NAO Report - the wages of spin

The report from the NAO “The British Council – Achieving Impact” is 44 pages long, and there is too much for a review on this blog. But a few things jumped off the pages.

There are several references to the need for the BC to compete fairly, and we welcome that, even if we would wish for this to be put in stronger terms. Paragraph 2.40 of the report calls for

a) arrangements akin to the BBC, including separate accounting for commercial activities with a certificate from the external auditor that there is no material cross-subsidy of commercial activities out of public funds, and

b) provision to receive complaints and appeals by competitors claiming a grievance.

It looks as though the currently preferred methodology of dealing with complaints - non-acknowledgement, non-response, evasion and denial - may have to change. (I recall a little ruefully that I wrote to the DG with just such a request, for an Ombudsman in fact, four years ago).

And perhaps they won’t be able to use public money to subsidise their commercial activities, and get away with it quite as easily as they have done in the past.

One suspects that the NAO felt part of the exercise was like working with an over-eager but rather backward child.

“The Council does not yet fully understand the implications of its move from local to regional projects or the savings generated through benefits of scale”.

“The Council’s published country and regional performance scorecards tend to concentrate their reporting on positive customer comments. The Council should report a balance of positive and negative comments…”

“The 2006 Midsummer Night’s Dream tour of India, whilst well received by audiences, was almost entirely funded by public money (equivalent to some £20 per audience member) because efforts to raise sponsorship did not firmly commit the main sponsor in good time”.

“Cash income from sponsorship and commercial partnerships has fallen substantially since 2001; from 16% of the Council’s total income to just 4% in the last five years. Whilst the Council has not systematically analysed the reasons for the fall, …”

Where the NAO deserves more than a rap on the knuckles is for allowing page 8 of the report to be dominated by “Key Information about the British Council 2006-07” which is very obviously the British Council’s own work. How can you tell? Well, just look at those stats. I wonder for example if I am one of the 16.5 million people (more than the entire combined populations of the Czech Republic and Slovakia) that the Council claims to have worked directly with.

On the same page the British Council describes itself as “lead delivery partner for the Prime Minister’s Initiative” whatever that might mean, and reports that activities last year included “recruitment of one million international students into UK education”.

Now, if we add the entire international student population in the UK together, including every category from MBA through International Baccalaureate to a 2 week summer activity programme for kids from Dieppe (and short term summer course students would in fact be the largest single category), we might just round that figure up to one million. But how many of them are in the UK as a function of the British Council? My own straw poll of organisations dealing exclusively with international students failed to unearth any provider who could attribute as much as 1% of their recruitment to the British Council – and mainly much less. That doesn’t mean that one percenters don’t exist, they might. But the fact is that international students are only rarely recruited by the British Council, and its repeated attempts to claim credit for international student recruitment in the UK are, like the inflated financial values it assigns to the phenomenon, absurd and all too typical of an organisation addicted to self-aggrandisement and spin.

The NAO could have asked institutions themselves about this claim and where their students came from and obviously did not. It should in any case be a lot more careful about what goes out in its name.

Comments

[Ian]

All it takes is a little common sense to see how ridiculous some of these figures are yet the British Council persist with this flexible use of numbers - in their own interests of course.

I'd love to know where they get some of their figures from. For example, they claim "over 15 million unique visitors used British Council websites". How can they say this with any degree of accuracy? While it is quite possible to determine how many visits a web site receives it is not possible to determine which are unique - certainly not over the course of a year. It is possible to determine, with reasonable accuracy, unique visits in the short term, i.e hours, but I'd love to know how they determine whether, during the course of a year, someone has visited any of their sites before. Clearly the accuracy of these figures must be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

It was also interesting to note that the NAO said "improvements could be made to the way data is collected and collated". Much of the data provided by the British Council came from questionnaires "but in practice response rates are highly variable". Other information comes from interviews: "These interviews are undertaken by independent reviewers, though in practice Council staff have a role in selecting interviewees and sometimes also attend the interviews." Is it any wonder that we our sceptical about the accuracy of data provided by the British Council?

Even data in the document itself is inconsistent. In one place we are told that the British Council "delivered 1.3 million UK exams to 925,000 candidates worldwide" and in another that the Council "administers exams to over a million candidates in one hundred countries".

One bit of data that I did find believable was that relating to Customer Service. The NAO found that "In 2004 the Council had failed to respond to over 500,000 telephone or email enquiries, which, by 2006 had risen to over 1.5 million enquiries". My personal experience backs this up. Also, "over 65 per cent of Council staff felt that they did not have any customers"! Say no more...

