HAVING revolutionised the running and financing of Buckingham Palace, Sir Michael Peat is now conducting the same overhaul and deep-clean at the court of the Queen’s eldest son.

The 53-year-old City accountant was hired by the Queen in 1991 after Margaret Thatcher had set the Civil List for a ten-year period and offered the Palace a challenge to make the money last. When the period ended in 2000, Sir Michael had made such draconian savings and efficiencies – aided by a long spell of low inflation – that he had accumulated a surplus of £35 million in the bank.

Under Sir Michael’s direction the Queen got rid of the Royal Yacht Britannia, agreed to start paying income tax, and removed all members of her family from the public subsidy of the Civil List apart from herself, her husband and her mother.

He trod on many toes along the way; the Palace had been used to its money being handled by retired cavalry officers who, although beyond reproach for dedication and honesty, were essentially amateurs when faced with a budget or a balance sheet.

His dispatch by the Queen to St James’s Palace had political as well as financial motives. For years the courts of the monarch and her heir had been at loggerheads, divided by different styles and entirely separate courtiers with different priorities and outlooks.

The two offices spoke only when necessary. Buckingham Palace looked with disdain on the lax and avowedly independent way that the Prince of Wales conducted his household; at times the Queen’s staff believed that St James’s Palace was bordering on the actively hostile.

Sir Michael, who draws the largest salary in the Royal Household (£172,000) and has the largest staff apartment in Kensington Palace (for which he pays £47,000 a year in rent) was the man most trusted by the Queen to take St James’s Palace and its principal occupant in hand.

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