The Language Business

Trust me, I'm from the British Council

British Council watchers will find plenty of familiar fare in the organisation’s recent evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee. 

When I read this sentence uttered by the British Council Chair Lord Kinnock…

“It is a supreme irony, to which I draw the Committee's attention, that on the very same day that our premises in Ramallah and Gaza were destroyed, an independent survey of Palestinian youth was published, which demonstrated that of all the international organisations operational in the Palestinian territories, the British Council was by far the most trusted.”

…I felt in my water there was something wrong. How likely is it, I asked myself – as I also ask you – that an independent survey of youth anywhere would turn up such a conclusion (or even anything at all) about the British Council? How likely is it, I asked myself, that if I stopped a young Palestinian in Nablus and asked him or her which international organisation in Palestine was most trusted, how likely is it that this youth, unprompted, would answer “The British Council!” No, there were too many clues pointing to an inside job: Lord Kinnock’s references to “youth” and to “trust”, key words in the Council catechism, were pretty good giveaways, but it was above all the reported and somewhat fantastic conclusion “…of all…by far…” that clinched it.

We had a bit of a hunt for possible reports published near enough to March 16th 2006. We found, for example, a survey report that showed that Palestinians thought that Asians were most understanding of Palestinian issues with the EU in second place, and another report showing that at that moment in March 2006 46% of Palestinians thought that attacks on British and American institutions and their nationals were justified, but neither of these reports mentioned the British Council. No more did a survey of young people in the Bethlehem area published a year later. However, we fetched up on the web site of a company called Alpha International. In their own words “Alpha conducted a needs assessment survey using both quantitative and qualitative methods for the services provided by the British Council” and the work was completed in March 2006. Our further enquiries revealed that this was the report referred to.

So, since the report was “a needs assessment survey for services provided by the British Council”, commissioned by the British Council for the British Council, it might be said that Lord Kinnock was using the word “independent” a little freely, and that describing its timing and its apparently remarkable conclusions as “supreme irony” was serving his case rather well. And since the report was not and is not made available to the public, and since a request for sight of the report has met the usual non-response from the Council, you might say that the word “published” had been used rather freely as well. And without sight of the report it’s hard to see how the British Council was ranked so highly above all other international organisations. It seems unlikely, for example, that the young Palestinians were given a chance to say that they thought that likelier favourites such as the UN, or Amnesty International or the World Health Organisation or CARE International might head such a table. And would, say, the Goethe-Institut (who, unlike you know who, published a truthful account of the Asturia prize) not rate as more trustworthy? It certainly ought to.

If you work for the British Council part of your job is to produce as much evidence as you can that the British Council is wonderful. The culture of self-congratulation results in a huge volume of internal propaganda, matched only in size by a mega blind spot when it comes to the organisation’s imperfections. But there’s an embarrassing phenomenon called reality, and it is that which I commend the FAC to examine.

The bottom line is this: if you hear protestations about how trusted the British Council is, remember it’s just a British Council mantra, and it’s patent nonsense. And if you are told that such unlikely (and absurd) things are proved, whether presented as supreme irony or not, by an “independent” “published” report, it’s advisable to find out how independent, and how published, it is, and to check (if you can) what it actually says. Don’t, in other words, take what the British Council says on trust.

Leading by Example

If you are interested in Britain’s foreign policy and have not yet seen David Miliband’s webcast on Avaaz, then you might set aside about 50 minutes and watch it. It’s strong on principle, refreshingly free of bombast, and after the grey and indifferent tenure of his predecessor in the FCO, distinctly promising.

Every organisation, every body, every company, every family knows that there is no leadership that compares with leadership by example. A culture that condones a gap or disjoint of any significance between what is done by leaders and what is preached by them is a culture which encourages cynicism and which cultivates fertile ground for corruption to take root and grow. There is a particular challenge here for David Miliband.

In the Avaaz webcast Mr Miliband refers to “soft diplomacy”, and as he will know the British Council is that instrument of soft diplomacy which is sponsored by his department, paid for by the British taxpayer. Whether we like it or not therefore the British Council has a representative function. But if we look at what the British Council is rather than what it says it is, what exactly does this organisation represent?

