Memorandum submitted by British Council
INTRODUCTION
1. This paper outlines the British Council's
new five-year strategy and summarises the implications for the
Council of the 2000 Spending Review.
BACKGROUND
2. The new strategy is aimed at making the
Council a cultural relations organisation fit for the 21st century
and ensuring that it continues to promote the UK effectively throughout
the world.
3. The Council has long been a success story.
It is about winning recognition for the UK's values, ideas, achievements
and expertise. It is also about developing mutually beneficial
and lasting relationships between people of the UK and other countries.
4. But the world is changing faster than
ever. Globalisation and the spread of democracy are challenging
the existing order everywhere. Countries are having to adapt to
major political, social and economic change. Information and communication
technology is making possible the exchange of ideas and values
on a global scale. Competition for influence and attention is
intensifying. The UK too is changing fast. Devolution and diversity
require new messages and a different tone of voice to convey a
true picture of contemporary Britain. The Council is determined
to meet these challenges and opportunities. The new strategy will
enable the Council to respond to the rapid pace of political,
social, cultural and technological change around the world.
STRATEGY
5. The strategy has three main objectives:
— to maximise the impact and effectiveness
of the Council's operations;
— to create a sustainable overseas
network; and
— to exploit new media and strategic
partnerships to reach wider audiences and deliver new services.
6. The strategy retains and builds on the
Council's recognised strengths, particularly its emphasis on people-to-people
contact and long-term engagement. But it has been developed out
of a root-and-branch look at where the Council operates, what
it does and how it operates. Its key features include:
— a shift of resources to transitional
countries to fund increased activities in areas where the Council
is able to achieve significant impact for the UK;
— greater emphasis on targeting young
people, especially future decision-makers and opinion-formers
and reaching a wider, younger audience;
— investment in the development of
IT-based services and the use of digital technology to complement
existing programmes;
— using revenue-funded services, such
as English language teaching, to enhance the Council's impact
and achieve increased influence for the UK;
— building strategic partnerships with
other organisations which have similar objectives and whose activities
complement those of the Council; and
— increasing expenditure on operational
activities by reducing the size of the Council's overseas estate
and putting resources into premises only where these are necessary
to support operational objectives.
7. The implementation of the strategy will
involve major re-deployments within the Council's existing budget—between
countries, sectors and programmes. However, these re-deployments
will be supplemented by the additional funding which the Council
will receive as a result of the 2000 Spending Review. The Council's
grant-in-aid (which currently accounts for a third of its total
turnover) will be increased from £136 million in 2000-01
to £159 million in 2003-04 (see Annex A for further details).
Although the additional funding is less than the Council had asked
for, the settlement nevertheless represents a real terms increase
in the Council's grant-in-aid of 9 per cent over three years—recognition
by the government of the increasing importance of public diplomacy
and the key role of the Council in enhancing the UK's reputation
abroad. The additional funding will be used inter alia to develop
a network of technology-based knowledge and learning centres,
to support the Prime Minister's initiative to attract more international
students to the UK and to strengthen the Council's operations
in Russia and China.
8. The new strategy has three main elements:
— Geography—re-shaping the Council's
overseas network.
— Programmes and services—developing
new activities and ways of working.
— Sustainability—creating a sustainable
platform for the Council's operations.
GEOGRAPHY
9. The Council's geographical priorities
have been revised to take into account not only the importance
of each country to the UK in political, economic and historical
terms, but also the Council's ability to achieve long-term influence
and impact for the UK. The latter includes the need to change
perceptions of the UK; the demand for Council services and receptivity
to Council programmes; the accessibility of the Council's target
audiences and the availability of other mechanisms for influencing
perceptions of the UK. The revised geographical priorities have
been used to inform decisions about the level of grant-in-aid
funding to be provided in each country. These decisions also took
into account the Council's ability to achieve impact through its
revenue-funded services in many countries, recognising that income
from teaching English, administering British examinations and
managing development and training contracts is critical to the
implementation of the strategy.
10. Globally, the changes in grant-in-aid
budgets will result in a shift of resources from developed to
transitional countries. In many transitional countries, there
is a huge appetite for engagement with the UK and for the experience
and know-how which the UK can offer. The Council, particularly
through its work in education and governance, is ideally equipped
to achieve impact for the UK in such countries by providing access
to British knowledge and expertise, and by helping to develop
long-term sustainable partnerships with UK organisations. Over
the next five years, increased funding will be provided for programmes
in transitional countries, especially in Eastern Europe and Central
Asia—in line with the recommendations of the Foreign Affairs
Committee. There will be a corresponding reduction in grant-in-aid
funding for a number of developed countries, mainly in Western
Europe, where ties with the UK are already well established.
