The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are always hemorrhaging staff, more so than any other royal. I understand that Prince Charles and Diana also had a revolving door of office and house staff, but with Will and Kate, it feels different, mostly because we’re often supposed to believe that they are just a humble, normal, middle-class family that gets by with, like, a part-time maid. No. They go through staffers like crazy. Household staff get driven out by Carole Middleton, who basically lives with Will and Kate and tries to run their household. Office staff gets driven out by William’s constant hissy fits and tantrums. Their current press secretary, Jason Knuaf, has actually been with them for a few years, which is a small miracle. But now I’m wondering if Poor Jason is being phased out, because the Cambridges have put an ad for a new “senior communications officer” on LinkenIn.
The royals are hiring! Prince William, Duchess Kate and Prince Harry took to LinkedIn to list a job opening for a senior communications officer. According to the job posting, the full-time, mid-senior level role is based at Kensington Palace in London and focuses primarily on the activity of their Royal Foundation.
“This role will work both reactively and proactively to manage the daily news flow to the media, ensuring items are accurately and positively reported and received by audiences via traditional, digital and social media,” the listing reads. The royals are searching for a candidate with experience in public relations, marketing, writing and editing, in addition to a degree or equivalent qualification. The ideal candidate should also have experiencing working for a charity.
“They will take the lead on The Royal Foundation communications plans and the delivery of engagements as necessary and will work closely with both TRH’s communications secretary and the CEO of the foundation,” the job description reads. “Drafting and circulating press lines will also be a key part of the role, as well as organizing and giving press briefings and responding to out of hour’s media enquiries. The senior communications officer will also be required to conduct research for special projects and contribute to strategic discussions and will provide support to the overall household communications team.”
The candidate must also remain discreet about the inner workings of the palace. “The ability to make decisions, using integrity and judgment whilst exercising caution, is also an essential requisite for the job, as is the ability to handle sensitive information with tact and discretion at all times,” the posting concludes.
This sounds like a newly created position, as opposed to a position left vacant by some fleeing office worker fearful of another one of Work-Shy Will’s tantrums. The Royal Foundation is actually little more than a tax shelter and clearinghouse with no real agenda beyond “sounding fancy” and “making Will, Harry and Kate look like they’re doing more than they actually are.” The Royal Foundation hosts premieres and the odd benefit and raises money throughout the year. Money for what? Who knows? The foundation gives some money away to some worthy causes, but that’s basically it.
Whoever gets hired for this position will be drawing a salary from the money raised for actual people in need. That’s one of the complaints about Prince Charles’ signature foundation, The Prince’s Trust, that Charles has built a large bureaucracy and that too much money is going to pay the salaries of The Prince’s Trust employees, rather than the people the trust purports to help. That being said, The Prince’s Trust does something very tangible (gives scholarships and loans to youths and creates/sponsors a lot of youth-work programs) and the trust actually does give away a lot of money they raise. Can the same be said for Will, Kate and Harry’s foundation? Or are they just hiring someone else to help them look good? Also: whoever they hire will probably only last one year, if that.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Beats Craigslist.
Hmm. Seems to me the money would be better used if it went directly to the calories that need it, rather than via Will & Kate?
Read ‘charities’ for ‘calories’ haha!
haha was gonna say “I know she’s skinny but jesus…”
(joke)
Haha Lindy that did cross my mind when I noticed!
Exactly.
At first i felt poor jason has had enough. I can see Prince Harry needing communicatuon staff – he actually do work.
Surely there are placement agencies used to dealing with the staffing needs of the upper — excuse me — middle class? Hell, next thing you know they’ll be posting ads on Craigslist.
I work in comms in London and I can’t lie, I’m genuinely considering applying for this now, just so I could get the inside scoop on what William is really like with his staff. I would report back!
Haha please do!
Do it! Someone I work with now is applying, too – just to see what the interview process is like. Ha!
lol, CB awaits!
@ Vex
I am not sure you would have a good experience working for W+K. And you would have to sign a confidentiality agreement. And more.
Please do it and after a couple of years write a tell-all book. 😀
Go for it. It could be an experience that would make you a popular dinner guest for the next 30 years. We would of course expect sly updates.