[Arthur]

Thanks to the NAO for a real case of the ideal Best Man's speech: 'tears, smiles, something for everyone really'

Tears:
"...generating surpluses in places such as Hong Kong and Spain which are used in part to support teaching centres in less established markets, some in the developing world." Did the NAO enquire whether the arrangements for subsidising these 'less established markets' through untaxed income collected from fee-paying students had been communicated to, and cleared with, the host governments in China and Spain? Perhaps, in line with 'semi-diplomatic' status for some staff, it was a tax break which was 'offered' by the local revenue authorities.

"Its best centres operate in a manner comparable with good business practice in major private sector language schools." Apart from the fact that: as regards profits, they are fiscally invisible; they routinely deny UK citizens working for them as teachers redress under any legal system anywhere in the event of a dispute; and they are able to call on the services of local diplomatic missions as fixers in the event of any serious enquiries. Identical to the private sector, really. Really??

Smiles:
"...it needs to demonstrate more clearly to its stakeholders and competitors how growth supports the Council’s mission and charitable purposes and that it does not represent unfair competition." Indeed it does. It will be interesting to see if host governments qualify as 'stakeholders'. If they do, the document which explains why money collected in surplus-generating countries is syphoned off to help the 'Council's mission and charitable purposes' in some other part of the world might well be a winner of the Plain English Campaign's 'Golden Bull' award.

Something for everyone:
"The objectives of the teaching and exams business are to deliver strategic impact by forging relationships with the Council’s identified target audiences" (featuring that small but significant group T3 'People with Potential'. Good news General English students everywhere! The British Council haven't written you off yet!), "whilst running these services on a full cost recovery basis which at least covers its costs and delivers surpluses to the corporate centre." Isn't covering your costs and then some called 'making a profit'?

"It generates substantial impact and income, but the Council recognises the potential to develop this further and is looking to change the way it operates." Coming soon to a language school near you! Be afraid! Be very afraid!!

[Neil Robertson]

This report specifically excludes any consideration of The British Council's contract work with the British Government which seems a complete copout! (See Note 3 page 5: 'The main exclusion from the scope of the study was the Council's work under contract for a range of UK and International agencies, mainly in support of International Development Programmes." It goes on to
suggest that examination of this is unnecessary because
"Such work is won under competition and at least covers its costs overall. Primary responsibility for the value for money of the work lies with the agencies procuring it" - but the cosy relationship between British Council and e.g. UK DfID means no effective scrutiny of such work whatsoever (in my experience) and routine recourse to tender waiver.

As there are major concerns over British Council insider dealing and corruption within BCDATS the taxpayer should be incensed that yet again this area is overlooked and relegated to a bland footnote.

[Neil]

And NAO also miss one of the key points in favour of retention of British Council country offices and Directors viz that this was one of the few checks & balances against the commercial whizkids based in Manchester taking over the whole network with acronym driven 'regional projects' that left little trace on the ground.

As I myself wrote in a memo that was dated 9 January 2001 and was headed by me: "Re: PAID Project Palestine (Message from the Team Leader Public Finance): "I am still extremely angry and upset about the whole manner in which this project was conducted on behalf of UK DfID by the British Council MENA DATS Project Managers. I was also dismayed to be told by Professor Mike Hardy that if he had his way in his new post as Director of Projects at British Council DATS, BC Country Departments would be dismantled. That would in my view undermine the most valued part of British Council. It would also remove in my view necessary project monitoring and financial safeguards. That was one of the main reasons why I was uneasy about Dr [J]'s removal ..... I would also remind you that I made it clear that I had to meet the Ministry of Finance, and that no fiscal recommendations would be made without that first step. It remains a matter of disbelief and indeed astonishment that Professor Hardy vetoed that meetng. Again I would point out that this was a further example of backstopping staff undermining DfID's appointed experts in the field. Close involvement of the Ministry of Finance in the delivery of this project was seen as critical in the project documentation. His comments on the meetings held with the HNCID team in Gaza are also economical with the truth: in fact the Palestinian officials present went out of their way, at the end of what was indeed a difficult meeting, to thank me for asking very obvious questions of Professor Hardy. These were points that had been put to me by Professor S after Dr J's resignation. They related to the absence of promised British Council personnel, and the likely role of the DfID inspection mission. Mike Hardy's suggestion that my interventions caused any embarrassment to the Palestinians is I think without foundation. But even if it wasn't, I would have been failing in my duty to have turned a blind eye to these project changes. He also omits to mention that he arrived seven hours late for the meeting with HNCID (Higher National Council for Institutional Development) and myself; and that the Minister was needing briefed."

As suspected this project turned out to be 'non-existent' yet its budget is actually increased after our team is bundled out.

The country office in Gaza was hugely supportive when I blew the whistle on this - but they were marginalised, gagged and brushed aside by BC DATS back in Manchester.

Eight years on power within the British Council has shifted even further towards the spivs and the regional projects which are hard to check up on or monitor locally.