NEW analysis from campaign group Republic revealed that King Charles carried out less than seven weeks of full-time work in the last year.
Since the Queen’s funeral last September, Charles attended an estimated 257 engagements.
Anti-monarchy campaign group Republic have said this is the equivalent of less than seven weeks of full-time work for the year, calling Charles a “part-time King”.
Graham Smith, CEO of Republic, said: "It's been reported that Charles worked on 161 days over the past year, yet the work he does amounts to very little. Of course, what he does do is rarely work as most people would understand it.
"It's rare Charles will do a five-day week, quite often weeks go by where he has engagements on just one or two days. There are long stretches of down-time."
The full-time equivalent is based on an assumption that each engagement takes about an hour.
Yet analysis undertaken by Republic found that many engagements lasted much less than this, and that the number of engagements officially recorded by the Royal Family is often inflated by counting single events as multiple engagements.
Republic stated that just 40 out of the total 257 engagements were traditional, public visits where Charles might meet people in the street.
More than 60 engagements were the King ‘receiving’ people, the majority of whom were military officers, diplomats, bishops and senior politicians rather than members of the public. Republic said that such engagements typically last only 20 minutes.
With some exceptions, most engagements were within a short drive or helicopter flight from whichever residence Charles was staying in at the time.
Smith argued that the purpose of such engagements is to give the impression that the royals “look useful and important”.
He continued: "Charles, like all the royals, does very little. They'll carry out the minimum required to look useful and important, they'll arrive for brief visits to small crowds of fans.
“But for most days of most weeks of the year theirs is a life of leisure."
Republic stated that since the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, more than £345 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent on the monarchy, as well as an additional £250m on the coronation of King Charles.
Those behind the campaign also estimated that £2 billion had been lost from the economy as a result of extra bank holidays, and £200m in unpaid inheritance tax.
Smith continued: “That’s a huge bill to pay for a part-time King who doesn’t work but attends, who has meetings but no real responsibilities.”
A calendar of Charles’ engagements, September 2022 – August 2023, can be found here.