YYYeeeesss, but you will have to give us updates with code names and such because no doubt you would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement..
If you get the job, make sure you take plenty of Valium with you to get through Willy’s tantrums.
@ Vex : take one for the team
The issue of mid/senior level employees being paid high salaries out of charitable donations is an issue that many (most?) charities face though.
The difference is, that most charities really DO have a primary goal to HELP – whether through education or research or whatever – whereas these royal charities have a primary objective to justify the Royal’s existence/keep them busy/make them look good — kind of different from providing clean water or a cure for cancer, y’know?
The way I see it, the CEO of CRUK being paud £100k+ doesn’t bother me – he is in effect overseeing a HUGE operation and thousands of employees, and doing some amazing work and should be compensated as such from the charity’s budget. People working for these Royal charities whose primary goal (lets be honest) is to make their bosses look less shit…well sorry they don’t qualify for the same.
What would be really fantastic is if Will/Kate Harry could REALLY work with EXISTING charities – you know really commit, really contribute – they already HAVE an infrastructure etc, no need for W+K focused PR folks to be paid out of charitable donations. But that would require them being accountable..soo…
Well put, Clare.
Agreed! A charity cannot just collect money in a vacuum. Staff is needed and that does cost money which is a fact of life.
I concur.
The year I read their financials, their biggest support was to the Invictus Games.
ITA, well put.
Charles established the trust for William and Harry so they could peruse their own philanthropic interests, much like Charles has done with his own trust. The endowment has likely hit a critical mass and it’s time for them to get serious. I see no issue with them hiring staff to transition the trust into a working entity.
Fair to say they do peruse. Have we been wrong to expect them to also pursue? Freudian typo methinks.
Some numbers:
Well-organised and highly effective private charities burn up to 25%-30% of the donated money for administrative costs.
No, they don’t “burn up” money. Charities are businesses, and like all business they have to pay rent, utilities, insurance, salaries, they need accounting and HR departments, etc. I don’t get why people think charities should operate on shoestring budgets and pay poverty wages. That is hardly a recipe for effectiveness.
Non-profits have operating costs as high as for profit organizations. When I ran a social entreprise and community service organization the lack of funding was overwhelming..we had 12 part-time paid staff and 40 volunteers – people complained and refused to donate unless they knew how much I made after a news report listing the salaries of non-profit CEO’s so I posted my salary on facebook – for a 50 – 60 hour 6 day week – I made the princely sum of $42,000.00 of which I donated 20 percent back to the organization. I paid a living wage to the employees they were the best of the best..I couldn’t afford to pay them their actual worth. It was an incredible job – but the stress finally got to me..so I finally left. Maybe I should apply – we could relocate to London…a sassy Indigenous woman working for a snippy prince..I can see it now.
Charities are audited yearly. One cannot pay themselves a massive wage.
Joannie
They can and do!
The audits are often not in-depth unless something obviously criminal is happening. And even in those rare cases nothing might come of it or it’s delayed and dragged out for years. If that happens, and it does very often, the investigation ends. It’s truly frustrating.
@FLORC Annual nonprofit audits are extremely in-depth and detailed, as are 990’s filed with the IRS. There is so much misinformation about charity oversight, let’s not add to it.
It does not say that the position will be paid by the Foundation. It says the position will work primarily on the Foundation. That means it is another taxpayer-funded staff person to try to make them look good. Focusing on making it look like the Foundation is doing anything other than poaching donor money from other charities.
Please show how the taxpayers will be funding this person. If anyone funds it other than the foundation it will be Charles, and the income he gets is his own.
The taxpayers have an interest in the Duchy not the income derived from it.
Again, you and I will never agree about the Duchy. He doesn’t own it, it isn’t “his” income. He doesn’t have the rights to profligate overuse or misuse of the income from the Duchy.
The red cross from what I have read, those folks are paid quite well!
That’s because you are not correct, nas. He doesn’t own the Duchy, it’s true. But he is entitled to the income from it.
And he absolutely does have the right if it’s his income; the only limits are if he’s a minor or if there is no Duke.
