Queen Camillas private secretary only makes half of the kings private secretary

One of the weirdly fascinating parts of The Crown is how little the monarch concerns themselves with staff issues, even for senior staff in significant – perhaps even vital – positions. Something The Crown does well is show how Queen Elizabeth II really didn’t know how to be an executive, and she had no idea how to manage staff or assign real tasks or even hire the best people for the job. She was often treated like an employee too. Well, it’s different with King Charles and Queen Camilla. Not better or worse, just different. Charles actually does have “managerial experience” and he was known for being very involved with the Duchy of Cornwall and his various charities and foundations. He also amassed a huge staff as Prince of Wales, and many of those people were brought over to Buckingham Palace when he became king. In all of the kerfuffle of title-changes and redundancies, it turns out that Charles’s private secretary gets paid double that of Camilla’s private secretary. These are technically civil service positions, but still.

The King’s male private secretary is paid more than double the salary of the Queen’s female top aide. Figures published for the first time reveal that Sir Clive Alderton, Charles’s right-hand man, is paid between £205,000 and £210,000, while Sophie Densham, Camilla’s private secretary, receives between £90,000 and £95,000.

Their salaries were disclosed in the annual sovereign grant report, which sets out taxpayer-funded expenditure used to support the monarch’s official duties. They were previously paid from the private income Charles, then Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, received from the Duchy of Cornwall estate, which does not publish staff salaries.

The report also disclosed that Alderton is “provided with housing for the better performance” of his duties, with the undisclosed rent deducted from his salary “at a rate agreed with HM Treasury”. He is understood to reside in accommodation at Marlborough House, next to Clarence House, Charles and Camilla’s London residence, and within walking distance of his Buckingham Palace office.

Densham, a mother in her forties who is often described as “a safe pair of hands”, worked in the Buckingham Palace co-ordination and research unit before joining Camilla’s private office in 2008. She became her assistant private secretary in 2015 and her private secretary in 2021, and played a pivotal role in helping Camilla adjust to royal life and boosting her public profile.

As private secretaries to the King and Queen, Alderton and Densham’s duties include overseeing their diary of engagements, accompanying them on overseas tours, providing counsel and liaising with other members of the royal family. Alderton also acts as a member of the “golden triangle” — comprising the monarch’s private secretary, the cabinet secretary and the prime minister’s principal private secretary — and serves as Buckingham Palace’s key link to Downing Street on constitutional matters.

A former senior courtier said: “I’m really shocked by the disparity and I’m astonished by Sophie’s salary — that is a kick in the teeth. She is a real grafter, and hers is a massive, bloody busy job.”

Responding to a question about the disparity between Alderton and Densham’s salaries, a Buckingham Palace official said: “Her [Densham] remuneration package is set to a comparable position of the private secretary to the late Duke of Edinburgh.”

A royal source who knows Alderton and Densham well, said: “Whether you think there’s a disparity in the pay because of their sex, rather than their seniority, there is a question there. Sophie is known as being a very capable and dedicated support to the Queen.”

[From The Times]

While Alderton is more “senior” and he’s the private secretary to the bloody king, that still doesn’t excuse Densham making half of what Alderton makes. AND Alderton gets a grace-and-favour apartment too, and you know he’s not “paying” market rent for it. The answer is: giving Camilla’s private secretary a raise, and a significant one at that. This should have been worked out months ago – no, it should have been worked out before QEII passed away, back when Charles and Camilla’s staff were being paid by Duchy money. This is actually a classic case of so-called “women’s work” being undervalued – they think because Densham is a woman working for a woman, their work is not as important or valuable.

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