This coming week is Holyrood Week in Scotland, and King Charles and Camilla arrived in Scotland early. On Saturday, they attended the opening ceremony for Scotland’s Parliament and Charles made a speech. Charles wore a kilt as well, which he loves. Prince Philip was like that too, always ready to throw on the kilt for public events in Scotland. I hope everyone knows that the Windsor tradition of kilt-wearing dies with Charles. Charles’ heir does not care. Prince William finds all of it so embarrassing – the kilts, the capes, the robes, the church-going.
Anyway, throughout Holyrood Week, everyone can expect to see a lot of Charles and Camilla. They’ll open up the Palace of the Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, they’ll host at least one garden party, and they’ll have some low-key outings to highlight local crafts and culture. People Magazine made a big deal about how this was Charles’ first outing since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s office confirmed that they’ll visit the UK in July, and that Deadbeat Grandpa Charles will see his two ginger grandkids for the first time in over four years.
Meanwhile, reporters are still looking over all of the financial documents released by Buckingham Palace last week. Charles released information about his income taxes, and as it turns out, they also released a report about the demographics within the palace, meaning the gender breakdown and the still-nonexistant diversity czar.
Buckingham Palace has today opened its annual accounts to shared details of how the monarchy has spent public money in the last financial year as well as its performance in other areas. And one of the things that has come to light is the fact that it has missed its own diversity target when it comes to the number of members of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds.
“As we shape a Household fit for the future, we have also sought to ensure our workforce properly reflects the society it serves,” Keeper of the Privy Purse James Chalmers—the King’s personal treasurer—told reporters today. “We are proud therefore that the gender balance of our staff remains broadly equal, with 54 per cent female employees and a mean gender pay gap of just 4.3 per cent, more than 8 per cent lower than the national average. However, we should be honest that some challenges remain. Our proportion of ethnic minority employees stands at approximately 12 per cent of our total workforce, 2 per cent short of our stated target for this year of 14 per cent. This is a disappointment.”
In the Palace’s report, it said that the reduction in ethnic minority representation amongst staff was down to a combination of factors, including the fact that staff turnover slowed last year. The reports said that the Palace intends to now move to a longer-term goal to have 18% of staff from ethnic minority backgrounds. It did not put a timeframe on this.
“We recognise that more work needs to be done, and is already being done, to improve the diversity of our workforce,” James Chalmers said. “To that end, we have raised our long-term ambitions to build a future workforce in line with UK census data for those from ethnic minority backgrounds, supported by a refreshed Inclusivity and Diversity Strategy designed to accelerate sustained and targeted progress.”
Kensington Palace also released figures today that showed that its staff is 73% female and 27% male with 14.9% from an ethnic minority background.
Over the years, BP has included their pitiful diversity numbers before, but they never actually break down where these people of color are actually working within the household. I’d be willing to bet that the 12% of “ethnic minorities” are almost entirely in junior positions and/or they were assigned palace work via the military. Same with Kensington Palace, although this seems to be the first year that KP has released their diversity numbers. Pale-and-stale is the order of the day and both Charles and William are surrounded by old, white men with outdated views. I’d be willing to bet that KP’s 73% female employees all have white male bosses too.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
