Tim Rivera Dissertation

1
Distinguishing Cultural Relations from Cultural Diplomacy: The British Council’s Relationship with Her Majesty’s Government
By: Tim Rivera
Master of Arts, International Relations
King’s College London
Supervisor: Dr Matthew Moran
Word Count: 14,998

2
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Thesis and Methods
Chapter 1 10
The Importance of Independence: Cultural Relations, Cultural Diplomacy, and Soft Power
Chapter 2 19
HMG’s Evolving Definition of ‘Cultural Diplomacy’ and the GREAT Campaign
Chapter 3 27
New Levels of Public Accountability and Evaluation: The British Council as ‘Quango’
Chapter 4 35
Cultural Relations and Austerity: Shrinking Grant-in-Aid and the Mixed-Economy Model
Chapter 5 42
Concluding Thoughts
Declaration 47
Appendices 48
Bibliography 51

3
Introduction: Thesis, Methods, and the British Council as a Case Study
Peoples and cultures around the world interact and engage with each other now more than ever. Some of this engagement is facilitated and directed by states, but much of it occurs organically between people. These practices have alternately been called public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, or cultural relations. Academics, policymakers, and practitioners all have their own definitions and frameworks for these practices which encompass a wide range of activities. Why are distinctions between public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, and cultural relations necessary? The British Council, the UK’s organisation for international cultural and educational engagement, describes its own work as ‘cultural relations’, whereas Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) has called it ‘cultural diplomacy’, and some academics says it overlaps with ‘new public diplomacy’(FCO, 2014a, 10; Melissen, 2005, 22). In 2011, Philip Seib, then the Director of the Centre on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California called the British Council “probably the world’s best cultural diplomacy agency” (Seib, 2011). This linguistic muddle raises questions of terminology as to what the organisation actually does and what ‘cultural relations’ really means. James Pamment acknowledged that, in this field, “terminology is not to be taken lightly” (Pamment, 2012, 45) and quoted a British Council Country Director who laments this gap in the academic discourse in identifying and classifying these practices:
I don’t think anybody [in the academic field] really fills that gap of understanding what non-governmental diplomacy…or cultural relations, is really about...[T]he whole frame of thinking about this subject is governmental (Pamment, 2012, 46).
This paper develops a preliminary framework that aims to fill that gap by critiquing Jan Melissen’s concept of a ‘new public diplomacy’ and building on Pamment’s efforts to differentiate cultural diplomacy and cultural relations from public diplomacy. This framework is also normative in that it presents cultural relations as a more effective practice than cultural diplomacy for developing and engaging a country’s soft power. The variance in the role of government across these practices further untangles them and establishes some helpful conceptual and practical boundaries, particularly between cultural diplomacy and cultural relations. The British Council’s recent history from 2010 to the present, and its unique

4
relationship with the British Government, serves as a useful case study for the purpose of identifying key differences between the two practices.
The British Council describes its work developing long-term relationships with other societies as ‘cultural relations’, but the organisation’s most complex, and sometimes fraught, relationship has been with its own Government. This ‘arm’s length’ relationship has frequently come under tremendous pressure and the organisation has changed and adapted accordingly. In the last five to ten years, the British Council experienced a period of significant change in response to three trends, which will be discussed in subsequent chapters of this paper.
1) Soft power’s increased currency in the Government’s foreign affairs, HMG’s evolving view of public and cultural diplomacy, and its consideration of the British Council’s role in those efforts.
2) The Government’s requirement of greater overall accountability from Non- Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs), such as the British Council, through augmented oversight mechanisms.
3) Deficit-reducing policies which have shrunk public sector budgets, including the British Council’s annual grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the introduction of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) spending quotas.
This paper investigates how the British Council has evolved through this most recent period, how its structures have responded to adapt to this new environment, and the impact of these three trends on the organisation’s relationship with the British Government in order to clarify and demonstrate the terminology around the organisation’s practices as either cultural relations or cultural diplomacy.
Changes during this period of transition and pressure can help identify those mechanisms that constitute the British Council’s ‘arm’s length’ relationship with and ‘operational independence’ from the Government. By detecting changes in those mechanisms, observers can better understand that relationship and what it means for the

5
practice of cultural relations. This paper argues that the three trends identified above have shortened the metaphorical arm between the British Council and the British Government and brought them closer together. This development has been further encouraged in the Government’s recently published Triennial Review of the British Council and significantly threatens the organisation’s operational and editorial independence from Government. This independence is vital for the Council’s stated ‘cultural relations’ mission to build trust and understanding for the UK. A closer institutional and operational relationship with the Government would move the British Council away from the practices of cultural relations towards cultural diplomacy.
Research Methods
This paper uses the British Council as a case study in the broader field of international cultural relations. It utilizes a mixed method approach of interviews and document analysis in order to understand the organisational changes which have unfolded in the last five years, identify the mechanisms and linkages that comprise the British Council’s relationship with HMG, and probe any changes in that relationship in the same period. As the British Council is simultaneously an NDPB, a charity, and a public corporation, a great deal of quantitative and qualitative information about the organisation’s finances, activities, and plans is publicly available. Annual reports, corporate plans, and minutes of British Council Board of Trustee meetings are all free to download. On the governmental side, the reports, written evidence, and witness testimony from committees in both Houses of Parliament offer a wealth of information about how the British Council is held to account. Reports and proceedings from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs and Public Accounts Committees are extensive as is the recently-released report of House of Lords Select Committee on Soft Power. The Government’s wide-ranging Triennial Review of the British Council was published on July 22, 2014, (“the most extensive review of the British Council since the 1970s”) and confirmed the author’s earlier notions about the Government’s desire for a closer relationship with the British Council (FCO, 2014a, 10). Beyond these sources, this paper also draws upon interviews with

6
six relevant British Council staff and external stakeholders (listed in Appendix A) – all conducted before the publishing of the Triennial Review.
These interviews and documentary evidence are used complementarily. Several documents create the framework for the British Council's relationship with the British Government, but interviews illustrate how that framework is applied in practice. Interviews took place after the document analysis phase. The individuals interviewed are either identified by name and title or, for those who requested full or partial anonymity, a number (e.g. – Subject 1). Interview subjects were offered anonymity to allow them to speak freely about the British Council and its relationship with the Government. The author was not able to identify and interview an appropriate Government representative about its relationship with the Council, but HMG's views are made very clear in the Triennial Review. The public consultation for that review solicited more than 800 written submissions, reflecting the Council's wide range of stakeholders. Capturing a similar range of views external or internal to the organisation is outside the scope of this paper. However, those British Council staff selected for interviews were identified based on their knowledge of the Council's working relationship with the Government and the span of experience they represented, from as few as four years to more than thirty. Participants were asked a combination of stock questions (listed in Appendix C) and questions specific to their role and experience. Not all of those interviewed shared the same views; the excerpts cited in this paper acknowledge these disagreements where most relevant. However, even without the elucidation provided by the interviews, this paper's argument that Government policies have drawn the British Council closer to it, and the associated claims about distinguishing between cultural relations and cultural diplomacy, would remain sound. The following section offers background about the British Council and provides historical examples to outline the organisation’s relationship with HMG and to demonstrate the relevance of the approach taken by this particular study and the validity of the questions that it raises.
British Council: History and Context

7
The British Council has been a fixture of the UK’s international reach since its founding, sharing and spreading British culture and the English language with peoples around the world. In doing so, the British Council has served as the fulcrum of the educational and cultural relationship between those societies and Britain, building relationships and reputation for the United Kingdom in the process. However, questions about the Council’s contribution to British interests and foreign policy objectives, its relationship to Government, and its level of funding from the UK taxpayer have plagued the organisation from early on in its history. The British Council’s ‘arm’s length’ relationship with Government was established when it was founded in 1934 separate from the Foreign Office (though it received all its funding from the FCO), and incorporated in 1940 by a Royal Charter with its own governing Board of Trustees. During WWII, despite concerns that an arm’s length body such as the Council was not the best setup to do cultural work, the organisation successfully avoided absorption into the propagandistic Ministry of Information and instead more closely associated with the FCO (Donaldson, 1984, 68-81). However, the Council could not avoid the period of austerity and difficulty that followed the war.
Between the years 1948-49 and 1953-54, the British Council’s grant-in-aid from the FCO dropped 42.4 percent (Donaldson, 1984, 163, 176). Even with this significant cut, the British Council was frequently subject to press attacks on its value for money to the UK taxpayer (Donaldson, 1984, 142-145). The decrease in funding forced a significant reduction of activity across Latin America and on the still-recovering European continent (Donaldson, 1984, 176-177). This reduction was further encouraged by the 1952 Drogheda Committee recommendation that the Council bring its work “into line with our political, strategic, and commercial needs” by adopting “a change of emphasis from cultural to educational work and from the more developed to the less developed parts of the world” (Donaldson, 1984, 181, 183). This alignment was strengthened in the late 1960s, when the Duncan Report linked British Council operations quite explicitly with British foreign policy objectives, recommending that “during a period when Britain hopes to establish itself as a member of the European Economic Community, we consider that there is now a strong case for shifting the balance of

