The Language Business

How the British Council doesn't manage change

The British Council has just put out the results of its latest staff survey which the management spins as showing “increased understanding of objectives” and “greater optimism about the British Council” and “your future”.

Almost everybody (among the 69% who took part) in the British Council (82% of participants) supports the headline contention that “change is necessary in bringing long term benefits to the British Council”. Replace the words “British Council” with anything else and it will be seen to be a rather unremarkable judgement. More tellingly perhaps 70% of staff reject the assertion that “Change is well managed in the British Council as a whole”. The other 30% are, one imagines, the managers themselves. And the results elsewhere, despite the efforts of the numerous managers, betray cynicism regarding BC management e.g. the contention that the organisation “is genuinely interested” in the wellbeing of its staff gets just 50% support (the use of the word “genuinely” is a bit of a giveaway perhaps). And only 36% - including all those managers given the job – support the contention that their UK department will deliver a successful long-term future for the British Council.

We have already seen “the kind of organisation we want to be” as articulated by the “Chief Executive” – i.e. one that siphons off the maximum from taxpayers as well as individuals – and it would appear that an astonishing 44% of British Council staff share that vision and believe their executive board can deliver it. But then two thirds of British Council staff evidently always believe the information they are given. Oh dear. Meanwhile we also learn that a majority of British Council staff do not support the contention that “It is safe to speak up on issues where you disagree with management without it damaging your career prospects”.  To put that another way, most British Council staff, whatever else they say, cannot speak freely.  Which is possibly why they say they believe what they are told.

An organisation – a “cultural relations” organisation that supposedly represents the UK ffs - where staff toe the line and keep their heads down and their mouths shut because they are frightened for their jobs cannot progress. An organisation that won’t look truth in the face cannot possibly manage change. And any management that believes staff in such a context are showing “greater optimism” about the British Council and their future is stuck in the position illustrated.

Students and Immigration: the British Council adds to the confusion

There was a moment a few weeks ago – it passed quite quickly – when I felt like reporting positively on the British Council’s apparent stand on international students. The government’s visa policy was, it reportedly said, harming the education sector – a line we have taken ourselves on this blog on a number of occasions. The organisation evidently did enough then to stir Sir Andrew Green of Migration Watch, and Sir Andrew today berates the organisation for undermining government policy.

Let’s be clear. All of us in this country want clear and strictly enforced immigration controls, preferably backed by a system that takes the trouble to filter out the bogus, and logs visa holders out when they leave as well as in when they arrive (which really doesn’t seem too much to ask). And, meanwhile, even the government wants to see a healthy education sector. So how does the British Council respond to Migration Watch? Like this:

Dr Jo Beall, the British Council’s director of education and society, said: "The British Council completely backs the government's intention to attract genuine students who make a huge economic and academic contribution to Britain, so we feel obliged to point out when independent evidence suggests there's a risk that current policy may mean the UK loses out to our competitors.

"We want to help government combat that and universities to attract the brightest and best students and researchers".

The first paragraph passes muster even if we might jib at the reference to the government’s supposed intention. The second paragraph betrays the usual British Council gutlessness.

The health of the sector does not depend on “the brightest and best”. Of course we want them, but the brightest and best do not typically attend vocational colleges or the whole range of university preparation courses or lower ranking universities, institutions and programmes which are a vital part of our offer, and to which we should welcome international students in exactly the same way as to Oxford, UCL, Edinburgh etc. The UK policy on international education should not be elitist; it has never been before and it is a disgraceful thing to start now. An education in the UK means nothing if it does not mean bringing out the best in all and any students who have the desire and the means to come here for that purpose (“The Best You Can Be” remember, British Council, the slogan you spent so much of our money on?), and we should welcome as many as we can comfortably help. But the government’s line is, crudely, to classify students as immigrants, and so bring down their immigration figures by reducing the number of students, and meanwhile to discriminate against the private sector, a sector which includes many colleges with a long established and merited record of distinction nationally and internationally. And the government uses a rather sickening elitist formula – of wanting only “the brightest and best” – as a justification for their position. That the British Council should now echo the immigration minister’s formula, thereby backing away from support for the whole international education sector in the UK and ignoring the powerful economic, educational and even political benefits of a more open policy, is a betrayal of the sector. The British Council might like to try putting that policy on the doors of its schools overseas and seeing what happens. And why anyway should “the brightest and the best” cross half the world to come here if the government, and now the spineless British Council, adopts such an attitude?

“The kind of organisation we want to be"

But what kind is that?

