The first thing that people need to get away from is that the civil list or the paying back of the civil list is the salary of the royal - it is actually the payment for the running of the office of that royal. It mostly goes towards the salary of the staff.
Now I would like it to be that the staff of the royal is inproportion with the amount of work the royal does, but it isn't for several reasons. The Queen, Duke of Edinburgh and Prince of Wales have the largest staff and the most experienced and therefore most expensive staff. The same can now be said about Camilla, William and Harry. Good PR gurus, media consulatants and lawyers cost money.
But why Camilla has a staff of over fifty people is beyond me. The problem with Andrew's staff is that is inflated, he is still running around with staff for Sarah, why are they there I have no idea. The staff should match the need of the royal. He unfortunately falls ino the same category of the Kent, Glouchesters and Princess Alexander, their staff has been with him forever and thus have nice little bloated salaries. The Princess Royal steamlined her office so that she would have less to pay.
Prince Edward's office is a more recent one. It consisted of three people until 2001 and now it has increased to 4 since him and Sophie stopped working. It thus incurs the less expense as there are very little people and they have relatively little experience. Sophie doesn't techinically have a office as she uses Edward's staff - I understand that they recently changed. So she doesn't get paid by the civil list.
But really shouldn't the staff of the royal and the money they receive be a direct reflection to the role that royal holds and amount of engagements they do?
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