8
British Council’s activities towards Western Europe” (Donaldson, 1984, 240). Because the vast majority of the Council’s budget comprised Government funding, the Duncan Report had the leverage necessary to reverse the earlier European reductions brought about by Drogheda. However, the Council would make important decisions in the 1970s, which would radically change its financial relationship with the Government.
In 1975, the Council investigated the revenue-earning potential of direct English language teaching (ELT) at its locations around the world (Donaldson, 1984, 273). Around the same time, the British Council also began to bid for contracts offered by foreign governments for technical aid and educational support (Donaldson, 1984, 276-277). From total revenue of £15.5 million in 1982-83, the Council’s non-grant income is projected to reach a combined £796 million in 2014-15, or 83.7 percent of the organisation’s total income (British Council, 2014, 49; Donaldson, 1984, 274). With the introduction of this ‘mixed economy model’, the organisation was no longer wholly reliant on the Government for its funding, changing the dynamic of the relationship.
Despite this independent source of income, the introduction of corporate planning processes (e.g. forward plans, performance indicators, and financial targets) in the late 1980s and early 1990s brought the British Council closer to the Government and significantly influenced Council policy and programming (Lee, 1995). In response to Government enquiries that recommended the FCO take a more active role in the British Council’s affairs, the organisation also changed its approach to planning, “conceiv[ing] their development of projects according to the relevant policy priority objectives of the FCO” (Lee, 1995, 344, 349). J.M. Lee, author of The Reorganisation of the British Council, claimed that these changes, “succeeded in making the old distinction between cultural relations and cultural diplomacy almost redundant” (Lee, 1995, 354). Later chapters of this paper argue that this distinction is not redundant but, when applied to the Council’s recent history and relationship with the British Government, important for identifying changes in that relationship as well as in the Council’s structures and programmes. This section has identified several of the features and background history that provide the context for the British council’s recent relationship with

9
the Government. The following chapter outlines the paper’s theoretical framework for distinguishing public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, and cultural relations and places it in the broader discourse of international relations scholarship on soft power.

10
Chapter 1
The Importance of Independence: Cultural Relations, Cultural Diplomacy and Soft Power
‘Soft power’ has steadily risen on most states’ foreign policy agendas, particularly since the end of the Cold War. This rise includes questions of what soft power is, how to manipulate it, and how to deploy it. Soft power has always been a force in international relations and relations between groups, but it was given greater currency and a label by Harvard academic Joseph Nye in the late 1980s. He defines soft power as, “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies” (Nye, 2004, x).1 Just as Nye identifies three sources of soft power, this paper’s framework identifies three mechanisms through which a country can develop, deploy, or engage its soft power with other countries: public diplomacy (PD), cultural diplomacy, and cultural relations. As part of distinguishing these soft power practices and this paper’s framework from Melissen’s ‘new PD’, it is important to define ‘diplomacy’ and establish it as fundamentally an activity of government.
The practice of diplomacy has been central to relations and communications among states, cities, and civilisations for centuries and it has changed over time. But what has not changed is its ‘official’ nature. Ernest Satow’s definition of diplomacy as, “the application of intelligence and tact to the conduct of official relations between governments of independent states” reinforces this point (emphasis added; Roberts and Satow, 2011, 3). Geoffrey Berridge’s definition elaborates on the instrumentality of diplomacy for governments:
Diplomacy is an essentially political activity…Its chief purpose is to enable states to secure the objectives of their foreign policies without resort to force, propaganda, or law. It follows that diplomacy consists of communication between officials designed to promote foreign policy (Berridge, 2010, 1).
These definitions quite explicitly link diplomatic practice to government, but Berridge and Satow do not capture how diplomacy changed such that the target audience of diplomatic
1 The concept of ‘soft power’ has been the subject of numerous debates and critiques, including Joseph Nye himself, who in a 2009 Foreign Affairs article advocated for the term ‘smart power’ to reflect a more desirable combination of hard and soft power.

11
activity has broadened considerably. However, the original link to government as the chief actor in diplomacy and the achievement of policy objectives through diplomacy remains. Melissen may believe that “it is neither helpful to hang on to past images of diplomacy…nor is it advisable to make a forward projection of historical practices into the present international environment”, but doing just that may be the most effective way of distinguishing between the wide range of activities, actors, and objectives inherent in the practices of public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, and cultural relations (Melissen, 2005, 11). This paper argues that the role of government is a key variable to examine in order to disaggregate and distinguish them. The following sections outline both the broader debates and this author’s framework for distinguishing the three concepts.
Public Diplomacy
A practice rarely employed by countries outside the great powers in the twentieth century, public diplomacy is now central to many countries’ diplomatic efforts. The definition of public diplomacy is widely contested, but James Pamment has considered public diplomacy as, “the communication of an international actor’s policies to citizens of foreign countries” (Pamment, 2012, 1). Developments in technology and online communications over the past century have been transforming public diplomacy from unidirectional messaging to a multilateral conversation. "It is not too difficult to get assent of a sort to the proposition that international relations have entirely altered as a result of technological advances in the machinery of communication" (Lee and McMurray, 1947, v). So it was in 1947, and so it can still be said in 2014. However, Jan Melissen claims that the evolution of multilateral conversation, engagement with foreign publics, and increased participation of NGOs in diplomacy marks the emergence of a ‘new PD’ (Melissen, 2005, 12-14). Crucially, Melissen’s ‘new PD’, “does not see public diplomacy, or indeed diplomacy in general, as a uniquely stately activity” (Melissen, 2005, 12). Such a framework decreases the utility of the term ‘public diplomacy’. It could then be used to describe a huge spectrum of actors, activities, and objectives – from governments advocating for their foreign policy positions on social media to cultural institutes teaching languages to increase others’ educational opportunities and

12
familiarity with their culture. Mellissen claims that a “gradual convergence between public diplomacy and cultural relations” is taking place and that diplomats are increasingly looking to build relationships with civil society actors and influence transnational networks (Melissen, 2005, 22, 23). However, public diplomacy and cultural relations practitioners undertake such work with different actors, methods, and objectives.
Pamment also accepted that non-state actors can engage in public diplomacy in addition to governments (Pamment, 2012, 2), and went on to say that in ‘new PD’, “foreign ministries can no longer claim to being [sic] sole or dominant actors in communicating foreign policy” (Pamment, 2012, 3). While non-state actors are playing more significant roles in international relations and anyone can participate in global conversations about foreign policy, governments are still the primary source of policy and responsible for formulating, executing, announcing, and communicating their policy. Accordingly, this author defines public diplomacy as diplomatic communication by government actors and activity targeting foreign publics and non-governmental actors with the purpose of explaining or winning support for foreign policy and influencing, directly or indirectly, the formation and execution of another government’s foreign policy. Policymakers in the FCO and academics such as Melissen might, for example, claim that the British Council’s work in cultural relations should be considered a sub-set or type of ‘new PD’. This paper argues that broadening the definition of public diplomacy muddles the conceptual waters of soft power practices. For the purposes of clarity, public diplomacy in this paper is limited to diplomatic communications and activity about government policy directed at publics, the media, and non-governmental actors. But the primary conceptual distinction and theoretical contribution of this paper is the way in which it distinguishes between cultural diplomacy and cultural relations.
Public/Cultural Diplomacy vs. Cultural Relations
The Oxford English Dictionary defines culture as both “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively” and “the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2014). These ‘manifestations’ include all variations of the arts, educational opportunities, language,

13
ideas, food, religion, sport, and more. The core content of both cultural diplomacy and cultural relations programmes unsurprisingly revolve around ‘culture’, differentiating them from policy- focused public diplomacy efforts. Pamment has gone only so far as to acknowledge that, “[c]ultural diplomacy should not necessarily automatically be considered within the spectrum, or under the umbrella of public diplomacy” but did not go far enough in explicitly identifying and defining differences between cultural relations and cultural diplomacy (Pamment, 2012, 45). However, Pamment quoted a British Council Country Director as saying that these differences are significant for practitioners. “I think the nomenclature causes a lot of problems…I mean the sort of work the British Council’s done over the last 70 years we’ve called various, rather sloppily things like cultural diplomacy and cultural relations without I think thinking it through” (Pamment, 2012, 45). Cultural diplomacy and cultural relations diverge in important ways such as in their means, objectives, and motivations. All of these differences can be traced to the particular role of government in each. In the words of a British Council Country Director, “public diplomacy is a governmental activity, and whatever we call what we do, it is not a governmental activity” (Pamment, 2012, 45-46). The following sections will critically engage with definitions of cultural diplomacy and cultural relations (including the British Council’s and the Government’s definitions) to establish the author’s framework for the two concepts and elaborate on the question of the role of government in defining the two practices.
Cultural Diplomacy
Richard Arndt provides very clear and useful definitions of cultural diplomacy and cultural relations. In keeping with earlier definitions of ‘diplomacy,’ he uses the lens of the role of government to distinguish the two practices:
'Cultural relations' then…means literally the relations between national cultures, those aspects of intellect and education lodged in any society that tend to cross borders and connect with foreign institutions. Cultural relations grow naturally and organically, without government intervention…If that is correct, cultural diplomacy can only be said to take place when formal diplomats, serving national governments, try to shape and channel this natural flow to advance national interests (Arndt, 2005, xviii).

