The Work of the British Council 2008-09 - Foreign Affairs Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-35)

MARTIN DAVIDSON, GERARD LEMOS AND SUE BEAUMONT

4 NOVEMBER 2009

  Chairman: That would be helpful.

  Gerard Lemos: Perhaps I can come in on this. It is perhaps worth noting that all the numbers you have been asking about all point to the bigger strategic shift that we have tried to make in the Council over the years, certainly those in which I have been involved. Five or six years ago, the Council did very little work with young people. Now we engage with thousands and thousands of young people—millions—but directly engage. That shift to working with young people and focusing on what one might describe as some of the tougher and more difficult countries is, in effect, producing some of the negative consequences that you are describing because of choices we have made. I would say that they are the right choices and are about where we deploy our resources and on what kind of programmes. Sue Beaumont has been working in Pakistan, for example, and there has been a massive increase in our work with young people. That is obviously very important, but the money to do that has to come from somewhere. One of the answers to where it comes from is northern Europe.

  Chairman: We understand your problem.

  Q20  Sir John Stanley: You are making this massive geographical shift of a third of your resources out of Europe into what you take to be higher priority areas. When we discussed this with you last year, you said that you were going to maintain the level of funding in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey and that you were actually going to increase the funding into the western Balkans. Do those exceptions apply still a year later today?

  Martin Davidson: Yes, they do. We recognise that there is a very clear distinction to be made between western European countries and those new accession countries, the immediate European neighbourhood and the west Balkans. We are making a significant shift and change in the west Balkans. It is a difficult area for us to operate in; for example, there has been some criticism of our decision to close our library in Belgrade, but it was taken on the basis that we would, by using those same resources, open two new libraries—one in Novi Sad and the other in Kragujevac, Serbia's second and third largest cities—because we are worried about the way in which we focus on a small number of the larger cities in that region and the feeling that the sort of services that we offer are best delivered if we try to deliver them more widely across the region. That move out of large centres in capital cities alone into a wider range of services to a broader range of people in the second and third tier cities would be a continuing part of our strategy for the region.

  Q21  Sir John Stanley: Can I go from recent accession countries to countries that are more or less down the accession path, to countries that are looking towards the EU, but have not really begun the process very much at all? I wish to ask you about Ukraine, Moldova—where I was in the first two days of this week; you may be interested to know that, quite spontaneously, it was said to me in Moldova that the British Council could very easily run self-financing English language teaching—and Georgia. Have you got your eyes on those countries because they are three very important countries, which are all on the edge of going eastwards or westwards and where the British Council could have a very valuable role to play?

  Martin Davidson: We are very conscious of all three. Ukraine is a very important location for us, and we have a substantial presence there, including in some of the other cities. Georgia again is an important operation for us, and Operation Tbilisi is a well-founded one. Moldova is a country where we have not operated with a stand-alone operation. We have over time done a small amount of work out of our Romania operation there. I admit that I have been cautious about taking on another country. I take the view that one of the biggest problems the British Council had back in the '90s and the early part of this century was our constant expansion with smaller resources. I have taken the view that we should not open new country operations unless we are prepared to close another operation. In other words, unless the total resource of the organisation can grow, we should not reduce down. Obviously, that is not a policy that can be written in stone. One of the things we are looking at is how we can also develop a stronger set of services and work in countries from their neighbours. For example, in Africa, we are looking to work in Rwanda out of our Uganda operation. We are developing work in Angola from neighbouring countries and clearly in the case of Moldova there are two options for us to look at, one of which would be a stand-alone operation. We are very aware of the pressure—well, not so much the pressure, but the desire of the Moldovan Government for us to operate. We will look at whether we should open there or, indeed, whether we should expand our work, particularly out of Romania, into that country.

  Gerard Lemos: Just one small thing to add to that. One of the benefits of the regional approach that we now have, about which Martin was talking earlier, is that it makes it possible for us to extend our programmes into countries where we do not have offices, like Moldova. That is how we started out in Kosovo and so on. We now have a very well established and highly successful operation in Kosovo, which I visited recently. The way in which we put the organisation together in these regions is a plus in this respect.