1. Privilege. The British Council is effectively an arm of government, but enjoys the advantageous tax benefits of charitable status at home, diplomatic status abroad, civil service pensions, and the freedom to use this huge base of subsidy and privilege to manifestly unfair commercial advantage.
2. Lack of accountability. The British Council may be sponsored by the FCO, but the FCO will not respond to or even acknowledge the problems it creates. The organisation itself has (barring its effective Chief Executive) inert trustees, and if it refers a plaintiff at all it is to a body – the office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman – which is statutorily unable to deal with it.
3. “Fixing”. The British Council does not go into open competition to win its commercial openings, it fixes them through insider deals, and hangs on to them by being secretive and evasive. [see also Arthur’s highly pertinent comments on our last blog]

Take the example of Libya. We have already revealed how the British Council uses grant-in-aid money to support its own language school in Tripoli by giving free places to Libyans thought to have power and influence. And we learn today that the British Council has obtained a contract worth about £2 million with the Libyan government to teach English in its universities. Only the British Council was in a position to use taxpayers’ money in this way, only the British Council can get the special diplomatic status for its teachers to turn its language schools to inequitable profitability, and even if the British Council had done what it surely should have and had encouraged the Libyans to go to tender, it would still have been holding cards that were not available to organisations that pay taxes to make the British Council possible.

Exactly what signals does this saga send to Libya and elsewhere about Britain?  It surely says that whatever our international posture may be in respect of transparency, democratic accountability, free trade, equality of opportunity and so on, the reality is that Britain stands for privilege and backhanders. As long as Britain leads its “soft diplomacy” with an over-privileged organisation which is out for itself, evasive, secretive, unaccountable and sloppy, and above all motivated by money that it can get only when the goalposts are moved to make such “earnings” possible, our standing as a nation will be undermined by a reputation for seedy hypocrisy. If David Miliband has the will to lead by example and fix this, he certainly has the opportunity.

Faulty Powers

It is our contention, as regulars will know, that one reason that so much goes wrong in dealings with the British Council is because it lacks accountability and adequate governance.

The recent evidence given by the British Council to the Foreign Affairs Committee underlines the basic problem. Let us here set aside the issue of the pat-a-ball banter that passes for Parliamentary scrutiny, and instead observe that one thing that stands out from the record is that the British Council’s real Chief Executive, the man who leads the organisation and calls the shots, is indeed that man Lord Kinnock. Martin Davidson may cosmetically, and perhaps a little self-consciously, style himself “Chief Executive” (the first to do so after generations of Directors-General), but on this performance he’s fooling nobody.

During the course of the June 27th session Lord Kinnock and Martin Davidson made 46 utterances between them. Of those, 31 came from Lord Kinnock and 15 from Mr Davidson. Lord Kinnock’s evidence adds up to 273 lines of the report while Davidson’s makes 161. You cannot just put this difference down to the trademark volubility of the former leader of the Labour party. It is because he runs the show.

Does it matter? Yes it does. It matters absolutely because this is not what the Chair of the Board of Trustees should be doing. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has a good section on the role of trustees,  which includes this:

One of the most complex but most significant aspects of the role of administrator is ensuring that the distinction between governance and management is not blurred. Governance refers to the maintenance of the legal, regulatory and strategic parameters of the charity. The day-to-day management of the charity by the executive team should occur strictly within those parameters.

According to the British Council’s own information, the board of trustees exists to provide “strategic direction”. That should not mean opening the batting and fielding all questions at every level of operational detail with occasional help from second fiddles. It is because of the British Council’s inward looking culture and the blurring of governance and management that the organisation is structurally bound to turn a blind eye to its own shortcomings and lacks a readiness to resolve, or hear, or even acknowledge issues involving third parties. The net result is that poor governance meets poor management and both take refuge in denial. QED.

British Council entry in Wikipedia

From time to time I am alerted by readers to changes in the entry about the British Council in Wikipedia. The politics of the latest update is interesting because it looks like the broth of many cooks. There are some quite heavy criticisms, but the first 6 paragraphs of the section headed “Initiatives” are clearly written by an employee of the Ministry of Truth.

For the record I have nothing to do with the editing of the British Council Wikipedia entry. I have in fact never edited an entry in Wikipedia, neither have I ever had any involvement in the editing of any entry (that may change, of course, but that is nevertheless the situation as I write; see also point 4 below). But, as recorded above and as with so much connected with the British Council, people tell me of such things. I must thank one correspondent in particular for sending me the link which shows what has been edited and when - it is fascinating to see the audit trail of the organisation’s discomfort with  - and reactions to - what others say about it.