14
When asked to define cultural diplomacy as distinct from cultural relations, Ben O’Loughlin, Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London and former Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on Soft Power said, “Cultural diplomacy is a more specific term insofar as diplomacy is usually associated with states. States’ public diplomacy is states liaising with publics in other states, so cultural diplomacy being states liaising with other states or their peoples through the medium of culture” (O’Loughlin, 2014). Though the target participants and audience of cultural diplomacy programming may be individual citizens or groups, the programming itself is funded, designed, and delivered by government. Pamment noted this strong governmental role, or in his words, “the dominance of the governmental, advocacy perspective over the very nature of cultural diplomacy” (Pamment, 2012, 46). As with any other diplomatic activity, and in keeping with Berridge’s earlier definition of diplomacy, cultural diplomacy can be influenced by the politics inherent in foreign policy. It is likewise accountable to relevant state institutions for oversight and can be instrumentalised to support policy objectives. The contemporary American model of international engagement would fit within this definition of cultural diplomacy.
The US State Department has a Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs which manages a wide range of cultural diplomacy programs including exchanges, tours, and exhibitions. It is subject to the oversight of the Secretary of State, the White House, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the US Congress and open to political influence from all but the GAO. A 2005 report from the Department’s Advisory Committee on Cultural Diplomacy openly acknowledged how cultural diplomacy can explicitly support specific American foreign policy objectives. “Cultural diplomacy… encourages other peoples to give the United States the benefit of the doubt on specific policy issues or requests for collaboration, since there is the presumption of shared interests” (de Stacy Harrison et al., 2005, 1). In that report, as in others, cultural diplomacy was cited as a key weapon in combatting terrorism (de Stacy Harrison et al., 2005, 16) in the same way that it was a weapon against communism in the Cold War (Schneider, 2005, 151-155). Cultural diplomacy programmes are designed explicitly to support foreign policy and the national interest;

15
however, governmental efforts in cultural diplomacy can undermine those desired foreign policy outcomes if those efforts are considered propaganda. If cultural diplomacy programs present an inaccurate or unjustifiably glorified view of reality or policy, then its attempts to win support for that country or policy could easily backfire. The United States experienced this problem with its cultural diplomacy programs focused on winning back support across the Middle East during the Iraq War (Melissen, 2005, 7; Schneider, 2005, 160-162). The UK too has defined cultural diplomacy in a similar vein and linked it to government and national interests.
The British Government’s most recent definition of cultural diplomacy, articulated in its Triennial Review of the British Council, echoed the link to such objectives by defining cultural diplomacy as, “the promotion of culture and values to further national interests” and including Milton Cummings’ definition of cultural diplomacy: “the exchange of values, education, knowledge, art, music, and other aspects of culture or identity among countries and people to foster understanding and strengthen relationships” (FCO, 2014a, 132). But Cummings’ definition by itself just describes cultural relations, as it ascribes no role for government and does not specify for what purpose such understanding and relationships are being sought. It is the introduction of government, national interest, and support of policy which makes such exchange cultural diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy utilises cultural content in its programming, but takes the same ‘advocacy’ approach as public diplomacy to support policy objectives and advance national interests. Cultural relations differs from cultural diplomacy in each of these ways – in its methodology, objectives, and outcomes.
Cultural Relations
The role of government is just as important for cultural relations as it is for cultural diplomacy. The primary difference for the former is the importance of the absence of direct government involvement. Cultural relations, as intimated previously, is the mutual exchange of culture – the arts, education, values, ideas, religion, social norms, etc. – between peoples to develop long-term relationships, trust, and understanding for the purpose of generating genuine goodwill and influence abroad. Richard Arndt’s definition of cultural relations cited in

16
the previous section stipulated that cultural relations generally take place organically between nations without government intervention. The British Council itself has expressed that government has only a peripheral and indirect role to play in “creating the conditions for cultural exchange to flourish” (Holden, 2013, 33). Government can financially support cultural relations so long as those activities remain free of political influence and independent of foreign policy objectives. Cultural relations can support the ‘national interest’ but any such support would only be a byproduct of the trust, understanding, and relationships developed through cultural relations. Jan Melissen correctly noted that, “[c]ultural institutes prefer to keep the term ‘cultural relations’ for their own activities, serving the national interest indirectly by means of trust-building abroad” but also argued that, “[m]odern cultural relations as a wider concept result in a measure of overlap with the work of diplomats” (Melissen, 2005, 22). This paper argues that the active intervention of government or diplomats in cultural relations fundamentally changes the nature of the practice and the perspective that it reflects.
A non-governmental voice lends more credibility and honesty to cultural relations than the voice of government. Melissen indirectly acknowledged this perspective, writing that, “[c]ultural relations are in this view distinct from (public) diplomacy, in the sense that they represent the non-governmental voice in transnational relations” (Melissen, 2005, 22). In a way that public or cultural diplomacy may not, “[c]ultural relations portrays an honest picture of each country rather than a beautified one” (Taylor, 1988). The honesty and authenticity of cultural relations, made possible by independence from government, helps establish trust with others. In the British Council’s words, “[p]eople trust people more than they trust governments, so connections between people often make a more significant contribution to soft power than government-led activities” (House of Lords, 2014a, 249). The Council’s Chief Executive, Sir Martin Davidson, explained this distrust of government in his remarks to the House of Lords Soft Power Committee: “If government fingerprints are all over the [cultural relations] activity then, almost by very definition, it is seen as less trusted, less open, less honest and moving more towards the propaganda area” (House of Lords, 2014a, 155). The British Council’s own Trust Pays report found that, in the ten countries surveyed, “trust in people from the UK

17
generally runs ahead of trust in government from the UK” (British Council, 2012a, 6). In addition, the findings of the latest Edelman Trust Barometer show that global public trust in government is extremely low and that "NGOs remain the most trusted institution globally" (Edelman, 2014). Despite its emphasis on higher trust in other people, the British Council as an NGO is still likely to be more trusted abroad than the British Government. Individuals and NGOs have different interests than governments because, “states don't have friends. Internationally, trust exists, where it exists at all, between people and between peoples, where raison d'etat doesn't hold sway. Trust is built through relationships between people and peoples, not between governments” (Rose and Wadham-Smith, 2004, 27). In order to develop understanding and relationships of trust, cultural relations must take a different approach from those used in cultural and public diplomacy.
Cultural relations’ approach to its work goes far deeper than the multilateral communication and advocacy of public and cultural diplomacy. Gordon Slaven, the British Council’s Head of Education Services, described the organisation’s approach to cultural relations:
[T]he first thing we do is we listen and we hear what other people are saying and we work from that basis, rather than telling them what we think they need to know. It’s the mutuality, I think, that is the uniqueness of what the British Council does (Slaven, 2014).
By focusing on listening, cultural relations invites a deeper level of engagement with others than would the more promotional cultural diplomacy. Pamment also made this distinction, writing that, “[w]hile cultural work might focus on long-term relationships predicated on mutual interests…advocacy is about lobbying for political and economic objectives” (Pamment, 2012, 43). Linking mutuality to the long-term focus of cultural relations, Rose and Wadham-Smith wrote that, “Mutuality says, 'I'll behave in this way regardless of how you respond in the short- to-medium term, because I have confidence that implementing these values with no strings attached is the only way to build trust in the long-term'” (Rose and Wadham-Smith, 2004, 23). Governments, for a number of political and structural reasons, are far more concerned with achieving short- to medium-term foreign policy outcomes. "The distinction between cultural

18
relations and cultural diplomacy was interpreted as one between long-term objectives of mutual understanding between peoples and short-term interests of commercial or political advantage," which governments may pursue in their foreign policies (Lee, 1995, 346). Where appropriate, these advantages can frequently be achieved through public or cultural diplomacy ‘advocacy’ initiatives, an approach which is both anathema to the long-term ‘mutuality’ of cultural relations necessary to build trust. So much of what defines cultural relations (and what distinguishes it from cultural and public diplomacy) – the longer timescale, honesty, mutuality, and trust – is made possible by its independence from government. They are also what makes cultural relations more effective as a soft power practice. This chapter has established definitions and a framework for differentiating public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, and cultural relations. The next chapters apply this framework to the British Council’s recent history and its relationship with HMG.