  Q22  Sir John Stanley: I am sure you are aware of the sensitivity in quite a lot of quarters in Moldova about Romania. You might want to think quite closely about the Ukraine if you are looking for a springboard. Can I just ask you another couple of questions? Your regional performance data last year covered both engagement and reach. This year they cover only engagement and not reach. What is the reason for that?

  Martin Davidson: I think we wanted to focus ourselves and our colleagues on engagement as the most effective measure of the power of the organisation—the impact that the organisation achieves. We do, of course, also measure reach and we have global measures for reach. We decided not to publish those separately, but we can, of course, let the Committee have them if you would be interested in them.

  Sir John Stanley: We would like to have those.[2]

  Gerard Lemos: Just quickly, so that you know now, the reach figures went up from 87 million in 2006-07 to 112 million in 2007-08 and to 221 million in 2008-09. That is partly because of the recalibration we were discussing earlier between reach and engagement. Although the engagement figures went down a bit, reach figures have gone up.

  Q23  Sir John Stanley: We would like to have those regional data on reach. I just have one more question. The engagement figures in Russia and northern Europe fell in 2008-09. You said that they were engaging with fewer people and that these are "champions" who "go on to achieve great things." Would you like to give us any examples of particular champions you have in mind?

  Martin Davidson: I don't have a specific individual in mind. In the case of northern Europe and Russia in particular, as the Committee is aware, we have made significant shifts in our operations and have had to re-found them in many ways. But the sorts of programmes we are running within the region include, for example, our international climate champions, which is focused on a group of young people between the ages of 16 to 20. Some of those young people have come to the UK—for example, we brought international champions from each of the G20 countries for the G20 summit here. We will be taking a number of them to the Copenhagen meeting in the next few weeks. So we are focusing on identifying young people who want to engage in those critical areas of climate change and the wider international agenda both in northern Europe and in Russia. We are providing those young people with the opportunity to become part of that wider network that we are building more generally.

  Chairman: Thank you very much.

  Q24  Mr Hamilton: Can I move us away from Europe to the other side of the world, to China? In 2008-09, you significantly increased investment by £2.6 million, yet engagement fell from 3.6 million to, I think, 1.3 million. You say in your report that that is because you focused on quality rather than quantity, but can you give us some examples of how you did this? That's a rather alarming drop, isn't it?

  Martin Davidson: It is a significant drop. In the case of China, two things are worth saying. One, it was one of those countries where we made a decision that we would try and meet some of the losses in the exchange rate. Other countries had to live within the cash means; with China, we wanted to make sure that that was not the case, so some money did go into China to try and cover that. China is a very good example of one of those countries where we wanted to re-base our evaluation data. So, for example, in China, a large number of people go through the whole education process—as you know, China is the largest sender of students to the UK—and we were counting many in our engagement figures of those attending education exhibitions and other education engagements. We no longer do that, because we don't believe that it is an appropriate way to calculate the impact of the organisation.

  Q25  Mr Hamilton: Sorry, can I interrupt you a minute? Are you saying that you were effectively double counting some people?

  Martin Davidson: Not that we were double counting, but that instead of counting people attending education exhibitions and those types of activities as engagement, we now count them as reach. We've re-categorised. Instead, we're focusing much more on programmes like our Climate Cool programme, which is working with the Chinese Government on developing a climate curriculum for schools. That has involved something like 1,000 teachers and approximately 700,000 Chinese schoolchildren. We will count the 1,000 teachers as those with whom we have a direct engagement; the 700,000-odd schoolchildren we will count as having been reached rather than having had direct engagement. That gives an indication of how we're trying to focus on where we make a direct impact on individuals, rather than a knock-on impact. It's a very good example of how we're refocusing the programme. We're also focusing very considerably on English language in China, education links—higher education links in particular—and school links. I think that gives us a very strong programme where we will be able to demonstrate that the engagement that we have with those people is genuinely transformational in terms of the way they actually think about the UK and involve themselves with the UK and, indeed, the aspirations that those young people have.