The Duchy of Cornwall (Cornish: Duketh Kernow) is one of two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Lancaster. The eldest son of the reigning British monarch inherits possession of the duchy and title of Duke of Cornwall at birth or when his parent succeeds to the throne, but may not sell assets for personal benefit and has limited rights and income as a minor. If the monarch has no male children, the rights and responsibilities of the duchy belong to The Crown and there is no duke. The current duke is Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales.
That’s from Wikipedia. This is from a website called Who Owns England (and I’ll be reading further in it!).
The Duchy was created in 1337 by Edward III, as a personal endowment for his son, the Black Prince. Ever since, its lands and revenues have belonged to the male heir to the throne – in recent times, Charles, Prince of Wales. (Note that in the absence of a male heir, the Duchy reverts to the Sovereign; another discriminatory anachronism.) Prince Charles can’t simply do what he likes with the Duchy, mind; its capital assets are held in trust and he has no access to them, and the Treasury must approve all land transactions over £500k. Nevertheless, the Prince receives a healthy annual income from the Duchy, and he plays an active role in the management of the estate.
Established to fund the instrument of government, which does not have to include monarchy. Income but not personal income, doesn’t belong to him. Income that is to be used responsibly, as whatever is left goes back into the Duchy. If he were to economize and save 500,000 a year in expenses, he doesn’t get to pocket the difference as personal monies.
Every penny he and his line misuse is money that could be spent on improving the Duchy. Very simple example, increasing energy efficiency in the properties leased out by the Duchy so the lives of those living in them are made better. Making the properties of the Duchy worth more, increasing the value of something
This is why the sidestep away from FOI requests is so dangerous. Every penny of the Duchy needs to be watched constantly. Ex. Why exactly did he use that money to invest in property in Romania instead of improving Duchy properties in the UK?
The thing with the Princes Trust is that is HAS created a really good nationwide structure and network that successfully partners and integrates with other charities and state agencies. So it does cost money to run and needs a lot of actual, salaried employees to adequately run a large number of practical programmes.
I very much doubt the same thing will be said of Bill and Cathy’s foundation, which on the evidence so far, will be an amorphous blob of “initiatives” amounting to very little practical, on-the-ground activity. It’ll spend most of its time ligging off the work other charities are doing.
Call me cynical!
Hello Cynical! I find I must agree.
Duke of Edinburgh Awards is another case in point. Not cheap to run. But fulfilling an actual and valuable service and function.
I don’t see anything from Bill and Cathy that suggests to me any foundation they run will engage in much more than pontificating and navel-gazing fronted by the odd bit of advocacy in a TV interview or visit.
Not the same thing at all.
Apparently Bill and Cathy think they were just depicted wrongly in the press. Hey, they aren’t lazy but it is just bad reporting.
*LOL*
So obviously they need a new pr guy.
But they have those cool blue headbands.
EXACTLY!
I mean, if they were going to institute a practical programme that made a real-world, quantifiable difference in lives, I wouldn’t blink at overhead.
But they aren’t, are they? They are going to turn up in blue headbands three times a year and get their photo taken at a “summit” with the charities actually doing the quantifiable work twice a year. So yes, I do blink at overhead.
If you compare the taxpayer’s charity with the so-called philanthropist’s charities then the latter look rather pitiful.
The taxpayer pays for social programms which keep millions of people housed and fed and clothed and in education EVERY YEAR. The Prince’s Trust has helped a few people but the number is in the lower six figures in a period of 20 or 30 years. It is nothing you should kiss the Prince’s derriere for. Because at the same time this very “charitable” Prince refuses to support the state’s social programs and has no problems with austerity cuts which hit the poorest hardest.
Kiss the taxpayer’s derriere who finances all these social programms.
Same for the US: for example food stamps programm is financed by the taxpayer, too. So is for example child protection services and similar.
Too many philanthropic and charitable activities by private famous and rich people are pr for themselves or tax deductable for them.
If you compare the taxpayer’s input into social and charitable programs with the private charities and philanthropy then you see this: the taxpayer pays many times more than private charities and philanthrophy. But nevertheless private charity and philanthropy gets all the credit. ???