19
Chapter 2
HMG’s Evolving Definition of ‘Cultural Diplomacy’ and the GREAT Campaign
This chapter tracks the evolution of British Government policy on public diplomacy, cultural relations, and soft power over the last 13 years. This evolution has taken place in parallel with, “a greater drive to make the international effort of the UK much more coherent” (Slaven, 2014). Throughout this period, HMG has been wrestling with the concept of soft power and how best to acquire, manage, and deploy it through the instruments available to it – primarily the FCO, the Department for International Development (DfID), the BBC World Service (BBCWS), and the British Council. Three reports in particular – the Wilton Review (2002), the Carter Report (2005), and the Triennial Review (2014) – articulate the Government’s evolving view of public and cultural diplomacy and address the question of where arm’s length institutions such as the British Council and BBCWS sit in the broader architecture of Britain’s overseas engagement. Government’s increased interest in these issues foreshadows the establishment of the GREAT Britain campaign in 2012 as well as the growing involvement of the Government in the British Council’s affairs. HMG’s entreaties to the Council to more clearly support the UK national interest have increasingly threatened the organisation’s commitment to cultural relations. In the words of James Pamment, “Prior to this policy era, there was a certain ambiguity of roles which allowed actors like the [British Council] to act both as an NGO and as an official government body” (Pamment, 2012, 74). That ambiguity has steadily dissipated over time.
The Wilton Review (2002), Carter Report (2008), & Triennial Review (2014)
The Wilton Review was the first assessment of British public diplomacy work after the 9/11 attacks, and many of its policy recommendations shared the same motivation with previous advice in the 1980s and 1990s. The primary impact of the Wilton Review for the British Council came in the form of changes to the Government’s definition of public diplomacy. The Review said that “all of [the British Council’s] activity falls under the heading of cultural relations and is therefore part of public diplomacy” (Wilton et al., 2002, 3). The Public Diplomacy Strategy Board (PDSB), set up in the wake of the Wilton Review to

20
coordinate British public diplomacy efforts, added a key phrase (below in italics) to the Review’s definition of public diplomacy.
Work which aims at influencing in a positive way, including through the creation of relationships and partnerships, the perceptions of individuals and organisations overseas about the UK and their engagement with the UK, in support of HMG’s overseas objectives (House of Commons, 2006, 12; Wilton et al., 2002, 12).
In his analysis, James Pamment wrote that this new definition, “set cultural relations within a government remit and implied that these different actors…should arrange their objectives within the broader national interest” and that it was motivated by demand for greater public accountability and transparency (Pamment, 2012, 73). Chapter 1 of this paper outlined clearly that cultural relations should be considered separately from both public and cultural diplomacy and that any contribution to the national interest would be incidental to cultural relations activity. The Carter Report went even further in articulating the British Council’s role in supporting the national interest.
The Carter Report evaluated the impact of the Wilton Review’s recommendations and the overall effectiveness of British international public engagement. The Report claimed to appreciate, “the importance of appropriate editorial and managerial independence” for the British Council and the BBCWS, but its updated definition of public diplomacy betrayed that claim (Carter, 2005, 4). According to the report, public diplomacy activity (cultural relations included) was to be delivered, “in a manner consistent with governmental medium and long- term goals” (Ibid). The Carter Report more explicitly linked support for the ‘national interest’ to HMG policy, in Pamment’s view, by “us[ing] the notion of HMG to embody a sovereign national interest beyond ‘short-term’ politics. Actors like the [British Council] and BBCWS represent Britain’s interests and therefore should act in line with the FCO’s strategic plans” (Pamment, 2012, 73). The British Government’s increased concern with public and cultural diplomacy supporting its foreign policy objectives at that time reflect the fact that the UK’s participation in the Iraq War had significantly tarnished the Government’s reputation and influence abroad. Public and cultural diplomacy, and the work of the British Council, served as the Government’s primary tools to address this urgent problem. But minutes from a later meeting of the British

21
Council’s Board of Trustees tried to distance the organisation from any such notion. “[The Board] were clear that the Mission of the British Council was never to defend the UK’s interests, which was more properly the job of the FCO” (British Council, 2010a, 5). When cultural relations activity is linked to support for national interests as embodied or determined by Government, by the definitions provided earlier in this paper, it would no longer be cultural relations, but cultural diplomacy.
The recently published Triennial Review of the British Council goes even further on this particular point in its definition of cultural diplomacy and in its recommendation for greater British Council alignment with HMG priorities and the national interest. The Review awkwardly defines cultural diplomacy and contrasts the British Council’s assertion that it does cultural relations:
For the purposes of the Review we refer to the activities of the British Council broadly as ‘cultural diplomacy’…The term broadly encompasses promotion of a country’s culture and values to build positive relationships and influence, thereby furthering national interests. In other words, use of national culture in support of foreign policy and diplomacy (FCO, 2014a, 10).
The first part of this definition would align with cultural relations (national interest being incidental), whereas the latter part sits squarely within a cultural diplomacy framework. By calling the British Council’s work cultural diplomacy, the Government is, “in effect, using the strategy of influence over the terms of discourse to reposition identities and roles” in relation to the British Council (Pamment, 2012, 46). In support of its recommendation for the British Council’s greater alignment with HMG, the Review also calls for a greater focus on ‘promotion’ and a more muted effort on ‘mutuality’ – a key component of cultural relations. “[T]he emphasis on ‘mutuality’ (or, previously, internationalism) as a core British Council value should not detract from delivery of the [Royal] Charter object to ‘promote a wider knowledge of the UK’” (FCO, 2014a, 27). But according to several of the British Council staff interviewed for this paper, the organisation’s work and strategy are already aligned with that of not only the FCO but other HMG Departments as well. One member of the headquarters staff said that “at a strategic level we seek alignment with the overall aims of UK government policy” (Subject 1,

22
2014). The Council’s most recent corporate plan (published before the Review) echoes this approach:
As part of our strengthening alignment with government objectives for culture and education, we have already consulted on this Corporate Plan with the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills (BIS), UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), and the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS), as well as the FCO (British Council, 2014, 7).
But not all of those bodies and individuals in public office agree on such alignment as was demonstrated with the House of Lords Select Committee on Soft Power.
The committee was the first of its kind to look at Britain’s soft power assets on a holistic basis. In its report, the committee cited both written evidence from the British Council and in- person testimony by its CEO Sir Martin Davidson about the nature and importance of the Council’s independent relationship with Government (House of Lords, 2014a, 42, 44). According to Ben O’Loughlin, who worked with the twelve Peers who sat on the committee, there were divisions among the members as to the appropriate relationship between the British Council and the Government and how obviously the former’s work should contribute to British national interests.
You had some people who thought, because the British Council is funded, or part- funded by the state, then it should be doing work of obvious benefit to Britain, however that's defined. So they would see it as an instrument, as a tool of government. Whereas others, either for ideological reasons or for more complicated reasons, thought that the British Council should have more independence…either because they didn't trust the state to direct foreign policy very effectively...[or they] thought that the British Council should have more independence because it would be more effective that way (O’Loughlin, 2014).
But perhaps the most obvious example of the British Council’s programmatic alignment with and instrumentalisation by the Government in recent years has been through the Council’s participation in the GREAT Britain campaign.
The GREAT Britain Campaign
The British Government established the GREAT Britain campaign (or the “GREAT campaign”) in 2011 to capitalise, quite literally, on the world’s increased focus on the UK in 2012 with the London Olympics and Diamond Jubilee celebrations taking place. The campaign has continued after 2012 receiving £45 million of HMG funding in 2014-15 (an increase of £15 million on previous years) to promote the UK as a ‘GREAT’ place to invest,

23
start a business, visit as a tourist, and study among other things (FCO, 2014b, 23). The GREAT campaign supports the Government’s ‘prosperity’ agenda as a marketing or ‘nation- branding’ initiative to “drive growth and prosperity for the UK” (Subject 1, 2014). As one member of the British Council’s corporate team put it, “Clearly [prosperity] is a big agenda across all of government policy at the moment. Every department sees itself as an economic department and making an important contribution to the UK and it’s important that we also play a role in that” (Subject 1, 2014). Many of the GREAT campaign activities and events at British Embassies and Consulates around the world, including celebrations of British film, music, and fashion, “could quite reasonably be considered public diplomacy, cultural relations, or soft power” (Pamment, 2014a, 6). But from the British Council’s perspective, in the eyes of one member of staff, “you could have really good cultural relations work that produces no prosperity for the UK at all…The relationships have developed, the learning between countries had improved, but no immediate financial result” is evident (Subject 5, 2014). This perspective stands in contrast to that presented in a piece of research the British Council commissioned entitled Culture Means Business which touts the economic benefit of cultural relations to the UK. But the British Council’s participation in the GREAT campaign has had mixed reactions from the members of staff interviewed.
According to Paul Fairclough, the British Council’s Programme Manager for the GREAT campaign, the organisation’s contribution to the broader campaign is primarily promoting the UK as a place to study. The campaign, “a political initiative directed by Number 10”, is governed by a programme board with representation across HMG and chaired by the Secretary of State for DCMS (Pamment, 2014a, 5, 12). According to Fairclough, for 2014-15, HMG contributed £2 million to the Council’s efforts and the organisation put in £1 million itself. Despite its focus on promotion, he still sees the campaign as fitting within the British Council’s commitment to cultural relations:
I don't think it's contradictory to cultural relations…Our core activity is about building relationships which are mutually beneficial. The GREAT campaign is fundamentally a marketing campaign. So there is a difference there, but I think from our point of view, we're using it in...situations and circumstances where it is fitting and appropriate. For

