British Council response to Public Accounts Committee Report - 'British Council: Achieving Impact'

The British Council said; “The big international challenges for the UK and the rest of the world have changed in recent years and the British Council has been responding by expanding its work to build valuable relationships between the UK and an audience of over 120 million people in over 100 countries worldwide.  Our wide range of educational and cultural work is an important part of the UK’s international relations and we have been changing both how we work and where to achieve more impact.  This includes the entirely appropriate shift of more resources to the Middle East and Asia and increasing the scale of our programmes worldwide.  There was an understandable dip in staff morale as we made some of these changes in recent years but this trend has been reversed.  We are pleased that the Public Accounts Committee report recognises our successes.  We have already been responding to its recommendations for some months."

The British Council is the United Kingdom's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We build engagement and trust for the UK through the exchange of knowledge and ideas between people worldwide. We help individuals to fulfil their potential and foster the co-operation that contributes to a stable world. 

We have already begun working on the recommendations outlined here and also in the preceding NAO report on which the PAC report is based. The NAO report stated that ‘our overall conclusion, based on our work overseas and in the UK, is that the British Council’s performance is strong and valued by its customers and stakeholders.’

In response to the specific recommendations in the PAC report, we would note that we offer a broad range of English-language teaching options. Our paid English language teaching is just one part of that range and is carried out on a full cost recovery basis, not funded from our government grant. As such it is priced at market rates. To reach wider audiences, we offer a number of alternatives to face-to-face learning including free access websites. These are visited by over a million people a month against the 380,000 people that we teach directly each year. We are also developing new partnerships, particularly in India and China, to enable us to reach many more of the 1 billion people currently learning and 7 million teaching English worldwide.

The PAC report recognises that through programmes like School Links, we reach a wide cross-section of society. Currently 900 schools in the UK and one million young people are involved in our Connecting Classrooms programme, and we are aiming for 30,000 schools, 120,000 teachers and two million learners worldwide by 2011/12.

In terms of staff morale, the PAC report refers to results from a staff survey in January 2007. We are constantly seeking to improve in this area; however, the British Council already scores more highly than Ipsos MORI public and private sector norms in such surveys. As part of our follow up to the January 2007 results, we have been addressing the specific concerns expressed by staff. Our most recent staff survey in September 2008 showed significant improvements as a result of increased communication, in particular with managers.

The PAC report describes the British Council as ‘prudent’ in not investing in a single customer relationship management system until the technical specification has been adequately defined. It also welcomed the fact that we are developing pilots before rolling out global solutions. In 2009/10 we will be developing a framework and guidelines for CRM systems based on our successful pilot project in China. 

Regarding the drop in sponsorship and partner income, the PAC chose an exceptionally successful year as the benchmark, which makes the subsequent reduction look more significant.  2000/1 saw record sums due to Millennium and China initiatives. Our sponsorship income is now growing again and we have secured £21 million in sponsorship income already this financial year, compared with £12 million for the whole of 2007/08. But we also need to recognise that the global economic climate makes securing future sponsorship difficult for all organisations.

In respect to the reported loss of market share for examinations in India, by refocusing priorities, increasing resources and introducing a range of customer-focussed innovations, we have actually been able to increase our market share of English language exams (IELTS) in India to 39%. For 2008/09 we are projecting total English language exams income of £7.8 million in India (up 75% from 2005/06). IELTS income in India has increased 91% in 3 years. 

While the PAC concludes that the British Council has pockets of good practice, the preceding NAO report acknowledged pockets of excellence in project management specifically. As the PAC report also notes the move to regionalisation should help improve the spread of good practice across the British Council.

We will continue to follow up the recommendations of this report to ensure that the British Council delivers the greatest impact possible for the UK through its cultural relations work.

ENDS/

If you have any queries please contact Victoria Harrison Neves in the British Council press office on + 44 (0) 20 7389 4872 or email: Vicki.Harrison@britishcouncil.org

Notes to Editors:

The British Council works in 110 countries worldwide to build intercultural understanding between the UK and other countries through the arts, education and training, science and technology, sport, good governance and human rights. Our income in 2007/08 was £565m, of which grant-in-aid from the British government was £197m. For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org