Managing Public Money

The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries and builds trust between them worldwide. All British Council expenditure must meet public scrutiny. Our resources must not be abused, misspent, misappropriated or defrauded, and cannot be used for private interests.

As a registered charity, the British Council must comply with charity law, including ensuring that our assets are safeguarded and properly used to meet our charitable objectives. We must take reasonable steps to prevent and detect fraud and breaches of law and regulations.

Although the British Council operates at arm’s length from the UK Government, we receive grant-in-aid funding from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office towards the cost of our charitable activities. This requires us to ensure we act in accordance with HM Treasury’s Managing Public Money which sets out the main principles, as well as some specific rules and conventions, for dealing with resources used by UK public sector organisations and in accordance with other guidance issued from time to time by the UK Government.

The British Council is committed to: 

  • operating with propriety [1] and regularity [2] in all our transactions 
  • operating effective internal controls that safeguard, channel and record resources as intended, and support the achievement of our charitable objectives 
  • using our resources efficiently, economically and effectively, avoiding waste and extravagance 
  • giving timely, transparent and fair accounts of our use of resources. We report publicly on our use of resources in annual accounts that comply with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice. 

The British Council will provide adequate and appropriate resources to implement this policy and will ensure it is communicated and understood.

The British Council will review this policy annually to reflect new legal and regulatory developments and ensure best practice.

The status of this document is British Council policy. It was approved by Martin Davidson, Chief Executive, on 1November 2011 and is due for review on 1 November 2012. 

The Managing Public Money policy (pdf 28kb) is also available to download.

Back to Policies and Procedures

[1] Propriety: patterns of resource consumption respect Parliament’s intentions, conventions and control procedures, including any laid down by the Public Accounts Committee.

[2] Regularity: resource consumption accords with the relevant legislation, the relevant delegated authority and Managing Public Money.