24
example, it is appropriate that we should be promoting UK strengths in education (Fairclough, 2014).
Fairclough’s argument that promotional activity may have an appropriate place within some circumstances makes sense. To convince people and institutions to develop mutually beneficial links with the UK higher education sector, the organisation has to promote the strengths and value of the sector itself. But not all British Council staff necessarily agree with that approach as it relates to the GREAT campaign.
In an interview, Gordon Slaven posited that, “things like the GREAT campaign are probably not what we at the British Council would do, [but] are a national imperative to be involved with and so we are and we’re making it work for us and for the UK, of course” (Slaven, 2014). He also said that the Council’s cooperation with the Government on GREAT should be considered a partnership because the organisation had agreed to invest its own funds into the initiative. Though it has only appeared in some of the 110 countries in which the British Council operates, the GREAT campaign hasn’t worked equally well across the board. In contrast to Paul Fairclough’s argument, some have found GREAT to be inconsistent with the British Council’s stated cultural relations approach.
We find it weird when the GREAT campaign say [sic], "Well why don't you just use GREAT as your brand?" Because a lot of what we do and the way we build relationships and what people appreciate is [that] the UK comes quite honestly about what it's good at and what it's not good at and what it has to learn and the phase of any journey it's going on. And people really appreciate that. GREAT to some degree threatens that in a way. If we took a GREAT approach, then we'd only be focusing on the positive (Subject 5, 2014).
As a marketing campaign, GREAT is less conducive to the honesty and reciprocity which is at the core of cultural relations’ mutuality. But the British Council’s participation in the GREAT campaign is incumbent on the organisation using the campaign’s distinct branding, logos, and images. These materials and visuals are also in use by a number of Government departments, perhaps creating some confusion.
The British Council’s relationship with HMG is complex and not immediately clear from the organisation’s corporate logo or branding. Though, in the words of one employee, “I think most people around the world assume that we are in some way connected with the UK government anyway…‘British’ Council implies that we have some connection with the British

25
state” (Subject 1, 2014). But another feels that use of the GREAT campaign brand dilutes the British Council’s and goes beyond recognition of HMG funding for the purpose of GREAT- related higher education promotion:
You could argue it’s diluting the British Council’s brand, because now we’ve got two brands in our higher education promotion work…I’m a bit surprised the [GREAT] brand appears on the front of our annual report and our corporate plan, considering the amount of resources we get from DfID, BIS, the FCO, etc. and £2.4 million means you get your brand on the front of our corporate plan; I think there’s something else going on there (Subject 5, 2014).
A large number of other partners outside Government, including private sector companies, support the British Council’s work on an annual basis on top of contributions from various Government departments. Accordingly, the placement of GREAT branding on the British Council’s corporate documents, whose primary audience are UK-based stakeholders including officials within HMG, could be interpreted as signalling strong British Council alignment with Government initiatives and priorities around prosperity. However, the Government has now signalled that it seeks more substantive alignment with GREAT than just branding. In the Triennial Review, the Government has taken note of the apparent ambivalence of certain quarters of the British Council towards the GREAT campaign and has somewhat pointedly asked for more constructive cooperation.
The British Council is a partner in the Government's GREAT campaign, but is not always seen by colleagues in Government departments as fully 'bought in'. We are sympathetic to the British Council's need to pursue longer term engagement and maintain its distinct institutional identity…We recommend that the British Council adopt a more consistent practice of positive engagement and contribution to the GREAT campaign (FCO, 2014a, 109-110).
The Review on several occasions explicitly recommends that steps be taken to improve the British Council’s “alignment with broader national interest” (FCO, 2014a, 46). These particular recommendations in the Triennial Review reflect the broader trend identified in this section around the UK Government’s attitude towards cultural diplomacy and the place of the British Council in the UK’s soft power ‘arsenal’.
Since the Wilton Review of 2002, the British Government has taken greater interest in public and cultural diplomacy to build up, manage, and deploy soft power and considered it a British strong point. The British Council, as a cultural relations organisation, has been at the

26
heart of these considerations and reviews. However, the Government’s understanding and definition of public and cultural diplomacy has evolved during this period to encompass the work of the British Council. By considering the Council’s cultural relations work of long-term relationship-building for influence to be the purview of government and linking it to the support of short to medium-term national interests as defined by HMG priorities and objectives, the British Government is pulling the British Council closer to the practices of cultural diplomacy. The Council’s participation in the GREAT Britain campaign is just one example of this process of alignment. The next two chapters describe how the demand for greater accountability from NDPBs and cuts to the British Council’s grant-in-aid have contributed to the organisation’s further alignment with Government and thus with cultural diplomacy.

27
Chapter 3
New Levels of Public Accountability and Evaluation: The British Council as ‘Quango’
Questions of accountability and value for money are not new for the British Council; they have affected the organisation for decades. Accountability for the purposes of this paper includes governance and oversight, both of programmes and finances, as well as monitoring and evaluation. These latter two aspects of accountability and transparency are linked as greater oversight and ‘proving value’ demands more and better data through impact evaluation and measurement. The levels of accountability progressively expected and desired of the British Council over the last decade, in terms of overall corporate management, financial controls, and intensity of measurement and evaluation, are arguably higher than they have ever been its history. This chapter argues that, in the case of the British Council, those mechanisms in place to exercise oversight and demonstrate value for money can actually become a strong vehicle for Governmental influence on the organisation’s strategies and priorities, contributing to the process of moving towards cultural diplomacy. This chapter addresses general trends in the Government’s efforts to reform NDPBs and then examines current and recommended governance models for the British Council as well as the financial controls and evaluation requirements to which the organisation is subject.
General Trends
The demand for greater accountability and better measurement is not unique to the British Council or the sector of public diplomacy or cultural relations. According to Ben O’Loughlin, other parts of the public sector are being caught up in “the broader culture in society of accountability to the taxpayer”:
The British Council's work in cultural and public diplomacy is having to adjust…But at the same time, so has the military, so have universities. We now have to measure our impact. So what's happening in cultural diplomacy and cultural relations is part of a broader shift in management of knowledge (O’Loughlin, 2014).
In the case of the British Council, the organisation is adjusting to the current Coalition Government’s efforts to reform NDPBs or ‘quangos’ – quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations. Quangos deliver those public services which are judged to be better provided

28
at arm’s length from Government departments and insulated from the political influence of Government ministers. Successive British governments have tried to bring down the number of NDPBs without much success (Flinders et al., 2014, 60-68). This trend changed after the 2010 general election.
When the Coalition Government came to office in May 2010, there was talk of a ‘bonfire of the quangos’ and some reports that the British Council itself would be axed – a move that “would be welcomed by many” (Porter, 2010). Quangos were to be either reformed or abolished “to save money and increase democratic accountability” (Flinders et al., 2014, 69). Flinders et al. argue that, unlike its predecessors, the current Government has been able to make sweeping changes to the way NDPBs are managed and run, reforming a number of arm’s length bodies and bringing them closer to the Government in the process.
The most significant finding of the research on which this article is based is therefore a shift in governing relationship that is frequently characterized by officials as a move from a 'loose-loose' to 'tight-tight' relationship between arm's length bodies and their parent departments (Flinders et al., 2014, 71).
They identify five principal measures taken by the Government that contribute to the new “tight-tight” relationship: an overall review of all NDPBs, the triennial review process, increased financial controls and data-collection requirements, enhanced departmental capability for NDPB sponsorship, and expansion of the Cabinet Office Public Bodies Team (Flinders et al., 2014, 72-73). Like any other NDPB, the British Council, “would now be subject to a triennial review process that would question their continued existence” (Flinders et al., 2014, 72). The Triennial Review cited in this paper is the first result of that process for the British Council. The next section identifies some of the relevant recommendations for the British Council’s overall governance and relationship with its sponsor department.
New Accountability, Governance, and Financial Controls
This section will examine those structures and mechanisms of oversight in place from 2010 to 2014 as well as those recommended by the Triennial Review. It is important to note that any of the Triennial Review recommendations mentioned below, at the time of writing

29
(August 2014), have only been published and not yet implemented, but they demonstrate the Government’s intentions and plans for the British Council moving forward.
The British Council is simultaneously an NDPB, a charity, and a public corporation run by a Chief Executive Officer with the oversight of a Board of Trustees, led by a Chair. Its status as a charity and public corporation requires the British Council to comply with applicable regulations, obligations, and policies set by the Charity Commission. The Foreign and Commonwealth is the ‘sponsor department’ for the organisation’s NDPB status. The Council’s governing documents include a Royal Charter, last updated in 2011, as well as a financial memorandum of understanding (MoU) and management statement that outline the relationship with the FCO, last updated in July 2013. The latter documents outline the responsibilities of the British Council and its Board of Trustees to the FCO, including reporting requirements on financial performance and contribution to the “UK’s long term international aims as set out by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office” (FCO/British Council, 2013a, 4). The Triennial Review discovered, however, the complexity and contradiction inherent in the governance of the British Council, an organisation with three different statuses:
Governance and accountability emerged as significant themes during the Review Consultation. The model of Royal Charter body, charity status and NDPB complicates both. For example, the Foreign Secretary is answerable to Parliament for the activities of the British Council but the organisation is governed by a Board of Trustees whose responsibility is to the interests of the charity rather than to Government or broader national interest (FCO, 2014a, 38).
That statement omits the primary connections between the Board and the FCO. The Foreign Secretary must approve the appointments of the British Council’s Chief Executive, Board Chair, and Vice-Chair and can appoint one representative of his own to the Board. In 2008, then Foreign Secretary David Miliband did not exercise that prerogative (House of Commons, 2008, Ev15), but in June 2011, William Hague nominated Permanent Under Secretary to the FCO, Simon Fraser, to join the Board (British Council, 2011a, 2). Ministers across Government (including BIS, DCMS, and DFID) are consulted in the drafting of the British Council’s corporate plan (British Council, 2014, 7) and “the final draft has to be signed off by the Foreign Secretary” (Subject 1, 2014). These mechanisms are among the tools available