  Q26  Mr Hamilton: Still on China, these are quite large figures, even though they've reduced significantly, for the reasons you've explained, but China is the largest, most populous country in the world. It's really scratching the surface, isn't it? Have you measured the proportion of people you've engaged with, even at the 1.3 million level, compared with other comparable countries? What percentage?

  Martin Davidson: I'm not sure that we've done a direct comparison. Different countries obviously count these things in very different ways. We have a view in our own minds of the sort of proportion that we should seek to engage with, and we have established a target of 10% of a particular cadre of people for us to have a positive engagement with. In China, that is an astronomically large number.

  Mr Hamilton: Over 100 million.

  Martin Davidson: Yes. I am not suggesting 10% of the total population; that is certainly way beyond our capacity. But if we are looking at, for example, the population of 16 to 20-year-olds wanting to learn English, still, the numbers are going to be very, very large. I think it is inevitable that if we are going to be effective in China, we have to operate through online and electronic means. We cannot possibly have direct, face-to-face engagement. We are, for example, discussing with the Chinese authorities how we can work with them more closely on English language. We are working on an online English language offer for Chinese students. We expect to be able to announce very soon an agreement with Nokia for English language materials over their telephone network in China. We are working on developing with the Chinese Government support for Chinese teachers of English, giving them access to curriculum and teaching materials. We already have something like 1 million Chinese teachers a year using our services in that way.

  Mr Hamilton: So we are enabling the enablers.

  Martin Davidson: It is about enabling the enablers. Indeed, exactly the same argument is made about India, where, rather than trying to deal face to face with very large numbers of Indian teachers, we made a decision to work with the teacher training establishments because that gives us access at a level that is manageable in these huge countries.

  Q27  Mr Hamilton: I appreciate that we are running a little short of time so can I whizz us through some of the other countries? In the Middle East, grant aid increased by about 17%, thankfully, engagement also increased by about 17%, and satisfaction, I am glad to say, improved marginally as well. Are these above or below the levels that you would have expected given the increase in funding?

  Martin Davidson: Perhaps I could ask Sue to cover that as it is her region.

  Sue Beaumont: I am not sure whether they are in line with what you have just said but clearly there was an increase in engagement, because we did more things in the Middle East. We are doing a lot on the English language. We reached 1.4 million through an online offer by working with teachers and, through teachers, students online. We are working with school links across the region, and we are definitely engaging with more young people by trying to involve them in community projects. Often, those community projects are linked with communities in the UK as well because it is incredibly important for both the Middle East and the UK to have a greater understanding of each other and there are benefits in both directions. On balance, we have made a conscious effort to engage more people in different areas—all marginalised areas.

  Q28  Mr Hamilton: Thank you very much for that. Last year you indicated that you expected to increase engagement figures in central and south Asia from just under 1 million to more than 2.5 million over the next few years. However, as you know, engagement fell marginally by about 100,000 to 800,000. Is that exclusively because of Iran or are there other factors and what are your revised targets?

  Martin Davidson: Iran obviously was a very substantial cause, with the closure of the office in January, but to all intents and purposes the work had been substantially run down by that period. It is also a rebasing of our activities in central and south Asia, but I think that I will ask Sue to perhaps use Pakistan as an example of where we are expecting to go.

  Sue Beaumont: In Pakistan we have focused on fewer programmes, so, in a sense, that affects some of the engagement figures, but as a result we are reaching far more young people. To take people who are engaged through our school linking programmes, we have around 200,000 school links in Pakistan and they reach about 500,000 school children. Those school children are very much engaged with the UK on learning projects, which could be on anything—environmental issues, heritage, their different cultures. There is a very strong connection between schools in the UK engaged with schools in Pakistan, which brings all sorts of benefits to learners. We have also worked with teachers on teacher development in leadership and on running schools and improving what you can get out of resources. When teachers from the UK meet teachers in Pakistan they are usually quite amazed at what schools in Pakistan can deliver with very small resources. What also happens is a lot of exchange on curriculum practice. An incredible amount of mutuality goes on. I think that what we want to do in the future is expand that enormously because we find that people-to-people contact, particularly for the school children, for students and for young people, enhances the trust and understanding between our cultures.

