Prince Charles uses 'intestate' cash in Cornwall to fund his own charities

'Feudal entitlement to £3.3m of unclaimed legacies used to fund private school in Scotland
and controversial architecture group.

Robert Booth
The Guardian, Wednesday 1 May 2013 21.20 BST

Prince Charles has used money from people who die without wills or family in Cornwall to fund his own charities and to support bursaries at his old private school in Scotland. As Duke of Cornwall, a title that already provides him with an £18m private annual income, a quirk of history means Charles becomes the owner of the assets of anyone living in the country who dies "intestate".

Last year that provided him with more than £450,000 and he is sitting on £3.3m in cash from many years of collecting Cornish legacies, latest accounts show.

In 2012, the benevolent fund he set up to use the money made one of its largest grants of £5,000 to the elite public school of Gordonstoun in Scotland where a place now costs £30,000 a year.

The biggest grant was £19,300 to Charles's charity Business in the Community, whose supporters include some of the biggest companies in Britain. Another £1,000 went to his London-based Prince's Foundation for Building Communities, which champions the prince's controversial ideas about architecture and planning.

The donations have drawn particular criticism in Cornwall, where there were calls for the inheritances to be channelled into the public purse as they are in the rest of England.

Bert Biscoe, a councillor in Truro, said Charles was "abusing the loyalty" of Cornish people and the "privilege" of receiving the intestate assets.

"If he is using this money to fund his own charities and his old school in Scotland then a further covert injustice is being prosecuted against Cornwall," he said. "Think what he could achieve if he gave that £450,000 to Cornwall every year … The area of giving should coincide with the area of taking."

John Angarrack, a Cornish nationalist who scrutinises the Duchy of Cornwall's activities, said: "We are one of the most impoverished regions in the UK and the money would be much better used here, where all sorts of youth projects are in need, than at Gordonstoun."

Rob Simmons, a member of the Cornwall search and rescue team who is standing for Mebyon Kernow, the Party for Cornwall, in Thursday's council elections, called on Charles to instead help the food banks in Camborne and Truro, which he said were regularly running out of supplies.

A spokeswoman for the Duchy of Cornwall said Charles's charities carried out work in the south-west and the money for Gordonstoun was intended to fund bursaries for Cornish children.

The fund's annual report states it is being treated as "a quasi-endowment" with income being distributed and the capital sum maintained in real terms. It said that grant giving was "constrained by the availability of sufficient suitable grant applications".

Charles has also been criticised for only distributing £100,000 – less than a quarter of the assets received from the deceased last year.

"Many people will be shocked to learn that Charles receives money from the dead, but we were always told that it went to charity," said Graham Smith, director of Republic, the campaign for an elected head of state. "Now we see that only a tiny proportion actually goes to good causes. Charles is sitting on those funds when they could be supporting the vital work of charities, many of whom are really struggling at the moment. The trust has only negligible costs and doesn't deliver any services so there's no reason why that money can't be used by voluntary and community organisations right now."

The Charity Commission's guidance on reserves states it will stage "regulatory intervention" if a charity's reserves are excessive. "While the funds remain in the trustees' hands, the charity's current users or beneficiaries – actual or potential – are not being as well served as they could be," it warns.

The benevolent fund made 151 grants last year. Others went to the Soil Association, the organic farming movement which Charles supports, the Dorchester arts festival near his Poundbury housing development in Dorset, the Friends of the Countryside, and several Cornish churches. '

Interesting to note on the comments section of that 'Guardian' piece someone calling themselves 'Caldy 1' states that when Chartirist Robert Lowery visited Cornwall in 1839, he found Cornish to be widely spoken amongst the miners. Anyone have any further information on this?

William Nye, Principal Private Secretary to the Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, Keith Willis, Finance Director of the Duchy, and Paula Diggle, Treasury Officer of Accounts, HM Treasury

I thought that rye's reply (His private secretary) was interesting in regard to whether the Duchy is a public body.
Will the duchy allow the NAO access to the duchy's accounts?

Nye says he does not think that would be right. The NAO specialises in looking at public bodies. The duchy is a private estate. But it has an external auditor.

But if it manages the foreshore and the fundus, inherits where there is no inheritor, and possibly has to be contacted regarding planning consents, does this not make it a public body, and then be open to judicial review?

What they've done is to create a dual Duchy. The only one they peddle to the ignorant media, who then parrot it out in every article, is the 161,000 acre "private estate". This is basically a collection of scattered properties and businesses that successive Dukes have accrued and is, in fact, little or nothing to do with the constitutional Duchy set up under 3 Charters in 1337-8, covering the entire 1,376 square miles of Cornwall west of the Tamar's east bank, and in which the Duke is the de jure Head of State.

Since the mid 18th century - the last time that a Cornish parliament was convened by the Duke, the four Dukes we've had have not wanted to do the job of Head of State. Just collect the money. This, of course, is exactly the way Westminster and Whitehall want it it, so that they, and not Cornwall's legitimate government, can rule the roost and call us "England". All highly illegal, but as the two Heads of State, the Monarch and the Duke, are the only people in Britain who are fully exempt from the law, no challenge can be made. Of course, Charlie becomes a Head of State when things like that suit his purpose.

Also as has been pointed out, the Duchy shy away from any proceedings e.g. in court that might resolve the confusion over their status. They use that confusion and uncertainty as a handy smoke screen for their dirty dealing.

Marhak wrote:What they've done is to create a dual Duchy. The only one they peddle to the ignorant media, who then parrot it out in every article, is the 161,000 acre "private estate". This is basically a collection of scattered properties and businesses that successive Dukes have accrued and is, in fact, little or nothing to do with the constitutional Duchy set up under 3 Charters in 1337-8, covering the entire 1,376 square miles of Cornwall west of the Tamar's east bank, and in which the Duke is the de jure Head of State..

I can't agree that the 'private [sic] estate' has little or nothing to do with the Duchy as a constitutional body. I was acquired with the proceeds of the Duchy, and its proper purpose is the funding of the functions of the Duke as our head of state.

Anselm

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