30
to the FCO and the Foreign Secretary to exercise their oversight function as the British Council’s sponsor department, but the Triennial Review claims that they are insufficient.
The strongest recommendations to emerge from the Triennial Review centred on questions of accountability and oversight. The following section is the clearest request for a much closer governance relationship between the British Council and its sponsor department:
We recommend that the FCO strengthen capacity to provide effective oversight of and closer engagement with the British Council. We further recommend that the FCO and British Council consider additional ways of strengthening the institutional relationship and building trust eg through secondments into relevant positions in both organisations (FCO, 2014a, 32).
The Review builds on that general guidance with some specific proposals for increased oversight, including “rigorous ongoing evaluation by the FCO”, “giv[ing] other relevant government departments a voice on British Council activities in their areas of interest”, additional coordination with British Embassies/Consulates, and changing the Council’s Principal Charity Regulator from the Charities Commission to the Foreign Secretary (FCO, 2014a, 29, 5-6, 37, 46). As these proposals have not yet been implemented, their impact on the British Council’s day-to-day ‘operational independence’ is unclear. But a closer institutional relationship between the British Council and the Government and additional oversight by the latter would, if the Council’s history is any indicator, reduce the independence so critical to its identity as a cultural relations organisation. These developments are paralleled in the area of financial control and oversight.
As with the institutional management relationship described above, the demand for greater financial oversight of NDPBs is widespread and not unique to the British Council. The controls introduced by the Coalition Government include a spending freeze in a number of areas, “covering spending on advertising, consultancy, IT, procurement, and the hiring of new staff. In addition, the Cabinet Office and Treasury have increased the amount of data that public bodies must regularly provide” (Flinders et al., 2014, 72). These controls are echoed in paragraph 11 of the British Council’s financial MoU with the FCO in which the latter sets out “any targets to be achieved, such as in relation to Official Development Assistance (ODA) spend, or efficiency savings” (FCO/British Council, 2013b, 4). The MoU also stipulates that

31
the British Council’s “financial plans and targets…will be agreed in consultation with the FCO” for all of its activities, not just those supported by FCO or HMG funding (FCO/British Council, 2013b, 8). The FCO’s oversight of financial matters extends to those activities not supported by grant-in-aid including its income-generating English and Exams business (Ibid.). When asked, a member of British Council staff felt such oversight is appropriate, “because it is money held on behalf of the UK public” even though “in order to generate that money, we had to act in entrepreneurial ways” (Subject 1, 2014). However, the Council claims that much of its financial data is commercially sensitive (FCO, 2014a, 31). The Triennial Review disagreed with this stance and “questions whether this is necessary other than in the case of eg [sic] specific contract negotiations” and recommends further review to identify additional data which can be made public (Ibid.). The FCO is not the only institution of Government which has financial oversight of the British Council.
At the recommendation of the House of Commons Select Committee for Foreign Affairs, the National Audit Office (NAO) reviewed the British Council in 2008 to evaluate whether it was providing value for money to the Government and UK taxpayer and “its impact in meeting public diplomacy objectives” (National Audit Office, 2008, 5). Their general conclusion was “that the British Council’s performance is strong…There is a need for improvement in support functions and in terms of the management information and tools that it has in place to run its business” (Ibid.). The report made recommendations to better manage the organisation’s finances, estates, and procurement as it changed its programming structure from programmes devised at individual country-level to programmes managed and run at a global or regional level (National Audit Office, 2008, 5-6). Many of the steps outlined in the NAO report seem to reflect a strong need to modernise and professionalise the British Council’s operations and systems. However, as noted above, the impetus for the report and for such professionalization was the request of the House of Commons. On paper and in theory, the British Council’s Board of Trustees is responsible and accountable for the organisation’s performance and management, but as the previous two sections have made clear, the FCO and other organs of Government do take a very active role and interest in this

32
area. This interest has extended to how the British Council measures the effectiveness of its work and evaluates its programmes.
Measurement, Evaluation, and Accountability in Cultural Relations
This section addresses ongoing questions about how best to measure the impact of cultural relations and cultural diplomacy programmes. Measuring the impact and collecting data about these programmes are the primary way that oversight bodies can do their job. As James Pamment writes, “evaluation data is produced in order to be used in annual reports which are the subject of scrutiny by internal and external stakeholders” (Pamment, 2014b, 51). In the case of cultural relations, the push for more and better evaluation emerges from “the idea that influence should be measureable” (O’Loughlin, 2014). Pierre Pahlavi goes further in an article in which he claims that without the proper evaluation tools, practitioners of public diplomacy would not be able to “amend their course of action or to direct resources towards activities that have a greater likelihood of success” or “demonstrate that soft power diplomacy is more than mere rhetoric, and that the investment that it receives is not superfluous luxury” (Pahlavi, 2007, 279). The same argument holds true for cultural relations, no matter if the stakeholder is government or another non-governmental entity.
The British Council’s framework for evaluating impact does still focus on the Government as the primary audience and stakeholder. A member of the management team in the Education & Society unit touched on this in an interview. “The main aspect of what we’re monitoring and evaluating in the corporate scorecard…is what we’ve committed to to [sic] the FCO and the Foreign Affairs Committee who are the judges of our performance” (Subject 5, 2014). However, in recent years, this framework has become more complex for the British Council as the mixed economy model has meant a larger number of relevant stakeholders. It must now determine if activities have been “good international development or whether it’s been good CSR [Corporate Social Responsibility] or whether it’s been good brand-building activity” (Ibid.). This quote aligns well with Pamment’s argument that evaluation demands and concerns have contributed to changes in project design and practice in this field (Pamment, 2014b, 52). However, the challenge of more stakeholders and, especially the demand that

33
British Council programmes be able to demonstrate greater impact for UK national interests puts more pressure on British Council staff.
The British Council uses a corporate scorecard to record relevant data, qualitative and quantitative, from all of its programmes. Ben O’Loughlin indicated the frustration of those British Council staff with whom he’s engaged regarding the greater focus on evaluation.
From the British Council staff that I've spoken to outside of this report and outside of the programme we're involved in, they feel micromanaged. They have complained on a personal basis about having to measure everything…They spend so much time measuring what they're doing that they don't really have time to do anything. But that is just happening in every organ of state at the moment (O’Loughlin, 2014).
A member of the British Council’s headquarters staff reflected a similar view, saying that, “I do think that we do spend quite of time in terms of resource on managing some of the government areas…If you look at the Department for International Development, all the different departments we deal with, we do put an awful lot of resource into it” (Subject 3, 2014). Interestingly, both of these answers were in response to the following quotation from Flinders et al. referring to the situation of all NDPBs. “From a situation where many bodies had assumed 'orphan status', the common criticism from the chairs and chief executives of public bodies is now that the Cabinet Office is too controlling to the point that micro-management risks undermining the arm's-length relationship (Flinders et al., 2014, 74). Other interviewed staff members did not react in the same way and did not necessarily agree with the quote. However, there does seem to be a link between perceived ‘micro-management’, the arm’s length relationship, and evaluation of programming.
If the Government is requiring additional data to demonstrate the effectiveness of the British Council’s programming and cultural relations’ contribution to the national interest or foreign policy, then the programmes set up to deliver that programming will likely be designed and executed in such a way that they can be evaluated against those particular desired outcomes. Such an arrangement constrains the design, format, and content of cultural relations programmes across sectors, all in the name of accountability. The British Council is such a complex organisation working in so many different countries and sectors that the relationship to Government, even in terms of accountability, varies tremendously. As Gordon

34
Slaven put it, it’s not that the arm between the Government and the British Council is getting shorter, but “in some sense, in some part of the arm, it’s gotten considerably shorter and in other areas, it’s gotten a lot longer” (Slaven, 2014). The Triennial Review’s recommendations reflect a desire to both tighten and perhaps standardise the relationship across the organisation. The risk in doing so, to paraphrase the metaphor used by a senior civil servant in FD&T, if a tourniquet tied around an arm is tied too tight or left on for too long, one risks the arm falling off completely (Flinders et al., 2014, 74). Time will tell whether a tighter approach to the British Council’s accountability to Government will have that effect.