In referring to this blog, the present entry points to my criticism of the organisation’s absurd job adverts. But of course that criticism is purely incidental and symptomatic. Nowhere in the Wikipedia entry is there reference to the fundamental issues that need to be addressed – by the FCO, the trustees, the FAC etc:

1. The British Council uses taxpayers’ money as a platform to enable it to compete unfairly with taxpaying enterprise at home and abroad. By using taxpayers’ money to undermine genuine enterprise, it creates market distortions, distresses legitimate business and undermines tax revenue.
2. It has the feeblest of management. Attempts to identify or challenge managers responsible for issues typically result in evasion, obfuscation or blank denial. The management is arrogant and incompetent, it lacks courage and it lacks integrity.
3. People may, as the Wikipedia entry says, have criticised the “perceived lack of strong parliamentary accountability”, but that misses the point: the organisation is not properly governed. The occasional parliamentary report does not begin to meet the pressing need for a level of management, a board or Ombudsman where evidence of the organisation’s persistent, damaging transgressions can be heard, and where its management may be called to account.
4. A correspondent on the Wikipedia discussion page (the first entry of which is mine btw) points out that other charities may have government as their biggest single funding source. But, again, that is not the point. The British Council is dependent on government revenue, has admitted this in parliament, and as we have noted in 2005, 2006 and 2007, requires this revenue (and its diplomatic status) to provide the establishment and consequent unfair economic basis for its commercial activities and its other revenues (nobody, after all, is going to make charitable donations to this organisation voluntarily). That means that it a) is an inappropriate channel for taxpayers’ money and b) has no right to charitable status.

A fundamental review of the organisation is long overdue (whatever it says in Wikipedia).

That Weak Link again

The Eritreans arrest two British Council employees in Asmara, and then further apprehend a British diplomat who was reportedly setting up secure communications equipment. Now I am (sort of) ready to believe that the British might not have been doing anything particularly sinister, but – as with so many incidents involving the British Council – why should others take such a relaxed view of what they get up to?

As in Russia, the British Council’s status – taking advantage of diplomatic premises and privileges while screwing the maximum revenue out of the place in the name of education – is problematic. If the British Council is in Eritrea (“engaging with Islamic countries” like this small and vulnerable one as per their revamped mission) for purely altruistic purposes, why can it not use local ISPs? And if not, why wasn’t what they were doing cleared with the Eritreans? Why should a British “diplomat” come from Addis to set up specialised communications equipment when it was known that the Eritreans would take a dim view of this? Sneaky, stupid, or what?

The British Council’s status is also highly questionable here in Britain. It gets a current account subsidy from the taxpayer worth over half a million pounds a day (plus huge hidden subsidies in the form of early retirement and civil service pension arrangements, plus tax breaks as a “charity” and as a quasi diplomatic mission), yet is allowed to use these giant subsidies as a platform to compete with organisations that pay tax – in Britain and elsewhere. It is dependent on government and yet enjoys the status of a charity (when the Charity Commission specifically states as a “key legal principle” that charities may not be dependent on government or other funders).

In my own dealings, when the British Council failed to address the issues that I had raised with them and I asked the Director General to whom I should refer as a higher authority, I was advised that I should contact the Parliamentary Ombudsman. The Parliamentary Ombudsman duly reported that the commercial operations of the British Council lay outside its remit. In other words, the Director General gave me a bum steer. It became clear to me that the organisation is as unaccountable, and as irresponsible, as it is devious and evasive. The trustees are (utterly) inert and when it comes to addressing its shortcomings the organisation remains in enforced denial. Given the status, subsidies and privileges accorded to the organisation, one has to wonder why the authorities, in particular the FCO, do nothing about it.

It’s because the British Council is so feebly and incompetently managed that it is unable to sort things out. Its employees blunder from one incident to another, while its status is as confused overseas as it is at home. Its lunge for money, at home and overseas, is untroubled by ethical considerations, and in consequence it is a persistent source of problems – distorting markets, upsetting genuine enterprise, and damaging Britain’s credibility.

The list of countries where the British Council has screwed things up – a list that starts with Britain - grows ever longer.

Losing it in Wales

Prior to his ennoblement, and while contemplating what he might do after retiring from his commissioner’s job in Brussels, Neil (now Lord) Kinnock is reported as saying “I’m going to be a bloody old nuisance.” He also said he wanted to do something that makes a difference “because, by God, there’s a lot to make you angry”. Quite so.

