Buckingham Palace officials spent almost £100,000 of taxpayers’ money cleaning chandeliers.

The work was part of £1.5 million spent on various maintenance and up-keep projects at royal residences during 2004 to 2005.

A staff canteen and a function room were refurbished at Buckingham Palace for £808,000 while turning a private cinema into another room also used for official events cost £458,000, according to documents seen by the Daily Mail.

Equipment to regulate the temperature in the wine cellar at the Queen’s official London home was installed for £14,000, the papers revealed. A Buckingham Palace official stressed the work was needed to preserve the head of state’s headquarters which is used for official entertaining.

The funds for the projects came from the Department of Culture, Media and Sports’ £15 million grant-in-aid to the Royal Household to spend on the upkeep of occupied royal residences.

In recent years Palace officials have been asking for more money to pay for a backlog of essential work at various royal homes.

But Graham Smith from Republic, the anti-monarchy campaign group, suggested that vital repairs should come before refurbishment schemes.

He said: “Where is the case being made that they need to do this work when they are begging for money for basic repairs.

“This should be dealt with in exactly the same way as other government departments.

“A business case should be made for it, work should be put out to tender and the figures should be disclosed every year.”

A Buckingham Palace official said: “These are figures from 2004-05 and have already been reported in the public domain. The upgrades we do are directly related to official entertaining and official purposes.

“This is the head of state’s headquarters and everything has to be maintained to a certain standard in order to preserve it. Everything that is done is audited by the Department of Culture, Media and Sports.”