DO WE get value for money from the Royal Family? It is a question asked on a regular basis but the current state of the nation’s finances makes it more pertinent.

New figures released by Buckingham Palace yesterday show the Royals cost us less last year with the total cost of keeping the monarchy decreasing by £3.3 million.

It means the Royals cost the country a total of £38.2 million in the last year – or 62p per person.

In the grand scheme of things, it is not a huge amount of money.

Other publicly funded institutions, like the BBC for instance, cost massive amounts more.

But we have a choice with something like the BBC. If we do not wish to use its services then we do not have to buy a licence.

That is not an option with the Royal Family. We all pay for their upkeep.

This year the Queen used £6.5 million from her reserve fund to boost her income – unspent Civil List money accumulated in the 1990s. That is the highest amount ever taken by the reserve. If such spending continued the Queen would run out of these funds by 2012, the year of her Diamond Jubilee.

The Government froze the Civil List as part of its emergency Budget last month.

Some people would question whether that is enough or whether a complete overhaul of the Royal Family’s finances is needed.

While we remain a monarchy there will always be questions about the relative worth of the Royal Family to the nation.

An institution that costs us all about the price of a chocolate bar a year seems pretty good value to us.

But we would be interested to hear what our readers think.