2 Making the best use of its resources
9. The Council is flexible in moving its resources,
both between countries and within its own organisation. It is
currently shifting resources away from Europe and into the Islamic
world, Indian subcontinent and the Far East (Figure 2).
The budget for the Middle East region grew from £3.2 million
in 2000-01 to £10 million in 2007-08, an increase of over
300%. To achieve this rapid shift, the Council has had to expand
its operations in priority countries by recruiting staff and scaling
up its existing programmes, as well as developing new ones.[16]
Figure 2: The changing geographical allocation
of British Council's resources
Source: C&AG's Report, Appendix 2, Figure
15
10. The reduction of resources in Europe has also
involved closing offices and moving away from a local public presence,
except where this is funded by the public. Over the last eight
years, the Council has reduced its presence in Germany from seven
regional offices to one, based in Berlin, which is a back office
only. There has been a corresponding reduction in staff numbers
across Europe. Such changes could go some way to explain worrying
results from a 2006-07 survey of British Council staff which found
that staff were critical of Council leadership.[17]
11. The Council is moving from delivering locally
tailored, country-specific projects across 110 countries, to larger
projects built around 12 regions. The purpose of this shift towards
regional projects is to improve efficiency and effectiveness by
reducing duplication of effort and generating larger impact through
bigger projects. For example, by changing Interaction, an African
leadership project, from a country-specific project to a Regional
programme, costs per trainee have halved from £8,000 to £4,000.[18]
Improved controls should also prevent major expenditure on projects
before they are formally approved and still at risk of being cancelled.[19]
While it is still too early to evaluate fully the impact of the
move to regional projects, the Council's end of year performance
measurement system for 2007-08 has indicated that there is a statistically
significant improvement in the effectiveness of regional programmes
compared to those run at a country level.[20]
There remains, however, a risk that the Council could jeopardise
local contacts by rolling out standard regional products which
are not sufficiently tailored to local circumstances.[21]
12. The Council has seen a worrying decline in income
from external sponsorship and commercial partnerships over the
last seven years (Figure 3). Traditionally, large-scale,
country-specific arts projects were major recipients of sponsorship
and, by moving away from large programmes in individual countries,
the Council has to find new ways to generate sponsorship.[22]
Large scale regional programmes do have the potential to attract
major sponsors. For example, the UK-India Education Research Initiative
has generated around £1.8 million per year from commercial
donors.[23]
Figure 3: The British Council's income from sponsorship
and commercial partnerships
Source: C&AG's Report, Figure 7
13. The Council has also failed to maximise sponsorship
opportunities when they arose. For example, in 2006, it cancelled
four out of eight performances of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'
in India due to a lack of sponsorship. The Council appears to
have learnt from this experience; in January 2008 it took the
production back to India and achieved over £300,000 of sponsorship
income.[24]
14. In its latest Corporate Plan, the Council has
outlined its plans to increase sponsorship by an ambitious 12%
per year over the next three years. It has expanded its corporate
sponsorship department in London and will be carrying out more
work directly with company headquarters to secure funding on the
necessary scale. It will be a challenge to reverse the prevailing
downwards trend in sponsorship income over such a short timescale.
In mid-2007, the Council developed a policy on acceptable sponsorship.
For example, it will not accept sponsorship from drink or tobacco
companies, but it will accept sponsorship from energy companies
for projects related to the environment. However, the Council
has not yet enforced the policy in a consistent manner across
all regions.[25]
15. The Council has witnessed challenges to its market
share of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
examinations in India, as well as facing more intense competition
from new entrants to the teaching market, and in attracting Higher
and Further Education students. In India, between 2002 and 2007,
the Council lost two-thirds of its market share in IELTS to a
single competitor, although the total number of exams it provided
grew over the same period due to an explosion of demand for English
examinations in India. The Council conceded that its competitor
had responded more rapidly to this opportunity. Globally, however,
the Council still delivers two-thirds of the total IELTS market
and its examinations work is profitable in most of its teaching
centres.[26]
16. The Council works with Higher and Further Education
institutions in the UK to attract overseas students to study at
UK institutions. The UK's competitors in attracting foreign students
vary by county, but its main challengers are the United States
and Australia and, more recently, France and Germany, both of
which offer University courses taught in English.[27]
While the overall size of the market is growing, so too is the
competition, with France and Germany both creating organisations
specifically to market their education overseas. The Council believes
that the UK's share of the total overseas student market has remained
static, if not slightly decreased, given increasing competition.
The Council is working with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
on the Prime Minister's Initiative, which aims to develop links
to attract students to the UK, provide British courses in universities
overseas and persuade British students to consider studying overseas,
so improving our trans-national links.[28]
16 Qq 34-37, 65 Back
17
Q 8; C&AG's Report, Figure 12 Back
18
Qq 5, 53, 86 Back
19
Q 45 Back
20
Q 53 Back
21
Q 5 Back
22
Qq 7, 88 Back
23
Q 7; India and Sri Lanka form one of the British Council's 12
Regions Back
24
Qq 46-48 Back
25
Qq 43-44 Back
26
Qq 62-64 Back
27
Q 110 Back
28
Qq 111-112 Back
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