  Q29  Mr Hamilton: Thank you very much. I'm sorry to move us swiftly along; we want to cover a number of areas. We spent a lot of time over the past few years discussing Russia. We all know what has been happening there and of the appalling problems that the British Council has faced over the past few years. I do not want to rehearse those but could you bring us up to date on the current situation in Russia? Is there any prospect of a new cultural centres agreement with the Russian authorities? If not, how do you see the work of the Council developing in Russia at all?

  Martin Davidson: As the Committee is aware, we have had tax disputes with the Russian authorities for a number of years. Those tax disputes have now been settled in St. Petersburg with a final settlement of approximately £7,000 of tax payable by the British Council, which is roughly 99.5% less than the original tax demand. We are still in the process of going through the courts in Moscow for the tax demand there, and we hope very much that that will be settled within this year. That said, I think it is important to recognise that the atmosphere for cultural relationships with Russia has changed over the past year or 18 months. There was an extremely successful Turner exhibition, which took place in Moscow last year. Something like 200,000 people went through the doors on that. We also ran a drama festival, with a number of British drama companies going to Russia. Russia is scheduled to be the market focus of the London Book Fair in 2011. Only in the last week or so we had a very successful exchange with the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. There are plans for a substantial programme of cultural exchanges with Russia both this year and next year. So I think the atmosphere is stronger. I do not have any information at the moment about when it will be possible for us to obtain a cultural centres agreement, which would allow us to reopen in St. Petersburg. Obviously, we continue to express to the Russian authorities our desire to be able to operate effectively from St. Petersburg, but it remains part of the wider relationship between the UK and Russia, rather than purely a cultural one.

  Q30  Mr Hamilton: On 31 January this year you suspended all operations in Iran. Are there any prospects for the Council returning to Iran? Have you had a chance to talk to the Iranian authorities about the way your staff have been treated?

  Martin Davidson: We obviously made, when the operation was closed in Iran, a number of protests at the way in which staff had been treated. I don't think you'd be surprised that in the subsequent period the relationship has become increasingly difficult. Wrongly, I believe, the Iranian authorities regard the cultural relationship as part of a wider subversive approach to Iran. It is quite clear to me that young Iranians are looking for the opportunity to engage and to be involved in education, the English language, and wider contact with other parts of the world. We stand ready when it becomes possible for us to get back to work in Iran, but I have to say I'm not sanguine about that being very soon.

  Q31  Mr Hamilton: So you've had no indication whatever from the Iranian authorities that in your view it would be safe to go back there.

  Martin Davidson: No, and in the present climate it's extremely unlikely that we would get those indications.

  Q32  Mr Hamilton: Which, as you rightly say, is tragic, given the view of most Iranians that they look towards the west and are interested in western, especially British and American, culture.

  Martin Davidson: Iran is one of those countries with the most extraordinarily ambitious, eloquent, clever young population, looking for and hungry for connections with other parts of the world. I think one of the saddest things of all is that the opportunities for them to get those links have been closed down.

  Gerard Lemos: Perhaps I could just say one more general thing about this. One of the most striking things in my many long years at the British Council has been the tenacity of our staff in these kinds of situations, Iran and Russia being two examples, although I could quote many others where there are other kinds of difficulties—Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and so on. One of the striking things about life at the British Council is how quickly we do, once the mood changes, manage to reopen and get things going again. So we are eternal optimists and we certainly won't stand on the sidelines any longer than we need to. I think our track record in some of the other difficult countries rather confirms that. So we're ready to go.

  Q33  Mr Hamilton: Finally, you mentioned Zimbabwe just now, Mr Lemos. Last year, Mr Davidson, you told us that you were not in a position to expand your operations in Zimbabwe and you would obviously do so as soon as the political situation improved. We are told that it is improving. You also said that your plans included working with the diaspora communities in the UK and South Africa and looking at ways in which they might be encouraged to return to Zimbabwe, as well as continuing to work with young professionals within Zimbabwe itself. Can you tell us what progress you have made in the last 12 months in working with the diaspora communities and with young professionals in Zimbabwe?

