Buckingham Palace has revealed that it has completed a review of allegations that Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, bullied a team of royal officials, but declined to share the results of the investigation.

Speaking at a press conference to discuss the Royal House’s annual financial statement, Michael Stevens — the official in charge of the Crown’s finances — said the private company hired to investigate the allegations had done its work.

Stevens said that several recommendations were made, but he did not disclose in any substantive detail the conclusions that were reached or recommendations that were presented. As the review was privately funded, there was less pressure on the Crown to publish its findings.

“I can confirm that this was a review of the allegations with the aim of allowing the royal family to consider possible improvements to Human Resources policies and procedures,” Stevens said. “The review has been completed and the recommendations on our policies and procedures have been taken forward, but we will not comment further.”

A senior royal source said the palace is tight-lipped about the investigation to protect the anonymity of those who cooperated.

“We recognize that the people who participated in the investigation understood that there would be confidentiality in discussions with the independent law firm and therefore we have a duty to respect that confidentiality,” the source said.

The source said the Palace made several policy changes after the review, but declined to reveal them in detail.

“Whenever you do an independent review or there is an examination of that nature, there are always lessons to be learned, there are always ways to improve processes and procedures,” the source said. “Normally, we would not disclose any changes to our policies and procedures.”

The allegations emerged last year when The Times in the UK ran an article citing unnamed sources who claimed the Duchess had expelled two personal assistants from her Kensington Palace home and undermined the trust of a third member of staff.

Buckingham Palace initially said it would investigate the allegations, but later hired an outside law firm to do so.

At the time, a spokesperson for the Sussexes dismissed the Times report as “a calculated smear campaign” as it was published just days before Oprah Winfrey’s bombastic interview with Meghan and Prince Harry aired.

The interview was the first time the couple had spoken publicly after announcing plans to step down from senior positions in the British royal family in 2020.

Meghan told Winfrey that life as British royalty was so isolated and lonely at one point that she “didn’t want to be alive anymore”. She described herself as a victim of an image-obsessed Buckingham Palace that weighed heavily on everything from how dark her son Archie’s skin color would be to how often she went to lunch with friends.