Written evidence from Public and Commercial
Services Union (PCS)
PCS IN THE
BRITISH COUNCIL
Introduction
The British Council is the UK's body for cultural
relations with other countries. The Council was established by
a Royal Charter in 1934. It is registered as a charity in England
and it is a non departmental public body sponsored by FCO, from
which it receives a grant whilst itself generating income from
teaching English, running exams and agency work overseas.
The Council has about 1,200 UK staff and there
are about 7,500 global staff (including 2,000 English teachers).
The Council has five UK offices in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh,
London and Manchester with an overseas presence in approximately
100 countries. PCS currently represents 760 members in the British
Council.
Key issues of concern to PCS
There are two broad types of activity conducted
by the British Council:
(i) Grant-funded work for cultural relations
between the UK and other countries; and
(ii) Unfunded, "full cost recovery (FCR)"
work mostly concerned with teaching English to fee-paying customers
and administering UK exams.
The FCR work in Europe is not facing cuts—English
teaching is set to increase, particularly in France and Spain.
The grant-funded work saw staff in Europe reduced
by about 35% between 2006 and 2009. This coincided with the closure
of libraries, which caused uproar in the media at the time.
The proposal now is to further reduce staff
engaged in grant-funded work by another 10% over 2010 and 2011.
The justification proffered is that this will allow for more of
the grant to be directed to activities rather than overheads like
salary.
PCS are concerned that staff will be reduced
so much that there will be little scope for non-English teaching
activity in the field of cultural relations (other than the standardised,
generic products referred to below).
The Council is now in a redundancy situation,
cutting 500 of its UK jobs
The British Council wants to "become the
world authority in cultural relations leadership and significantly
increase its impact".
PCS recognises that there are some positive
points to the change programme such as the recognition of the
need for greater efficiency and the commitment to partnering.
However we are concerned about aspects of the change programme
including:
(i) Moving jobs from the UK to India. The types
of jobs affected are in IT and finance.
(ii) Seeking partnership coalitions for the design
and delivery of services so to be able to cut 40% or more of the
UK jobs (this is approximately 500 jobs) as well as cutting hundreds
of jobs overseas.
Early indications (ie the 90 days formal consultation
letter) suggested that the 500 jobs cuts would mean the exit of
280 substantive employees and 220 temps, interims and/or contractors.
A Voluntary Early Retirement (VER) programme
was launched for substantive employees seeking 280 applicants.
During this exercise 931 staff requested forecasts, 391 staff
applied and 332 applicants were accepted. Despite this, a subsequent
request for a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies was turned
down on the basis of a possible mismatch between staff needs and
employee locations and a possible mismatch for future skills requirements.
PCS believes that cutting jobs in the current
economic climate is wrong and the decision should be urgently
reconsidered. We suspect these changes will not deliver financial
benefits or savings in the long term. The Foreign and Commonwealth
Office have considered similar plans but eventually decided to
keep jobs in Milton Keynes.
PCS would like to reach agreement with the employer
on a no compulsory redundancies guarantee. And other alternative
efficiency savings should be fully explored in the first instance.
The British Council's reputation is based on
relationships nurtured with individuals and governments around
the world. Each of these is unique to its specific context. PCS
believe that the proposed standardisation of cultural relations
is not the way to grow trust and meaningful dialogue; while it
could widen breadth of engagement it would be at the cost of depth
of engagement and there is little evidence of potential partners
with resources to contribute. There could also be the potential
for an excessive influence from new partners which risks distilling
the brand, muddying identity and losing autonomy. Either way,
the British Council has a poor track record of managing the kind
of partnerships proposed.
In conclusion we would argue that the plans
amount to transforming the British Council into little more than
an image-based consultancy.
PCS is campaigning to save jobs and for a no
compulsory redundancy agreement.
22 January 2010
| 