35
Chapter 4
Cultural Relations & Austerity: Shrinking Grant-in-Aid and the Mixed-Economy Model
This chapter examines the impact of cuts to the British Council’s grant-in-aid, the introduction of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) quotas, and a massive increase in the British Council’s commercial activities on the organisation’s overall relationship with the British Government and on its model for doing cultural relations. Over the past four decades since the Council initiated the mixed-economy model through the introduction of fee-paying English language instruction and exam provision, the proportion of HMG grant-in-aid within the British Council’s annual turnover has steadily decreased. When Gordon Slaven joined the British Council nearly 28 years ago, “the vast majority of the money was grant. Now it’s down to less than 20% which is quite a remarkable change, and it’s gone down more than 10% in the last four years, at the same time as we’ve raised our turnover quite dramatically” (Slaven, 2014). As the income the British Council has earned has grown and the sources of that income have grown and diversified (contracts, partnerships, full cost recovery services), the British Council’s operating model has become more complex. As of the end of the 2012-2013, the Council had established 12 subsidiaries in the UK and a number of countries to ensure its commercial activities comply with local tax and status regulations (British Council, 2013a, 95). As established in Chapter 2 of this paper, the British Council has experienced cuts before. Even before the global financial crisis began to bite in 2007, the British Council was already being asked to make cuts. As part of the Gershon Efficiency Review of the entire public sector, the British Council had to make efficiency savings of £13 million over the three years from 2004-2005 to 2007-2008 (British Council, 2008, 6). These cuts would pale in comparison to the cuts the organisation absorbed after the General Election in May 2010.
Finding Savings in a Time of Austerity and the Challenge of ODA
The Coalition Government formed in May 2010 entered office pledging to dramatically cut public spending, initiating what many have considered a period of austerity. In the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) of 2010, the British Council and its sponsor department the FCO were not immune from the cuts being imposed across the Government.

36
“As part of the [CSR] settlement, the British Council and BBC World Service will find savings by finding greater efficiencies and enhancing the commercialisation of their operations” (HM Treasury, 2010, 59). All of the figures and statistics cited below were contained in or determined from data publicly available in the British Council’s annual reports and corporate plans going back to 2005-2006 (see Appendix B). Between the financial years 2010-2011 and 2014-2015, the British Council saw its grant-in-aid from the FCO drop 23% or approximately £47 million down to £154 million, but in its 2011-2015 Corporate Plan, the British Council wrote that, “The FCO grant reduction, the loss of the [Department for Education] grant, the likely impact of inflation, the continuing weakness of sterling, and the need to find money for investment mean that we need to save about £70 million of grant costs annually by 2014–15, £26 million of this from 2011–12” (British Council, 2011b, 37). The complexity of the Council’s internal financial structures alluded to above, and the requirement that grant-in-aid not support commercial activity (i.e. – commercial activity has to cover its own costs), mean that cuts from the grant cannot easily be replaced by a corresponding proportional increase in commercial activity. The British Council made this point clear in its response to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s departmental report into the FCO and its NDPBs.
Some services generate limited surpluses which we then reinvest in cultural relations work, but it is not possible to simply substitute £1 of grant with £1 of self-generated income. Overall our current portfolio of services generates a surplus of £1 for every £10 we earn – so to match a £1 reduction in grant, we would need to increase our self- generated income tenfold (British Council, 2013b, 4).
The British Council already allocates surplus from its commercial operations to support other cultural relations activities normally funded by the grant and bolsters reserves (British Council, 2013a, 7). Accordingly, to replace £70 million in grant costs in four years through additional surplus, the Council would have to increase its income-generating activities by £700 million in the same period. The British Council’s Chair, Sir Vernon Ellis, considered this to be “quite an ask” (House of Commons, 2013b, 20). The organisation did make a significant push to increase its earned income, but it also did have to make some painful cuts.
The British Council took a wide range of steps to cut its spending and align it with the Government’s requirements. Through a voluntary early retirement programme and forced

37
redundancies, the British Council reduced its headcount of staff in the UK from 1,117 in 2009- 2010 to a low of 710 two years later – a cut of 36%. At the time of writing, the latest figures have staff numbers rising again to 821, a cut of 26%. The British Council also underwent an internal restructuring, merging geographic regional directorates from twelve to eight and consolidating activity into three strategic business units (SBUs) – English & Exams, Arts, and Education & Society (British Council, 2011c, 9, 22). The Council also consolidated a number of back office functions at a hub in Noida, India (British Council, 2011c, 79). Business services were not the only British Council operations to relocate. The British Council signed on to the Government’s “One HMG” programme to physically bring together British overseas representation to save on estate costs. In 2013, the Council shared premises with the FCO in some 30 countries, but in many places cannot do so because of international prohibitions on commercial activity being run from diplomatic premises (House of Commons, 2014, 13). Sir Vernon warned that “we don’t want to be seen as part of the Foreign Office” (House of Commons, 2013b, 23). However, in some countries, British Council operations already have a quasi-diplomatic appearance through shared premises with the Embassy or Consulate and through the dual job title of British Council Country Director and Cultural Counsellor or Attaché (Donaldson, 1984, 303). In addition to the restructuring and co-location, the British Council has, “had to stop doing some things and reduce the amount of things we do in certain circumstance and pursue more work through partnership” (Subject 1, 2014). Among the programs cut were several initiatives on climate change, drawing a furious reaction from a range of British artists, authors, and intellectuals (Carrington, 2011). The most dramatic changes in programming, however, have come as the result of the introduction of specific requirements for British Council spending.
As part of the Government’s commitment to spend .7% of gross national income on aid and broader changes to the British Council’s grant-in-aid under the 2010 CSR, the British Council’s grant is now split into what can and cannot be spent on activities or in countries that would qualify as ODA as defined by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Under current plans, by 2016 fully 69% of the Council’s activities

38
supported by grant-in-aid must qualify as ODA. British Council CEO Sir Martin Davidson outlined the challenge saying, “the amount that we had available to spend in the developed world went down significantly. That remains the squeeze that we as an organisation are feeling. Our ability to deploy grant into the developed world is becoming more and more constrained” (House of Commons, 2013b, 29-30). As a result, operations and activities in Europe, North America, and Australia supported by grant have been cut while those in the Middle East/North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia have more grant funds than they may have had before. These changes have been particularly difficult for Europe, and Sir Martin Davidson’s description of the organisation’s challenge there is worth quoting at length:
Perhaps the most important set of changes is going to be around the future of our presence in western Europe, where…with more and more of [the grant] denominated as overseas development assistance—we are, in essence, going to have to create an operation in western Europe that fully covers its cost through earned income. We have a physical presence in the 28 EU countries…We are looking at the moment, for example, not at stopping work in all those countries, but asking whether the physical presence in those countries adds value” (House of Commons, 2013b, 29).
The contemporary situation for Europe just described echoes a statement made 60 years earlier by the Drogheda Committee that, “It seems to us that most of the European countries can well pay for anything that is done for them in these fields and that if we can provide services which they really want they would willingly do so” (Donaldson, 1984, 185). By ring- fencing funds in the British Council’s grant-in-aid for ODA work, the British Government has a great deal of influence on the British Council’s geographic priorities and the type of programming that can be delivered in these regions. The response for Europe and the rest of the organisation has been to focus on earning additional income.
Challenges of the Mixed-Economy Model
As mentioned above, the Comprehensive Spending Review of 2010 asked the British Council to make efficiencies, but also requested that it “enhance” its commercial operations. There are now signals from the Government that it regards the British Council to have been perhaps too successful in doing so. Remarkably, the British Council projects its income from services will have risen from £361 million in 2009-10 to £796 million by the end of 2014-15 – an increase of nearly £434 million in five years, a growth rate of an impressive 120% (British

39
Council, 2014, 2010b). In 2012-13, the British Council made a surplus of £56 million on its income from services (FCO, 2014a, 16). Contrary to what one might have expected in a period of general austerity, “a decision was taken to embark on a strategy that went from growth as an organisation, growing impact and growing revenue, at a time when the public sector for the organisation was falling” (Subject 1, 2014). Despite the British Council’s commercial growth, and associated growth in impact, concerns began to emerge in 2012 from several parts of Government about the success of the mixed-economy model and the organisation’s alignment with UK interests.
Perspectives differed widely on the consequences of the growth of earned income for the British Council and its transformation into an “entrepreneurial public service” (British Council, 2014, 3). Gordon Slaven provided a useful metaphor from parenting to offer his interpretation of this new dynamic in the Council’s relationship with HMG: “A teenager who in our world, [the parent says] ‘Well, yes, I’m cutting your allowance.’ And he [the teenager] goes out and gets a job, you know? So you’re rather cut off at the knees” (Slaven, 2014). Another member of staff at the Council disagreed, saying that, “our status means that even if Government only gave us one pound, technically the Foreign Secretary would still be accountable to Parliament for all our work. So it doesn’t really fundamentally change the nature of the relationship very much” (Subject 1, 2014). The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee was the first official organ to share its concerns about these developments:
[W]e have been concerned that the Council's changed financial situation, and its focus on generating more commercial income, might lead it into making decisions inconsistent with its long-term interests, or with those of the UK. For instance, it might feel compelled to abandon schemes and programmes that produced no direct financial return but generated more intangible benefits - not least a very positive image of the UK (House of Commons, 2013a, 45).
The additional income that the British Council earns through its English and Exams businesses allows it more freedom and flexibility to allocate the surplus generated to grow other cultural relations activities in the arts, education, and society. The potential cost of this additional income, noted by the Triennial Review, has been a negative tinge to the Council’s reputation. The Review acknowledged that the Council “needs to continue to earn substantial

