Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
BRITISH COUNCIL
& FOREIGN & COMMONWEALTH
OFFICE
23 JUNE 2008
Q80 Mr Mitchell: At the same time
you are closing down centres which run at a small overall loss.
You have closed ten "Mission Critical" centres, whatever
they are, in countries. Why is that? Can you give us an indication
or perhaps report back to the Committee telling us why they were
closed and what the numbers were because it says nothing about
numbers, it just says a small financial loss.
Mr Davidson: I can certainly give
the Committee a note which indicates each of the centres we have
closed and the reasoning for that. Fundamentally, we have closed
those centres which were making a significant loss and where we
did not believe they worked effectively.[8]
Q81 Mr Mitchell: It says a small
loss, not a significant loss.
Mr Davidson: I would argue that
we would only close where there is a significant loss. It is a
combination of loss and a failure to deliver an effective contribution
to the UK's cultural presence in the country.
Q82 Mr Mitchell: Why do you concentrate
so heavily on capital cities, both in your cultural activities
and in the English teaching? If Britain was a foreign country
you would never come to Grimsby, would you? We would hear nothing
of you!
Mr Davidson: Again, part of the
whole of our future development programme is about finding ways
of operating outside simply the capital cities. Obviously the
UK is very different from a range of those countries where we
are working. For example, in Zimbabwe we are in Harare and Bulawayo,
in Burma we are in Rangoon as well as Mandalay and we have four
centres in China and 9 centres in India, so we are spreading ourselves
where we believe it is appropriate to do it. I think there is
no question that we can and should be looking at branch operations
in second and third cities in some of those countries where at
present we do not have them.
Q83 Mr Mitchell: Presumably that
would enable you to offer a less expensive option. One of the
reasons given as to why it is so pricey—it says at 2.29—is
the teaching of English is carried on in expensive offices.
Mr Davidson: We did make a decision,
and I think it was the right decision, that we should teach along
with the rest of our work. We are not simply a teaching organisation,
we are a cultural relations organisation and we wanted people
who would come in to learn English to also see the other work
we are doing, whether that is information work or seminar work
or activity with different people, so I do think that does add
some cost to it. Personally, I believe it is appropriate that
we try and build out from the teaching centres into the rest of
the work that the organisation does.
Q84 Mr Mitchell: The report gives
you the impression, which no doubt Mr Davidson will follow up,
that you are going for the classes, not the masses, both in your
cultural contacts, your relationships and in your English teaching.
Mr Davidson: I do not think that
is appropriate.
Q85 Mr Mitchell: Potentially you
are picking out people, rising stars like me and members of the
elite, whereas the need is to get out to the mass market.
Mr Davidson: We are certainly
picking out rising stars but I do not think we are assuming that
rising stars only come from existing elites. Indeed, a critical
part for us is to make sure we try and look across the entire
range of people within a particular place to identify where those
rising stars are going to be coming from.
Q86 Mr Mitchell: This increased emphasis
on the regional premises which you are developing, is that to
save money, that you could put on one performance of Midsummer
Night's Dream and cart it around India? The report says that
you are going for more of a regional strategy and taking groups,
cultural events, writers or whatever around a region rather than
a country by country approach.
Mr Davidson: What we are seeking
to do is develop programmes which are region-wide. A good example
is our School Links Programme. We have a programme which takes
place in a wide range of different countries. Traditionally they
have tended to be country specific and country form by bringing
them together into a programme which we hope to launch the month
after next called Connecting Classrooms.
Q87 Mr Mitchell: It is not to save
money.
Mr Davidson: It will save money
because instead of developing a programme maybe 20 or 30 times,
we will develop it only once. It is not about taking money out
of the programmes, it is about being able to deliver that programme
more effectively. I think the school classroom links is a very
good example of that.
Q88 Mr Mitchell: I see that sponsorship
return is down. Is that because of this regionalisation process?
In other words, you could get local sponsors for a strictly local
event but you cannot get sponsors for a bigger regional event.
Mr Davidson: I think there is
an aspect of truth in that, that by moving away from some very
large programmes at an individual country level we have to find
new ways of developing those relationships. That is one of the
reasons why we have expanded, for example, our corporate sponsorship
department in London because we have to deal with headquarters
for some of the scale of sponsorship we are now looking for rather
than the local office.
Mr Mitchell: This friction with Russia
which has hit the headlines, were you spying? Were the premises
being used for spying?
Chairman: Who were you spying on!
Q89 Mr Mitchell: Were the premises
being used for a purpose like spying, of which the Russians were
rightly suspicious?
Mr Davidson: No, they were not.
Mr Davidson: You would say that anyway!
Q90 Mr Mitchell: Have you experienced
that kind of difficulty in other countries?
