When the British Council lunged in favour of Hotcourses in 2001 I knew it wasn't because Jeremy Hunt was doing anything well, because he wasn't. And today, eleven years later, while Hotcourses still has the monopoly on sales of the British Council's "Education UK" portfolio, we can all see that the British Council and Hotcourses have resolutely held hands through a prolonged period of abject failure. For example, what percentage of the boarding school market have this dynamic duo succeeded in persuading to sign up for their services? Less than one percent. But they both pretend that they offer a public service - the British Council's "Chief Executive" Martin Davidson repeated the claim only yesterday.
Read John Ward's account today - it really is a revelation.
This makes me weep, David.
When I worked in China, I used to insist that 'guanxi', connections, had no place in Britain. How naive is that?
Posted by: Jane | October 10, 2012 at 08:11 AM
And how naive it was of me to imagine that the British Council would respond with integrity to my complaints. And that I had not understood that the cosy relationship between the British Council and Hotcourses extended to a) the two parties colluding in burying the company in which they had a profit-sharing deal b) handing over exclusive rights to Education UK sales, apparently in perpetuity and c) colluding in breach of the agreement the British Council had signed with my company and d) lying in an official Freedom of Information reply about the nature of that contract.
Posted by: David | October 10, 2012 at 08:28 AM
They are rats, David ...
Posted by: neil robertson | October 10, 2012 at 01:22 PM