11. As part of the re-shaping of its overseas
network, the Council will be closing four overseas directorates—Belarus,
Ecuador, Lesotho and Swaziland. The office in Minsk was closed
in December 2000, while the other three offices will be closed
during 2001-02. The Council is in the process of re-establishing
operations in Libya and Iran, and is committed to developing its
activities in these countries over next few years. A new directorate
will also be opened in Armenia, probably in 2002. In addition
to the closure of overseas directorates, a number of offices in
secondary cities will be closed over the next five years. The
closure of regional offices in Germany and Nigeria has already
been announced. Other closures are under consideration and will
be made public once staff have been informed and the relevant
overseas authorities notified.
12. A key feature of the strategy is a reduction
in the overall size of the Council's overseas estate in order
to free up funds for operational activities. In some countries,
particularly in Western Europe, the amount spent on buildings
and other fixed costs accounts for a disproportionately large
share of the Council's budget. In others, for example in sub-Saharan
Africa, the reduction in DFID-funded development and training
contract management activity has resulted in the Council occupying
buildings which are now too large for its needs. In all countries,
therefore, the Council will be reviewing its overseas estate to
ensure that it is fit for purpose. Where public access services
are no longer required or programmes are managed largely off-site,
offices will move to smaller, less costly premises. In some cases,
for example in southern Africa, directorates will be organised
on a "hub and spoke" model, with activities in one or
more smaller directorates being resourced from a directorate in
a neighbouring country. These measures will enable funding for
operational activities to be increased.
PROGRAMMES AND
SERVICES
13. The second key element of the strategy
is the development of new programmes and services. Under the strategy,
the Council will give increased emphasis to targeting the successor
generation, especially those who are expected to be in positions
of influence in future, such as young professionals and postgraduate
students. The authority generation will not be neglected. However,
many of the new programmes and services will be aimed at reaching
a larger number of young people.
14. The next five years will see significant
changes both to the nature of the Council's activities and to
the way in which it operates. The changes will include:
— an increase in work in governance
and human rights, and in education (especially education promotion,
distance learning and vocational education);
— the re-direction of science work
to focus on the promotion of UK science through exhibitions and
other high profile activities; and
— the re-shaping of information services
in response to the changing requirements of target audiences,
with increased emphasis on the electronic delivery of information
services—particularly in developed countries.
15. The Council's work in the arts and English
language teaching will remain a core element of its programmes.
Increasingly, however, programmes in all areas will exploit opportunities
for cross-sectoral collaboration (for example, between science
and the arts). In some cases, programmes will be managed as regional
initiatives focused on specific themes (eg women's rights) or
will form part of country-wide perception-changing campaigns organised
in collaboration with other UK partners, such as the Britain Abroad
Task Force. More emphasis will also be given to using grant-funded
and revenue-funded services to complement each other (for example,
in governance work).
16. Strategic partnerships will be developed
with organisations which have similar objectives to the Council
and where collaboration will result in mutual advantage. The Council's
Memorandums of Understanding with the BBC World Service and the
World Bank will be used to develop joint programmes, particularly
in English language learning and in support of the global knowledge
agenda.
17. The Council's revenue-funded services
are crucial to the implementation of the strategy and challenging
targets have been set both for increases in income from English
teaching and examinations work over the next five years, and for
maintaining the level of development and training contract activity
currently managed by the Council. The growth of revenue-funded
services, however, will remain focused on achieving the overall
purpose and strategic objectives of the Council. The pursuit of
income for its own sake is not part of the strategy.
18. In a number of countries (for example,
the Gulf States), operations will be built around revenue-funded
education services. In these directorates, priority will be given
to developing a customer-focused, one-stop shop approach to the
delivery of education services, bringing together English teaching,
examinations, education information and other services to provide
a high quality, integrated service for all customers.
19. The single most important area of investment
in programmes and services over the next five years will be the
development of new IT services. These will be used not to replace,
but to complement and enhance the Council's core people-to-people
activities. The internet will be a particularly important vehicle
for the Council's work in Western Europe and other developed countries,
where there is a high level of connectivity and web-based services
will enable the Council to reach a much larger audience than conventional
programmes. The initiatives in this area fall into four categories:
— creating portals to enable target
audiences to access UK information resources—for example,
the newly-developed human rights portal;
— providing support for networked communities
and enabling professional groups to build links with UK partners—for
example, MONTAGE, which enables teachers to exchange materials
and information on curriculum development;
— introducing IT-based educational
services—for example, the LearnEnglish web-site and the
on-line registration of examination candidates; and
— developing corporate and regional
intranets to enable staff to access UK specialist resources and
frequently updated information about the UK.
