you’ve got to be inventive. I’ve thought about renting out my garden for parties, but the neighbours are a bit too close to wear it.

However, the Queen’s grand palaces are not generally subject to the jurisdiction of Neighbourhood Watch. She can pretty much do what she likes with them. I’m not saying that she should put up Sandringham as a venue for the next series of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, but it’s a thought. Even the grandest of country aristos is not above turning over a wing or two for paying functions. Surely, a classy way can be found to do it without jeopardising the security of the Royal Family.

Remember the outcry over renting out Buckingham Palace for that J.P Morgan dinner hosted by the Duke of York? It was misplaced and hypocritical. We’ve just come through one of the biggest recessions in modern times. We’ve all had to make sacrifices. Here was Buck House trying to make ends meet, and still MPs chuntered as if Prince George had been sent out to climb chimneys.

“This should be a special place. This is the home of the Queen. Where’s it all going to end?” spluttered Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee. There’s only one answer to that. In the queue for the payday loans company.