The British Council is the United Kingdom’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
We acknowledge our duty of care to our staff, customers and visitors. We have a responsibility to protect our people, premises and assets (i).
We will, where reasonably practicable, follow relevant UK laws and standards, as well as ensuring local legal compliance. To ensure we address cultural, gender and equality issues sensitively, we will adapt security procedures and processes to take account of local expectations.
The British Council aims to ensure that all staff and those who work with the British Council foster an attitude of good practice and co-operation in order to achieve appropriate standards of security.
The British Council is committed to:
- maintaining good practice in relation to security in line with the Government Security Strategy
- monitoring and reviewing its security systems and processes to ensure their suitability, adequacy and effectiveness
- providing suitable and sufficient information, instruction, training and facilities to ensure all staff are aware of and equipped to carry out their security responsibilities competently, and in line with our standards, protocols and procedures
- ensuring that those contracted to the British Council are aware of and satisfactorily discharge their security roles and responsibilities.
We will provide adequate and appropriate resources to implement this global policy statement and will ensure it is communicated and understood. The British Council will review this global policy statement annually to reflect new legal and regulatory developments and ensure good practice.
(i) Our commitment to collecting and using information securely (including personal information) is set out in our global policy statement on ‘Information security and privacy’
This global policy statement was approved by Scott McDonald, Chief Executive, in April 2024 and is due for review in March 2025.