@Sorry In the US, many social serivcies are provided by charities who receive some government funding. For example, Meals on Wheels receives government funding, but it is not sufficient to cover all of its costs, which is why both the national and local entities must fundraise.
I don’t think conflating social security with charity really applies here. It’s unlikely that taxpayer funded social security will ever meet every single need of every single citizen. The issue here is whether a charity does work that gives sufficient bang for buck or is a vanity project hoovering up cash which would have more effect elsewhere.
@Sixer you are making the assumption the money raised by the trust would have gone to other charities. That is not necessarily true. Donors have their own motivations and interests. In my experience as a fundraiser, an increase in the number of charities doesn’t lead to a decrease in giving to any charity. All boats rise together.
Pretty much all foundations are tax dodges. In the US I think they only have to give 5% of their income away in a year to keep their status? Not sure if that number’s still true. That’s why so many wealthy people have them.
That being said, why should we downgrade The Princes Trust or DOE Award scheme just because they haven’t helped as many people as government social programs? Would it have been better had Charles done nothing with the money he used to seed it? Charles also turned Dumfries House into a cottage industry. Sometimes micro is just as good as macro, and supporting a few small projects can get larger ones started. I’m a big fan of community charity myself.
That being said I don’t think headbands and a PR campaign is exactly the best use of money when there is no follow up.
@Bluhare In 2016, trusts and foundations donated almost $53 billion in the US. Donor advised funds donated another $22 billion.
Hi Megan, didn’t mean to imply that they don’t put much into donations. But there are some who do the bare minimum. There are also some with power to effect serious change because they’re so well funded and managed.
Her name is Catherine. Let’s not forget that.
I think people would be more forgiving if it at least looked like the three of them are working on it. But they can’t even pretend. It takes a lot of work to build a charity but at the pace they are going …
She is the one who made the point of saying “I’m Kate. I’ll always be Kate” to someone in the crowd soon after the engagement. Her husband refers to her as “Kate” in several interviews. She’s been in the public eye for 15 years as Kate Middleton. It sticks.
Given Sixer’s fabulous vocabulary, limiting herself to “Bill and Cathy” is polite. They act like Bill and Cathy Middleton all the time, which is her point IMO.
I caused someone to have a fit of the vapours by calling them Twit and Twat the other day and I haven’t thought up a new rude but not vapourish set of names yet!
Littlemiss and I were mocking Bill for constantly referring to her as Catherine in speeches etc recently.
Willnot and Cannot? Chopper and Chutney? Dude and Duchass?
They are just incredibly spoiled adult kids!
William should do it himself! He needs a job, so why not!
I think they are hiring someone extra, not phasing out Jason. The trio is supposed to go full time soon, Harry might get engaged. They need more staff.
Another article on the hiring stated that their job would include “ensuring positive reporting”. Not the truth just positive. Explains so many of the articles we get on them. It also says the position is full time. Why do they need 2 full-time communication guys-unless Jason is leaving soon. None of them work that much- what do their staff spend their time doing. Suppressing pics of the kids/forcing the papers to write nice articles.
(I know it says they’ll work for the Foundation but whens the last time we heard anything about it. Hardly something that needs full time communication employees)
It sounds like this hire is for the foundation only, and not their personal PR. Interesting that they’re separating it out; perhaps it has something to do with the person they recently hired to run the foundation. It doesn’t get much publicity really.
That’s how I read it Lainey. It says primarily working on the image of the Foundation, but not 100 percent and therefore likely funded by the taxpayers not the Foundation.
Here we go again, nas. How is an employee of a private foundation funded by the taxpayers?
“The royals are hiring! Prince William, Duchess Kate and Prince Harry took to LinkedIn to list a job opening for a senior communications officer. According to the job posting, the full-time, mid-senior level role is based at Kensington Palace in London and focuses primarily on the activity of their Royal Foundation. ”
It doesn’t say the person will be an employee of the Foundation. It states “focuses primarily” on the activity of the Royal Foundation. Primarily vs. ONLY is what is in question.