Read this paragraph from the “Message from the Chief Executive” we looked at a few days ago:

At last month’s Management Board meeting we spent time thinking about the kind of organisation we want to be. One that focuses on raising the income we need to deliver our purpose, whether from individuals, organisations or from governments, rather than one which focuses on how to spend. We need to move away from an over-focus on perfect plans to a focus on rapid and effective decision making, flexible use of our resources and an emphasis on delivering with pace. This means much greater individual decision making rather than ever-expanding committees. This will inevitably take some time, but we’re focused on making it happen.

If you can bear to read that more than once – it is a little hard given the struggle the writer evidently has not only with logic but also with the English language (all that “focus” could make you go blind) – what is now explicit is that the British Council is above all a money-making organisation, maximising revenue from individuals, organisations and governments.  The dear leader is meanwhile looking for “rapid and effective decision making” and also “greater individual decision making” rather than the “ever-expanding committees” over which he evidently currently presides, a process  which will, he writes, “inevitably take some time” (so don’t expect any contractions just yet). It’s not exactly Churchillian. But setting aside the writer’s crude attempt at executive speak, which he evidently knows is something to do with “pace”, “focus” and of course “decision-making” (preferably the effective sort), the general move is clearly towards making more money.

The reason I returned to this epistle was because I realised today that I have been sleeping on the job. I have been glibly reporting here that the British Council has “a company”  - BC Trading International Ltd - which is a vehicle for sponsorship from international corporations. In fact the British Council has by now a clutch of companies, including two in the UK (there is also BC Holdings Ltd), one in the USA (two if you include IELTS Inc. in Delaware), two in India, two in Mexico and one in Hong Kong. And directors all over the place.  The Hong Kong company is called “BC English Services Trans-National Limited”, so that is one to watch if you happen to be a part of British Council ELT operations. The British Council has made a loan of £2.3 million to that company as well as a loan of £1 million to BC Holdings Ltd. At this stage the British Council reportedly owns 100% of the shares in these companies, one of which “BCT Events and Promotions India Private Ltd” is not consolidated into the accounts as it is “not material to the group”. As I’m sure you would agree.

The British Council is already a “charity” to which HM The Queen lends her name, plus a branch of government and referred to as such by government and diplomats, and also an obscenely privileged commercial outfit. Now it has eight companies in five countries and is shifting money around between them.

So what sort of an organisation do you think the British Council wants to be?

The tortured logic of the British Council’s “Chief Executive”

The organisation’s “chief executive” has just sent out a circular (forwarded to me from two sources – thank you both) where he a) crows about deals with Microsoft and rather obviously looks to claim the credit for something which is down to the taxpayers’ subsidy, b) tells his staff that they have to learn to spend the taxpayers’ money faster and makes that faster spending a “goal” for the financial year (some “chief executive”!) , c) tells them that at the same time they have to focus on income rather than expenditure and d) warns the old crocks in the organisation that they will be put out to grass as the org is re-skilling commercially.

You think I’m exaggerating? Try this:
One challenge coming to the fore again as we approach the end of financial year is to get better at delivering our work more evenly through the year. Yet again, we’re spending too great a proportion of our grant funding too late in the year. Spending half our grant income in the last three months of the year is far from ideal because it leaves us with little time to adjust, it makes us look inefficient, and it risks at the very least the impression of poor spending decisions. In this tough economic environment we also risk the government assuming we don’t need the money if they don’t see it being spent. We must do better and the Management Board has agreed to ensure that at least 25% of our discretionary spend is spent in the first quarter of the new financial year. We will all have to adjust the way we work to deliver this. Let’s make this a goal for next financial year!

What a nerve. And how sickening it is that this career parasite with several thousand underlings should be simultaneously posturing as commercially credible while urging them to spend their grant faster in order to look more efficient, and so ensure that their paymasters don’t assume that because the British Council doesn’t spend money fast enough it means they don’t need it. It’s the classic public money argument: make sure you spend all the money because otherwise you might have your budget cut.

But while that is, deplorably, standard practice in the civil service, the difference in the case of the British Council is that it also wishes to be seen as a commercial outfit, a credible partner for Microsoft, an organisation “which focuses on raising income… rather than one which focuses on how to spend”.  The irony of course is that without the subsidy nobody could deal with the organisation because it would collapse like an overbeaten meringue. And I would remind you that that statement came from the “chief executive” of an organisation which also claims to be a charity.

As we adapt to the world outside [sic], we will need to develop our many talented colleagues and attract specific new specialist skills along the way, such as commercial skills and partnership, digital and sector expertise. Some of this can be developed internally. Some will need to be brought in. It is for these reasons that we are offering an early departure scheme for senior managers in the UK and overseas to refresh our talent, help build capability and manage our headcount.

In other words all those who joined the British Council thinking the organisation had some sort of high minded mission are in for the chop.  Some of them must be thinking what I’m thinking.