British Council response
Letter to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee
from the Chief Executive, British Council and attached memorandum,
dated 9 March 2010
In answer to the Foreign Affairs Committee's Report
on The Work of the British Council 2008-09, please find
enclosed our response to the recommendations and conclusions regarding
the British council's activities, performance and administration.
We have also provided answers, in our submission, to the challenges
identified in the Report.
We value the Committee's assessment of our work,
particularly its support for our strategy and priority countries,
including the increased investment in China.
Performance in 2008-09
(Recommendation 1) We conclude that the change
in extent of data provided and the presentation of that data in
the British Council's 2008-09 Annual Report makes it more difficult
to track the Council's performance over a period of years and
evaluate it. We welcome the inclusion of narrative case studies
as a means of illustrating the Council's work, but conclude that
some of the space devoted in the latest report to photographs,
and to gimmickry such as half-sized pages and pages with holes
cut in them, could be devoted in future to hard information and
statistics. We recommend that in future the Annual Report should
include fuller performance data, including corporate performance
scores and reach, to facilitate year-on-year analysis. We further
conclude that the Council should re-instate the use of pie charts
to demonstrate country share of regional income. (Paragraph 8)
The British Council's 2009-10 Annual Report will
present the organisation's performance data at corporate, regional
and country level. It will provide a year-on-year comparison;
and a read across the 11 regions. It will adopt a more straight-forward
design treatment. We welcome the Committee's guidance on how to
present data in the most useable way.
(Recommendation 2) We conclude that the recent
decline in some of the scores achieved by the British Council
in relation to quality of service, particularly in that relating
to engagement with decision makers and senior influencers, gives
cause for concern. We recommend that, in its response to this
Report, the Council should set out the steps it is taking to investigate
the reasons for these declining scores, and give its view of the
implications of these trends for future Council policy. (Paragraph
17)
Having reviewed the small number of scores in our
Evaluation of Long-Term Outcomes that dipped recently we believe
we need greater focus on sustaining relationships beyond the life-cycle
of specific projects. We are working with our network of Country
Directors to develop the appropriate and effective response to
achieve this.
(Recommendation 3) We conclude that the disaggregation
of the British Council's overall customer satisfaction score into
individual scores for "meeting expectations" and "quality
of delivery" is to be welcomed. We also welcome the introduction
of the new advocacy measure, and recommend that the advocacy rating
achieved in each region be reported in the Annual Report. We further
conclude that the gap between the scores for level of satisfaction
with engagement and for willingness to advocate working with the
Council requires further investigation. We recommend that the
Council investigate further the reasons for this gap, and report
its conclusions in its next Annual Report. (Paragraph 22)
We will report regional advocacy ratings in our 2009-10
Annual Report.
The difference between satisfaction levels and willingness
to advocate is a result of the different scoring methodologies
used for each measure. Satisfaction is a weighted average score
whereas net advocacy is a percentage. We believe our scores compare
well with external benchmarks but we will continue to press for
improvement.
(Recommendation 4) We conclude that the British
Council's continued commitment to the western Balkans, despite
its overall shift in focus away from Europe, is to be welcomed.
(Paragraph 30)
We welcome the Committee's conclusion. We are present
in all the countries of the western Balkans, where our role is
to support UK interests through contributing to the security and
prosperity of the region. We are doing this firstly by sharing
UK expertise to help institutions align with European standards
and secondly by helping individuals acquire skills—above
all English—to enable them to create a long-term relationship
with the UK, the rest of Europe and the world. Our programme in
the western Balkans is funded partly by grant-in-aid, but increasingly
by clients such as the European Union, by major sponsors, and
by customers for our teaching and examinations services. While
it is true that we have shifted grant-in-aid funding away from
Europe to other priority regions, our focus on and commitment
to working in Europe as a whole remains strong.
(Recommendation 5) We recommend that the British
Council should monitor carefully the trend in engagement and customer
satisfaction levels in Russia and North Europe. While we recognise
that, given the strategic shift in resources, some decline in
both measures provided may be expected, it is important that there
be no decline in the quality of the services which continue to
be provided in this region, to Russia in particular. (Paragraph
34)
We continue to monitor customer satisfaction and
engagement in Russia and Northern Europe, and have appointed champions
across the region tasked with driving improvements in the quality
of service. We believe this focus will allow us to report a marked
improvement in customer satisfaction scores across the region
in 09-10.
(Recommendation 6) We conclude that the British
Council's refocusing of priorities which has resulted in increased
investment in China, following its categorisation as an emerging
economy and therefore a priority region, is to be welcomed. (Paragraph
40)
We welcome the Committee's conclusion.
(Recommendation 7) We conclude that the growth
in customer satisfaction levels in the British Council's priority
countries and regions is to be welcomed. This is an encouraging
indication that the Council's efforts in refocusing its priorities
and restructuring its services are bearing fruit. (Paragraph 48)
We welcome the Committee's conclusion.
Challenges
(Recommendation 8) We conclude that the lack of
progress towards a Cultural Centres Agreement in Russia is regrettable,
and recommend that the Government and the British Council continue
to seek a resolution to this long-standing issue. We further conclude
that the Council's success in pursuing alternative activities
in Russia is to be welcomed and recommend that it is given a high
priority. (Paragraph 57)
We agree with the Committee's conclusion and are
committed to resuming negotiations as soon as circumstances permit.
(Recommendation 9) We recommend that the FCO take
all steps necessary to support the British Council in its efforts
to resume its important work in Iran. (Paragraph 59)
We welcome the continued support of the FCO to assist
us resume our work in Iran.
(Recommendation 10) We recommend that the FCO
support the British Council's efforts to re-establish itself in
Zimbabwe. (Paragraph 61)
We continue to deliver support to individuals from
our premises in Harare and Bulawayo with the full support of the
British Embassy in Harare, our operations focus on capacity-building
for young professionals in management and finance; the arts, higher
education and journalism.
Administration
(Recommendation 11) We welcome the report on the
Council's progress in implementing NAO suggested reforms. We recommend
that progress should be reported in the Council's next Annual
Report. (Paragraph 67)
We will report as recommended.
(Recommendation 12) We conclude that 2009-10 will
be a difficult year for the British Council and that further cuts
in staff and services may be unavoidable. In these circumstances
it is important that the Council concentrates its activities on
its core business and key objectives. We recommend that the FCO
should supply us with the British Council's statement of its priorities
in allocating scarce resources, in its response to this Report.
We further recommend that the Council should update us with information
relating to any proposed cuts in services required in order to
meet the £11.8 million gap which it has identified in its
planning for the next financial year. (Paragraph 78)
Like many international organisations, the following
year will be a difficult one. The British Council is taking the
necessary steps to put the organisation on a sound financial footing,
with mandatory reserves at an adequate level. We have made a fundamental
change to the business model of the organisation, achieving recurrent
savings of more than £30 million.
330 UK-appointed members of staff will leave on Voluntary
Early Retirement by October 2010. The work force in the UK will
reduce by a total of 500 by the end of the year, representing
35% of the permanent UK workforce by the end of the year. In addition,
we will seek to implement a pay freeze for all UK appointed staff
and pay restraint for all overseas staff for the year 2010/11.We
are also deferring some non-urgent investment and are making cuts
in lower impact programmes.
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