Our paid services

19 February 2013

All of our work contributes to the achievement of our mission and charitable purposes.

 
 
 
All of our work contributes to the achievement of our mission and our charitable purposes
 
  • We exist to create international opportunities and to build trust between people of the UK and other countries.
  • Our Royal Charter includes five charitable purposes: cultural relations; knowledge of the UK; English language; education; and cultural, scientific and technological co-operation.
  • Where people are able to pay, it is both legal and appropriate for the British Council to charge a commercial rate for its services in support of its mission.
     
Our paid services mean we are able to create more trust for the UK at no cost to the UK taxpayer
 
  • Our paid services include those paid for directly by the customer, client-funded education and development contracts we bid for. Our purpose and the needs of our customers, clients and partners drive all of our work.
  • Our income-generating activities are a core part of our cultural relations work. These services are very much a part of our mission and charitable purposes. Where clients are able to pay, we may levy a charge in order to expand the reach and impact of our work.
  • There is huge, unmet demand for English language teaching and access to UK qualifications worldwide – the demand vastly exceeds anything governments, private sector providers or the British Council can supply.
  • Our examinations provision generates £50 million income each year for UK awarding bodies.
  • We are the largest provider of high-quality classroom English globally, with a strong international brand and reputation.
  • Studying English and taking UK qualifications with the British Council in safe, secure, corruption-free environments demonstrates the UK’s values and builds trust for the UK and its people.

 

There is no subsidy to our paid services from our taxpayer funding and we have strict fair trading policies and processes
 
  • All our activities are audited and delivered in line with our charitable purposes. Any surplus we generate is used in direct pursuit of these purposes, through programmes in wider education, English, society and the arts.
  • Where we compete with other providers there is no subsidy from public funds: we compete on the quality of our offer.
     
FACTS
 
The British Council provides paid-for English language lessons to 300,000 learners through its teaching centres around the world. 
 
We promote the UK’s English language teaching sector to overseas students, a sector worth £2 billion to the UK economy annually.
 
The British Council has a fair trading policy which ensures that the organisation fully complies with competition and charity law. We operationally and financially separate all public money from earned income.
 
By 2015, our self-generated income will account for over 80 per cent of our turnover: this means we will earn over £5 for every £1 of taxpayer funding we receive. 
 
So, the large majority of our high-quality cultural relations impact for the UK comes at no cost to the UK taxpayer.