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Dozens of staff at Clarence House, the residence of Charles III when he was Prince of Wales before becoming the new King, will soon be made redundant amid ceremonies to bid farewell to the late Elizabeth II.
As many as a hundred workers at the king’s former official residence have received letters informing them that their services are no longer required and that they will be helped to find new jobs, The Guardian revealed Tuesday.
Those affected include private secretaries, the finance office, the communications team and household staff, some of whom have decades of seniority, who received the news in the middle of a church service in honor of the Queen at St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh yesterday, Monday.
“Everybody is absolutely livid, including private secretaries and the senior team. All the staff have been working late every night since Thursday, to be met with this. People were visibly shaken by it,” an unnamed source told The Guardian.
In a letter, accessed by that newspaper, Charles III’s chief adviser, Clive Alderton, explained to employees that “the change in role for our principals will also mean change for our household.”
“The portfolio of work previously undertaken in this household supporting the former Prince of Wales’s personal interests, former activities and household operations will no longer be carried out, and the household at Clarence House will be closed down,” Alderton noted.
“It is therefore expected that the need for the posts principally based at Clarence House, whose work supports these areas will no longer be needed,” he adds.
While acknowledging that this is “unsettling” news, Alderton informs employees of the support they will receive to relocate to other jobs and the “enhanced” redundancy payment they will receive beyond what is required by law.
A spokesperson for Clarence House explained that operations at the Prince of Wales’s residence have ended and therefore “a consultation process has begun,” which will mean that “while some redundancies will be unavoidable,” they are working to “identify alternative roles for the greatest number of staff.”
According to the Clarence House annual summary, Charles III employed the equivalent of 101 full-time staff, a third of whom worked in the private secretaries’ office.
