House of Commons - Public Accounts

Select Committee on Public Accounts Fifty-Sixth Report

1 Working with whole societies

1. The British Council (the Council) is a Registered Charity, an executive Non-Departmental Public Body and a Public Corporation. It aims to build mutually beneficial, lasting relationships between people in the UK and other countries, and to increase the appreciation of the UK's creative ideas and learning opportunities. It operates in 110 countries and directly engages with over 15 million people a year, by, for example, teaching English, administering exams and running cultural projects.[2]

2. The Council's widespread global presence requires it to prioritise working with some groups of people. We were concerned, however, that the Council tended to disproportionately focus its efforts on foreign elites, both in the way it defines its target groups and in its delivery of English language teaching. The Council has traditionally charged premium prices for its English language teaching, and after a period in which closures have exceeded openings, it has few teaching centres outside of overseas capital cities. This model has limited the Council's reach and restricted take up to those who could afford their prices.[3]

3. The Council is looking at ways of delivering English language teaching more flexibly and at a lower cost. For example, partnerships with schools or universities, currently used by the Council in Hong Kong and Madrid, offer greater access for learners and with no building costs to the Council.[4] The Council is also exploring the use of franchising and partner premises to teach outside capital centres. It has, however, been slow to put these alternative, more flexible models into effect.[5]

4. While the Council delivers English Language teaching directly to 300,000 learners in over 50 countries, it estimates that there are over one billion people in the world wanting to learn English.[6] Face-to-face teaching can only reach a small proportion of the mass market. The Council is, therefore, developing ways to expand its reach in other ways. For example, it is providing tuition over mobile phones in China. The Council is also building on its existing network of teaching centres to provide support to the teaching of English within the host country's public education system, and so reach a wider range of people. For example, it is working with the Yemeni Government on curriculum reform, and the West Bengal Government to help provide English in secondary schools. Each month, over one million users download three million pages of English language support work from the Council's internet site, such as lesson plans and teacher support via its website.[7]

5. Out of 1,800 British Council teachers, only 80, or 4%, speak English as a second language. In some centres, the Council regards the use of native speaking English teachers as a unique selling point. In order to meet rising demand for English teaching, however, the Council is aiming to increase its use of suitably qualified second language speakers. In common with its competitors, it does not expect to charge the public less for teaching by such speakers.[8]

6. The Council's English Language teaching and exams operation generates a surplus of over £10 million per year. Most of this surplus is, however, generated by just five centres. A small part of this surplus from profitable teaching centres, (some £0.6 million in 2006-07) is used to subsidise ten loss making Mission Critical centres. 'Mission critical' teaching centres operate at the margins of profitability, but the Council sees them as having a large impact on public diplomacy and cultural relations. Since 2005, the Council has closed 12 teaching centres (Figure 1), including some which were making a loss or which were regarded as not contributing sufficiently to the UK's cultural presence in that country^.[9] The Council is planning to substantially expand its teaching operations through opening new centres, for example, in China and India.[10] New centres should cover their costs and make a contribution to the UK's international relationships. The Council will not open a teaching centre which does not help meet their public diplomacy objectives.[11]

Figure 1: Teaching centres closed since 2005

YEAR CENTRES CLOSED COUNCIL'S REASON

2005-06 Nagoya and Kyoto, Japan

Bologna, Italy

Varna, Bulgaria

Kosice, Slovakia

Chittagong, Bangladesh As part of a review of teaching operations which were neither delivering strategic impact nor financial returns

Dammam Men's Centre in Saudia Arabia Closed on security grounds (the Women's Centre is still open, and the Council is maintaining Women's and Men's operations in Riyadh and Jeddah)

St. Petersburg, Russia External pressure

2006-07 Tel Aviv, Israel Delivering neither impact nor financial returns. The British Council refocused on its wider work in English through regional projects and networks

Istanbul, Turkey Security grounds

Moscow, Russia External pressure

2007-08 Budapest, Hungary Delivering neither impact nor financial returns, but the Council is strengthening its wider work in English in Hungary and North & Central Europe

Baku, Azerbaijan Following the loss of a business-critical corporate contract. The Council is strengthening its overall English programme within the region

Source: Ev 17-18

7. The Council has identified three main target audiences. These are high level decision-makers, key influencers and people with potential.[12] While the Council admits that it is seeking to focus its resources on those who are going to have influence in the future, it stressed the importance of being able to find those people across a broad range of societies.[13] Programmes such as education promotion, education management and school links are designed to reach a much wider section of society than the Council's current model of English language teaching. For example, the Council's Connecting Classrooms project links schools in the UK with schools overseas. Over the next five years, the Council intends to offer every school in England a place on this programme.[14]

8. The Council does important work in countries widely accepted to have repressive regimes. These countries present particular challenges to the ways in which the Council can operate. In Burma, for example, some 70,000 people a year use the Council's facilities, especially its library service. In Zimbabwe, around 50,000-60,000 people per year visit the Council's offices in Harare and Bulawayo, where the Council's aim is to provide support and assistance to young professionals who wish to stay and work in Zimbabwe.[15]

2 Q 4; C&AG's Report, Summary, para 1 Back

5 Q 6 Back

9 Qq 64, 80-81, C&AG's Report, para 2.25 Back

10 Qq 25-26 Back

11 Qq 12-26, 32 Back

12 C&AG's Report, para 2.2 Back

13 Qq 85, 100 Back