One thing that apparently makes Lord Kinnock very angry indeed (and some would say a bloody nuisance too) is the Labour Party in Wales. Never keen on the Welsh Assembly (or the Scottish Parliament) Lord Kinnock yesterday was evidently giving Labour Party members in Wales his views on their cooperation with Plaid Cymru. He is not a fan. In fact Paul Flynn MP described his lordship’s performance as an “operatic rant”. He also describes Lord K as out of touch with the Labour party of modern Wales.

Not being a member of the Labour - or any other – party, I take no side here. But if Lord K, who is not shy about reminding us that he is from the Labour Party and also Welsh, is out of touch with the Labour Party in Wales, what exactly is he in touch with? The British Council, perhaps? One thing that the joint Labour / Plaid Cymru document says is that they will “develop the Wales brand in the context of a coherent marketing and public diplomacy network” - a sentence which suggests an unwillingness in Wales to settle for the lumpen marketing role of Visitbritain or the arcane public diplomacy efforts of the British Council. Et tu, Rhodri? 

The British Council itself meanwhile isn’t too sharp when it comes to Wales and Welsh either. The British Council Argentina web site reports on a scheme to support Welsh in Chubut province in Argentina, but is out of its depth doing even that. It says for example that the National Assembly of Wales has funded the project since 1977. Hands up all those who think there was a National Assembly in Wales in 1977 (and wasn’t there a spot of bother with Argentina a few years later?). And it says that Wales is the only part of the UK with two official languages; that ceased to be true two years ago when the Scottish Parliament made Gaelic official. (Tip for the BC: keep an eye on Stormont).

Which brings me, and his lordship, to Scotland. For if Wales and Labour are not comfortable for Lord K., Scotland by contrast looks very reassuring. The Scottish Parliament web site, previewing a forthcoming “Festival of Politics” says that as chair of the British Council Lord Kinnock “represents Britain worldwide”. Well, where do you begin with that? It also says that after leaving Westminster he was “elected to the European commission” - a study in oxymoron if ever there was one. That’ll be two Scottish raspberries, please.

The Scots have a Parliament and the Welsh have “only” an Assembly, but on the evidence above you would have to say that the Welsh seem to have a pretty firm grip on what democracy means, while the Scots just haven’t got the hang of it at all. Things are evidently straightening out meanwhile in Northern Ireland, which leaves, erm, oh yes England. Unlike Scotland, N. Ireland and Wales, England has no parliament or assembly, and not even a British Council web page.  Maybe Lord K could do something about that? Bloody old nuisance begins at home.

Ever Diminishing Circles

We blogged once before regarding the now increasingly blurred line that should separate the British Council from given political parties. Let’s hear it again for Lord Kinnock of Bedwellty, British Council Chair, who fell at the last fence when it was his turn to lead the Labour Party into power, but has nevertheless clearly done well since as a Labour kingmaker.

When Harriet Harman was selected as Deputy Leader (and if you have not done so I urge you to see this very short clip and to lip read what the young woman behind Harriet Harman in the audience says as she understands the result of the vote), in her acceptance speech Ms Harman paid tribute to Lord Kinnock, remarking that she and Tony and Gordon were all “Neil’s apprentices”.

Now it is perhaps purely coincidence, or perhaps it is not, but it is nevertheless intriguing that in casting about for a government “of all the talents”, Gordon Brown found a role for the Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger, who once gushed:

Baroness Neuberger: My Lords, it is with the greatest pleasure that I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, and to congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech—one being made, as he told us, some 35 years on from his original maiden speech in another place. We all know that the noble Lord is a power in the land. He is now steering the British Council, on which I serve as a member, with consummate elegance as chairman.

Wow. And Lib-Dem Baroness Neuberger is now a special adviser to the Labour government.

And the new leader of the department with “ultimate responsibility” for the British Council, David Miliband, wrote speeches for Lord K in 1992. Clearly we live in a very small country.

If David Miliband could now create a credible “arm’s length” between the British Council and government, and establish a mechanism by which this organisation, constituted as neither fish nor fowl, can be made truly accountable and transparent, and its governance - however elegant it perceives itself to be - into something more ethically aware, more responsive, more responsible, and quite simply more honest, the lad will have done good.