Further supplementary memorandum from
the British Council
THE BRITISH
COUNCIL AND
THE COMPREHENSIVE
SPENDING REVIEW
The total grant-in-aid for the next three years
is as follows:
| 2002-03
| 2003-04 | 2004-05
| 2005-06 |
| £156.5m | £169.7m
| £174.7m | £184.7m
|
— Allowing for inflation, the figure of £184.7
million for 2005-06 represents a real terms increase of 9.6 per
cent over our grant-in-aid this year. (Although part of the increase
in 2003-04 is attributable to the uplift we received in the 2000
Spending Review (a real term increase of 9.1 per cent) and to
Overseas Price Mechanism adjustments.)
— The total extra money in cash terms is £35
million, made up of £5 million in 2003-04, £10 million
in 2004-05 and £20 million in 2005-06.
— This represents 61 per cent of the British Council's
bid of £57.6 million and the organisation regards this as
a vote of confidence in the major role it has to play in cultural
relations and public diplomacy.
— The Treasury has retained a separate line for
the British Council in the White Paper. Our settlement is, however,
broadly in line with what the BBC World Service and the FCO itself
have received.
— The White Paper indicates that funding is being
provided to enable us to strengthen our work in education and
to increase our activities in transitional countries and the developing
world. In particular, it singles out Connecting Futures, our campaign
to increase dialogue and mutual understanding between young people
in the UK and the Arab and Muslim worlds, as the centrepiece of
the British Council's new work.
— Funding is also being made available to increase
our support for the Prime Minister's Initiative to increase the
number of fee-paying international students studying for UK qualifications,
both through distance learning and in the UK itself.
— In addition, the settlement includes provision
for capital expenditure to enable us to modernise our global finance
and business systems to improve efficiency and customer service,
and for security.
— However, the government requires us to deliver
a 2.5 per cent efficiency gain each year, and the investment required
for infrastructure, new skills and innovation is considerable.
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