  Martin Davidson: First, on the young professionals in Zimbabwe, we have made a significant inroad there. The number of people going through our two offices in Harare and Bulawayo has risen to 60,000 over the year. That continues to grow this year. The sort of services that we are offering, which are providing access to technical and management information from outside the country, helped some of those people to make the decision to stay in Zimbabwe, though obviously there are many other factors involved. We are shortly moving to new offices in Harare which will enable us to expand those services for people in Harare. We have also been able to continue to develop our school linking and other programmes of that kind, which give young people and young professionals, particularly teachers, the opportunity to have an involvement with schools outside the country. We have also continued to support the Harare Arts Festival to bring a stronger arts component. We are making considerable efforts to continue to operate in Harare and in Zimbabwe more widely. My colleagues in South Africa have also begun to make contact with some of the diaspora communities there. I do not have details in front of me of exactly what they have done but I can certainly let the Committee have those.[3]

  Mr Hamilton: I'd be grateful.

  Martin Davidson: I am very pleased with our commitment to Zimbabwe and the fact that we are dealing with more people in a more effective way. Again, both the physical and mental courage of our staff in managing in very difficult circumstances at one point last year should also be noted.

  Gerard Lemos: Just one final thing, we do still have public access in Zimbabwe and we know that that is enormously valued across the political spectrum in Zimbabwe. That is something we are committed to.

  Q34  Chairman: Finally, you gave us a very helpful written submission and I should like to quote it back at you: "The prosperity of the UK depends on a world which is open to commerce, culture, creativity and global participation. In this context, the work of the British Council is `more important than ever'." Do you think that in the current climate that view of the work of the British Council is shared within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office but also, and more importantly, within the Treasury as we approach another comprehensive spending review?

  Gerard Lemos: Perhaps I could start on this. We do not underestimate the difficulties of the current spending climate. Of course we don't. We would be naive to do so. We have made all the efforts that we talked about before the Committee to make sure that our organisation is fit for the future and that we are saving money where we can and we are meeting all the efficiency targets that the Treasury and others have set for us. It is important to us to keep our house in good order. On the general strategic point, the context in which the world is operating post the recession makes it important for us to be able to continue to do our work. It becomes more important for the UK to experience the benefits of creativity and openness and it becomes more important for us to do our work on skills and so on. We see ourselves as very strategic contributors to the UK economy and that is the case we will make. We hope that the Treasury and FCO will see it the way we do.

  Q35  Chairman: Have you given any thought to where you might have to make cuts in particular regions, projects or approaches, should you find that next year or the year beyond you are presented with difficult choices?

  Gerard Lemos: We don't have a blueprint and it is not our intention to make one. One good thing about the Council for the purposes of this conversation is that we have other sources of income—commercial income and so on. But the problem is where that is derived. The countries where we want to spend our grant funds are not the countries where we have the maximum commercial potential. So a lot of our money is earned in Europe and east Asia and so on but we spend it in the Middle East and central and south Asia. It would be difficult for us to maintain our global footprint, to which we are very committed, if there were substantial cuts. It is in the interests of the UK as a whole that we maintain our presence. We will live within our means and we will try to do that efficiently but we don't want to be put in a position where we have to reduce our activities in places where perhaps we can't do commercial things quite so easily because the markets aren't there for them. It would be wrong to imagine that we could simply substitute commercial income for Treasury funds.

  Chairman: Mr Davidson, Mr Lemos and Ms Beaumont, thank you for coming today. We will keep in touch with you, no doubt, to follow up some of the questions with requests for the information you said you would give us. Thank you for your time.

  Gerard Lemos: Perhaps I can say on behalf of the Council that we do welcome the opportunity to come and see you once a year and to share what has been going on for us. We look forward to seeing you again next year.

  Chairman: I suspect next year that some Members of the Committee will have moved on to other things.

  Gerard Lemos: I dare say that might be true on this side of the table, too.

  Chairman: We certainly hope that the next Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee will take up the relationship with you.

  Gerard Lemos: It is a very useful encounter for us.


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