Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Written Evidence


Letter to the Chairman of the Committee from the Comptroller and Auditor General, National Audit Office, dated 20 July 2006

BRITISH COUNCIL

Dear Chairman,

  In its recent report on Public Diplomacy, your Committee recommended that the National Audit Office consider a further value for money report on the British Council. My purpose in writing to you now is to confirm that I do plan to undertake a study along the lines you suggest and to outline the way forward.

  My staff have held initial discussions with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Council and your Clerk to identify how best we can deliver a study to address the issues your Committee raised. As we undertake detailed planning and scoping work for the study, we would, of course, like to be able to draw informally on the expertise of your Committee, and I have asked the Director responsible, Tim Banfield, to get in touch with your Clerk after the summer recess, to work out how best to take this forward.

  Regarding timing, I understand that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are commissioning an external review of performance measurement across the field of Public Diplomacy, following which the British Council expects to amend the ways in which it assesses its own performance. I intend to let these changes work through over the next few months, before starting my examination in the first half of next year.

  Finally, I should add that our longstanding audit of the Council's financial statements will of course continue, including assessment of the Council's systems of internal control, both in the UK and overseas.

Sir John Bourn KCB

Comptroller and Auditor General





 
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