King Charles III might be busier than ever during this period of national mourning, but the rest of the country is essentially on hold – including all royal staff.
The Times has revealed that there is a six-month grace period after the death of a sovereign in Palace’s employees’ contracts. After that, it’s not clear if they’ll be kept on.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment when approached by the newspaper.
The reports come just days after the Guardian revealed that dozens of employees from Charles’ former home at Clarence House were notified at the weekend that they might soon be made redundant.
This is supposedly because their boss is expected to move to Buckingham Palace, although this relocation is yet to be confirmed.
Private secretaries, those working in the finance office, comms teams and household staff were all notified by Charles’ most senior aide, Sir Clive Alderton on Monday that they might lose their jobs.
The employees reportedly received the notice during the thanksgiving service for Charles’ mother, held in Edinburgh’s St Giles’ Cathedral.
Sources told the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar that many had assumed they would be moved on with the king to his new household – meaning “everybody is absolutely livid” now, especially as they had been working long hours ever since the Queen’s death.
The source added: “People were left visibly shaken by it.”
Allegedly, no final decisions have been made just yet, as a consultation period is currently in place.
The residence’s annual review suggests that as of March 31, 2021, it had 101.7 employees (part-time workers are referred to as less than one).
According to the Guardian’s report, those made redundant are usually allowed to search for alternative employment across all royal households, receive help in looking for new external roles, and get an “enhanced” redundancy pay.
Clarence House said that as “operations” of Charles and Camilla’s former household have now ceased, with the couple now King and Queen consort, “some redundancies will be unavoidable”.
Safe to say, the claims did not go down well on Twitter in the middle of a cost of living crisis.
It’s worth pointing out that Charles is long thought to have championed a “slimmed-down monarchy”, which essentially cuts down the costs of the entire royal family to the taxpayer.
Still, this is not the first bit of unflattering news about the new monarch to emerge since he automatically inherited the throne last week.
He has gone viral twice now for losing his temper over the placement of a pen during his official tour of the four nation states of the UK. One incident occurred on Tuesday in Northern Ireland, and another when he was signing the official accession proclamation on Saturday.
And while Charles’ schedule is more packed than ever, the rest of the country seems to have slipped into standby mode ahead of the Queen’s funeral next Monday.
The occasion will be a bank holiday, but it seems all kinds of places are shutting down out of respect for the late Queen – including some cinemas, bike racks and even food banks.
Center Parcs even briefly announced it was closing for the funeral, meaning anyone in their UK sites on Monday would have be kicked out for 24 hours, although public backlash means the company have now U-turned.