Stricter royal cash review urged: MPs' committee wants closer look at pounds 20m Queen's Household budget and grace and favour scheme. Stephen Goodwin reports

AN ALL-PARTY committee of MPs yesterday called for the Royal Household to be subject to more rigorous scrutiny for the pounds 20m of taxpayers' money spent each year on the upkeep of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the other occupied palaces.

However, in its value-for- money report, the Commons Public Accounts Committee has deferred comment on evidence it received on grace and favour accommodation at the palaces. Some 270 flats, houses and cottages are occupied by a range of functionaries - from private secretaries to gardeners - at way below market rents.

At the request of the PAC, the National Audit Office is conducting a detailed investigation into the provision of housing within the palaces and will be submitting a memorandum to the committee after Parliament resumes.

The Royal Household took over the management of the English palaces of the Queen and her family in April 1991 but did not inherit earlier obligations to open the books to public examination.

The MPs recommended that an automatic right of access to the accounts and records of the Royal Household should be restored for the Department of National Heritage, which provides the upkeep money, and the NAO, the independent public spending watchdog. Grant-in- aid for property services at the palaces for 1993-94 was set at pounds 19.8m. 'Information provided by the Royal Household is not necessarily a substitute for direct sight of the underlying papers,' the MPs said, though there is no criticism of the Household's co- operation with officials.

The occupied Royal Palaces in England include Buckingham Palace; Windsor Castle and the Great and Home Parks; Kensington Palace - used by the Princess of Wales, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester; St James's Palace - used by the Prince of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Kent and Princess Alexandra; and Clarence House - used by the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.

The PAC expressed concern that the Heritage department had no systematic procedures before the Windsor Castle fire of November 1992 to learn the lessons from earlier fires in heritage buildings. The blaze destroyed or damaged 104 rooms at Windsor and is expected to cost pounds 35m to repair, some pounds 25m of which could come from public admissions to the castle and Buckingham Palace.

Despite assurances that action had been taken, the MPs urged the department to give fire-protection measures a high priority: 'We regard it as quite unacceptable for there to be another fire of the kind we have seen repeatedly in government buildings.'

The committee also recommended that the Treasury give further advice on insurance. Buildings at palaces are not insured commercially, in line with government policy that departments should take out insurance only when it is more cost-effective than non-insurance.

But the MPs said Government-funded bodies should be clear that the decision to adopt self-insurance did not imply precautions against fire or other disasters should be less rigorous than would be needed to secure worthwhile commercial cover.

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