If they were ONLY working on the Royal Foundation, it would be likely they were a Foundation employee. It is that key word “primarily” along with the “reactively” that makes me lean towards this being a member of their KP PR team.
Again, how will the person be funded by the taxpayers, nas? Answer: the person won’t. If the Foundation doesn’t pay him/her, Charles will.
Again, whenever you say “Charles funds it” it means the Duchy. No, it doesn’t belong to him. No he doesn’t “own” the income from it, it isn’t “his” income. He is allowed the use of some income from the Duchy in order to provide services to the monarchy, but profligate misuse of the funds has got to go.
Please see my post above, nas. The entire point of it is to provide an income to the heir to the throne. If they get rid of the monarchy THEN it will all be taxpayer property/income. Until then, no.
The point is, it was established to fund the instrument of government. There is no rule saying he is required to spend every penny of income on himself and his line each year. Profligate overspending is not the rule of the day. Whatever isn’t wasted on them could be poured into Duchy improvements now, bettering the lives of people in the Duchy and increasing the value of the Duchy overall. That’s why the dodge from FOI requests is so dangerous.
Oh please! Why on earth would they employ someone to allow negative reporting. Please get real.
This could be a position that transitions to Harry and Megan once they marry. I think that’s happening very soon.
Since Meghan is already involved in charity work, I expect she will be considerably more “keen”
than W+K to make the trust an effective charity.
“This role will work both reactively and proactively to manage the daily news flow to the media, ensuring items are accurately and positively reported and received by audiences via traditional, digital and social media,”
Key word there, “reactively”.
In other words, controlling the spin in social media when we point out their staff were deliberately directing donors away from making connections with individual charities at their last shindig, and instead poaching big money donors.
It isn’t that their Foundation raised loads of money for charities; those funds would have gone to individual charities before but instead were manhandled into the Foundation. Sitting there, doing nothing, making it look like they have a bigger endowment, while the funds are not getting into the hands of the charities that do the real work. It will be doled out, at their leisure, to ones they cherry pick instead of the broader range of charities doing work in those areas.
Paying people a decent salary – even people who work in non profit – bothers me a whole lot less than the equivalent of an annual salary being spent on five days worth of clothes.
Me too!!
You are right. There is absolutely nothing to excuse it.
Me three there is just no excuse for it.
Maybe Sean Spicer will apply. I mean he’s out of a job. We could have daily press briefings on how well the Cambridgeshire are doing their job.
Now that would be epic.
Melissa McCarthy doing Spicer as working for Willnot would be even more epic, “No c’mon settle down, I said SETTLE DOWN, ok now Duchess Catherine, and it is Catherine, I SAID CATHERINE jeez not Kate CATHERINE YOU GOT THAT!
It will be interesting to see what happens to domineering Carole once Charles is king. I can’t imagine Camilla hasn’t had a few sharp opinions about her. She needs to go because she is hindering Kate’s progress. She is not equipped to guide her even with her upjumped ideas and airs.
Kate’s Progress? Really?
Apparently Cam refers to Ma Midds as a Terrier. Springing, bouncy, annoying, barky and full of determination.
Aurelia, well I guess that is not as bad as rottweiler!
Missed this part about an earlier post. During the whole How Dare He Touch the Queen episode at Canada House last week? HM was presented with a sapphire jubilee brooch, in the shape of a snowflake. Made by a Canadian jeweler out of white gold, diamonds, and sapphires all mined in Canada. Hope that shows up on her lapel soon.
Because heaven knows, the queen needs more jewels. are canadian citizens so complacently well off they can think of nothing to spend their money on other than to give diamonds to royalty? Ludicrous.
I appears it was a private Canadian jeweler who created it and presumably paid for it.
More fun throwing all the Canadians under a bus, right CC?
Indeed, Lady D, a bus of monarchist enablers! Apparently it costs canadians $43 million a year to support the BRF. http://www.businessinsider.com/canadas-cost-to-support-the-royal-family-in-2015-2016-9
Isn’t Charles wanting William or his brother Harry to take over the runnng of the Princes Trust so is this preparation for one of them to announce their new official role in the Autumn