20. The enhancement of the Council's corporate
web-site, improving the quality both of its content and its presentation,
will be crucial to these developments. Facilities will be provided
to enable web users to access personalised information quickly
and easily, and to enable the Council to establish and nurture
lifelong relationships with its target audiences.
21. Over the next three years, the Council
plans to establish a network of IT-based knowledge and learning
centres, using additional funding secured in the 2000 Spending
Review. These centres will provide a range of facilities including
Internet access, support for distance learning courses, video-conferencing,
multi-media and book collections. They will be targeted at young
professionals, giving them access to resource materials from the
UK and supporting the development of professional networks both
with UK contacts and with similar groups in other countries.
22. Another significant development under
the strategy will be the establishment of centres for English
language learning support (CELLS) in key countries. These centres,
which will be set up in collaboration with the BBC World Service,
will develop English language courses and materials for dissemination
through local broadcasting organisations and teacher networks.
A pilot centre will be established in China in 2001-02.
SUSTAINABILITY
23. The third key element of the strategy
focuses on developing a sustainable platform for the Council's
operations. Investment in staff, premises and IT is critical to
the success of the strategy. Previous evidence to the Foreign
Affairs Committee has highlighted the way in which, during the
past decade, it has become increasingly difficult for the Council
to maintain its overseas network. Pressure to establish directorates
in more countries and to develop new programmes in response to
changing government priorities has led to under-investment in
the Council's infrastructure, threatening the quality of its work
and the image it projects of the UK, especially through its buildings.
The Council has also lacked the resources necessary to recruit
and retain key staff (for example, in marketing and IT), and to
invest in the development and re-skilling of its workforce, both
in the UK and overseas.
24. The strategy aims to address these issues
through a carefully targeted programme of investment in staff,
premises and IT. The main elements of this programme will include:
— the implementation of a global human
resources strategy, with a strategic staff plan, global standards
for employment terms and conditions, contract types and recruitment,
a commitment to mainstreaming diversity and to increased funding
for leadership and professional development;
— the completion and upgrading of the
Council's global IT infrastructure to provide a common platform,
industry standard software and improved connectivity for all offices;
— the development of improved financial
management systems;
— the rationalisation of the Council's
headquarters' accommodation in London and the introduction of
new ways of working; and
— the implementation of a rolling programme
to upgrade the Council's overseas estate, including a reduction
in the total size of the estate, improvements to ensure compliance
with health and safety standards, and funding for the periodic
fit-out and refreshment of buildings.
25. These investments will be funded from
re-deployments within the Council's existing grant-in-aid budget,
from the sale of properties no longer appropriate to the Council's
needs and from increased income from revenue-funded services.
TRANSITION
26. The implementation of the strategy will
involve a substantial amount of change for all Council offices
over the next five years—changes to programmes, to the delivery
of services and to the way in which the Council operates. Inevitably,
these changes will have significant implications for Council staff.
There will be a need for extensive retraining of staff in some
countries and for the recruitment of people with skills in areas
such as marketing, public relations and customer care. The re-structuring
of overseas operations, particularly in Western Europe, Africa
and south Asia, will result in job losses in a number of countries.
However, in others, new posts will be created as activities expand
or new programmes are developed.
27. Managing the HR implications of change
will be a key priority for all Council directors during the next
few years. Staff re-structuring programmes will be managed to
consistent global standards, including voluntary schemes for exit,
and support and re-training for displaced staff. Managers responsible
for the implementation of staffing changes will also receive training
and support to ensure that the process is managed in a way that
is consistent with the Council's values that all staff are treated
with fairness and consideration.
28. The management of the Council's reputation
during the implementation of the strategy will also be a crucial
task. Given the scale of change, some adverse reaction is inevitable,
especially from those who are users of services or who have participated
in programmes which are being discontinued. Care will need to
be taken, therefore, to communicate the rationale for the changes
with key stakeholders, both overseas and in the UK, and to ensure
that the Council's standing and reputation is maintained.
CONCLUSION
29. The British Council of the Future strategy
represents an ambitious programme of change and modernisation.
Building on the Council's recognised strengths, it aims to ensure
that the Council is equipped to meet the opportunities and challenges
of the 21st century. Over the next five years, the Council's operations
around the world will be re-shaped to create a stronger, more
effective organisation capable of achieving significantly greater
impact for the UK.
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