Mr Davidson: What, difficulties
like Russia?
Mr Bacon: Spying?
Q91 Mr Mitchell: No, sorry, difficulties
of government suspicion of your activities.
Mr Davidson: There is no question
that a number of governments do not necessarily like the development
of a more open society. My personal view, I do not have a huge
amount of evidence for this but you will perhaps remember that
our offices in Ramallah and Gaza were burnt out about 18 months
ago. Why? Because we were the only people at that time providing
access to the outside world for young Palestinians. Undoubtedly
there are forces around the world who do not want us to do that.
Q92 Mr Mitchell: Those will be greater
in the Muslim world.
Mr Davidson: No, I think there
are a variety of countries, for example Burma.
Mr Mitchell: Mr Lynes is nodding.
Q93 Chairman: Your colleague was
nodding at that stage; you said no and he said yes!
Mr Davidson: I think there are
certainly issues within the Islamic world, the Muslim world, but
I think there are also other issues. Burma and Zimbabwe are not
renowned for their openness at the moment.
Q94 Chairman: I was going to ask
you specifically about Burma and Zimbabwe. What is happening there?
Are you being harassed? Are you free? Do people keep telling you
what you can and cannot do?
Mr Davidson: We have operations
in both those countries and in both countries we have a large
number of people coming through the offices. I think in Burma
we have something like 70,000 people coming to our offices for
activities and that is teaching, examinations and libraries. There
is an excellent example of where the library is a phenomenally
powerful tool because it is the only place in Burma where you
can get access to outside literature, foreign newspapers, the
BBC World Service and the Internet. We have something like 375,000
people a year coming through our offices. Obviously there are
people who come in multiple times, they are not new individuals,
and every time they come in they have their names taken by military
intelligence. It is a service of enormous value which people take
a risk in coming to get and the same is true in Zimbabwe. Again,
we have a very substantial number, around 50,000 to 60,000 people
per year coming into our operations in Zimbabwe, in Harare and
Bulawayo. Our agenda there is to try and provide support and assistance
to young professionals who want to stay on in the country and
not go overseas.
Q95 Mr Davidson: You are under the
umbrella of the Foreign Office, which in previous investigations—if
you can clarify—was chock-a-block with public school, Oxbridge
people. Are you representative of Britain as a whole?
Mr Davidson: We attempt to be
so. How well we are doing is worth looking at.
Q96 Mr Davidson: Is that a yes or
a no?
Mr Davidson: It was the preliminary
to telling you where we are, which is that out of our 240 senior
managers globally we have something like 8% from black and minority
ethnic staff and something like 30% who are female. I think it
is still true to say that we have a larger number of black and
minority ethnic staff in the more junior ranks of the organisation,
but we have targets which we have put in place to try and ensure
that both women and minority staff are better represented throughout
the organisation.
Q97 Mr Davidson: None of which I
mentioned, but I did mention public schools and Oxbridge and you
did not mention either of those in your reply, so I presume that
was a no then, was it?
Mr Davidson: Out of my executive
board of five, one person has an Oxbridge background; out of the
12 regional directors, three have an Oxbridge background.[9]
Chairman: You were obviously expecting
this question, were you not, because you are well prepared!
Q98 Mr Davidson: Maybe you could confirm
that to us in writing, that would be helpful. Can I turn to page
11, chart 5, where we are looking at the groups you are focusing
your resources on. This applies to British Council—India,
but I presume it applies more generally. The top two groups both
have low price sensitivity, now I presume that is a euphemism
for rich, whereas the bottom two groups you have there are high
price sensitivity, which I presume is a euphemism for poor. Picking
up the point which my colleague made, you are basically providing
services for rich people.
Mr Davidson: No, I do not think
we are. If you take China as a case in point, there is a very
wide range of people who are not necessarily rich but for whom
education and foreign education is seen as of such enormous value
that they are not enormously sensitive to the cost of that. I
think the same is true in India. We have not used this as a euphemism
for rich and poor, we have tried to identify those who are genuinely
price sensitive and those who are not.
Q99 Mr Davidson: Can you clarify
for us how many of the people you are dealing with, for example,
in India could be vaguely described as rich and how many could
be vaguely described as poor that you are dealing with? You tell
us the answer and then we will try and clarify whether or not
that is representative of India as a whole.
Mr Davidson: I cannot give you
a precise split off the top of my head but I will obviously try
and let you have that.[10]
It would be foolish for me to pretend that an organisation of
our size in 9 offices across India is dealing with anything like
1.2-1.3 billion people, but clearly we are working with the mass
education system. For example, we have developed a programme with
the West Bengal Government to provide English to the secondary
schools which delivers English.
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