40
income through paid services” but must do so in a way that “mitigates damaging stakeholder perceptions that the British Council is primarily motivated by income generation to the detriment of its broader cultural diplomacy role” (FCO, 2014a, 4). This statement in the Review stands in contrast to a later assertion that, “Promotion of the English language remains the cornerstone of the British Council’s international offer and identity” (FCO, 2014a, 19). Reconciliation of these two positions reflects broader challenges the British Council faces in responding to the Government’s policies and recommendations whilst maintaining the independence, whether operational or editorial, it needs to be a cultural relations body.
The Government’s cuts to the grant-in-aid increase HMG’s ability to affect, and indirectly control, British Council management decisions and have reduced the claimed ‘operational independence’ of the organisation. The combination of the introduction of the Government’s “One HMG” agenda and reduced grant-in-aid, which supports the organisation’s ‘platform costs’ including estates, have led several Council offices to co-locate onto FCO premises, including in the Consulate-General in Istanbul (House of Commons, 2013b, 27). The Council acknowledged the option of moving into diplomatic office in its efforts to reach a savings target of spending less than 15% of total expenditure (FCO, 2014a, 15), raising the question of whether co-location reduces the British Council’s real or perceived independence from the Government among its external stakeholders and target audiences. The British Council also has the challenge of reconciling the Government’s concern with the organisation’s reputation in relation to earning income with the Government’s original concern that it ramp up its commercial operations to compensate for lost grant. Unfortunately for the Council, its reputation would probably suffer more if it increased its commercial ‘surplus margin’ to raise additional income without additional activity. The introduction of ODA quotas in the grant-in-aid has forced the British Council to rethink its geographical and programmatic priorities – choices it may not have made itself. Cuts to European operations and the possibility of closing physical offices may send a conflicting signal to European societies and governments, as such measures come at a time when the UK’s relationship within the European Union is a subject of some political controversy and debate. All of these financial

41
measures raise significant questions about whether the Government allows the British Council to have meaningful control of operational decision-making and about the associated impact on the organisation’s programming and its model of cultural relations.

42
Chapter 5
Concluding Thoughts
Conclusion
Returning to the metaphors mentioned earlier, the arm between the British Council and the British Government has shortened and the tourniquet has tightened. The three trends identified in the opening of this paper – changing definitions of cultural diplomacy, different levels of administrative and financial accountability, and cuts to grant-in-aid – and the changes that have accompanied them provide some compelling evidence. HMG’s changing definition and consideration of public and cultural diplomacy, its desire for greater oversight and accountability of NDPBs to demonstrate value for money, and its decision to cut and define the organisation’s grant-in-aid have cumulatively brought the Government and the British Council closer together. The British Government has been clear, particularly in the Triennial Review, about its desire to exercise greater oversight of the British Council and further align the organisation’s work with Government priorities to ensure that it explicitly serves national interests. In doing so, the Government erodes and undermines the British Council’s operational, editorial, and political independence. This situation raises the question of, using the theoretical framework outlined at the beginning of the paper, whether cultural relations or cultural diplomacy is more appropriate to describe the British Council and its work.
In 1995, J.M. Lee took similar consideration of the label that should be used to describe the British Council’s work and he came up with the following conclusion:
The distinction that used to be made between cultural relations and cultural diplomacy was often used to distance the Council from the Foreign Office. It used to be claimed that the Council pursued long-term objectives of cultural relations, not the short term of cultural diplomacy. The story of the Council's reorganisation casts doubt on the value of continuing to make this distinction (Lee, 1995, 340).
The story of the British Council’s history over the last five years demonstrates that the currency of the term ‘cultural relations’ has diminished in relation to the British Council’s work. Applying earlier definitions of cultural diplomacy to the British Council, even though some of the organisation’s employees have quasi-diplomatic status, Council staff are generally not diplomats. However, it has become increasingly clear that the British Council is being asked

43
to use the medium of culture to both serve its national government and explicitly advance national interests. While the British Council is a large, complex organisation in which pockets of cultural relations activity could still go on, it has lost, or is in the process of losing, many of the core elements which make it a cultural relations body. The British Government clearly considers the British Council to be an important institution for the UK’s relations with the rest of the world, but it has taken steps that threaten to devalue the organisation.
These developments pose significant dangers to the British Council and its stated commitment to cultural relations. As an actor with many of the hallmarks of a cultural diplomacy body heavily influenced by the Government, the Council runs the risk of losing its reputation as a credible and impartial actor, damaging its valuable brand of trust which has been carefully cultivated over eighty years. This trust and credibility sit at the core of the British Council’s long-term relationships with other peoples and countries around the world. The British Council, as it has before, has adapted to the parameters set for it by the Government in this new environment, but what does the future hold for it?
I think the great success of the British Council, and this is genuine, is its ability to bend to the wind and survive. It is a great survivor organisation. If you think what we were like 80 years ago when we started to what we are now, what we were 30 years ago when I started and where we are now, it is a very very very different organisation. So I have every confidence that in 10-20 years' time, it will be a different organisation. I don't know what it will look like, but it'll still be here and it will still be doing the same sort of work (Slaven, 2014).
The British Council may still be doing similar work to what it does today, but it will only be able to continue to engage in independent, mutually beneficial cultural relations between the United Kingdom and the rest of the world if the British Government recognises and values the role it plays in differentiating between cultural relations and cultural diplomacy.
This paper contributes to scholarly and practitioner understanding of public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, and cultural relations by offering a preliminary alternative framework for differentiating and defining the three practices, emphasising the important role of government in how states exercise, engage, and manage their soft power. Existing conceptual structures are insufficient to differentiate the wide range of activity that falls within these practices, unable

44
to detect and explain changes in these policies and practices, and in the view of James Pamment, focused too much on the promotional mindset.
Even the notion that cultural relations is a ‘component’ of public diplomacy can be seen as the dominance of politicised, short-term advocacy thinking over the very nature of public diplomacy. This debate is not well represented in PD theory and raises significant issues for understanding the practical consequences of the new PD (Pamment, 2012, 46).
This paper has sought to balance out this debate through a focus on differentiation of practice using the case study of the British Council. Instead of using ‘diplomacy’ to include activity, communication, and relationships between non-state actors in international relations, this paper suggests that it could be a useful term to differentiate between governmental and non- governmental efforts in the broader sphere of soft power. Public diplomacy should refer to those governmental communications and activities that explain and advocate foreign policy and which are political in nature. Cultural diplomacy takes a similar approach of promotion and advocacy, but applies it instead to cultural content for the specific purpose of supporting foreign policy objectives and the national interest. Cultural relations take place outside the sway of government and, if done properly, should build mutual trust and understanding between the individuals with whom it engages, and generates amity and influence in the process. How do these outcomes not support and serve the national interest? Does supporting the national interest have to correlate with alignment with Government? Could the national interest actually best be served by Government stepping back from cultural relations? These are all questions ripe for additional consideration and thought.
Areas for Further Study
Many of the issues and questions raised in this paper offer a number of opportunities for further research. The scholarly field working in cultural diplomacy and cultural relations is relatively small, but given the increased interest of many governments in soft power and its associated practices, there is a great demand for quality research on some of the theoretical and practical questions raised in this paper. For example, further study should be devoted to theorising the soft power practices outlined in this paper – public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, and cultural relations. Some authors have developed different definitions and

45
frameworks for these practices, asserting that cultural diplomacy and cultural relations are just one subset of practices under a broader umbrella of public diplomacy. There are also the practices themselves, and the policies that influence them, to consider for further study.
The British Council is not the only organisation in the world working at the intersection of cultural relations and cultural diplomacy. Its analogue organisations each have their own particular relationship with their governments. So what mechanisms should scholars look for to measure or gauge the organisation’s independence from government? Answers to such questions allow scholars, stakeholders, and target audiences alike to better determine to what extent an organisation is engaging in cultural relations or cultural diplomacy. The answers may never be as clear as one might desire, but this paper argues that a great deal can be learned by trying to answer them. For example, it is not clear just how much independence from government an organisation needs to do cultural relations versus cultural diplomacy. To a certain extent, the practices and structures of these organisations sit along a continuum between the two concepts. However, the perspective that matters most in distinguishing the two practices is that of the target audiences taking part in any programming, as it is their views which are most important to the organisations or governments running or supporting the programme.
Accordingly, it is outside the scope of this paper to speculate on the potential effect of the changing relationship between the British Council and British Government on the former’s target audiences and stakeholders. Do these audiences and stakeholders notice the Council’s commercial success and increased focus on earning more income? As noted earlier, the Triennial Review suggested that they have noticed and are concerned. Do they perceive a change in the Council’s approach to its work that suggests greater alignment with HMG, greater concern for benefit to the UK, and less concern for mutuality? Do they think the British Council is working more on behalf of British interests, however defined? How much do they care? The answers to these questions will allow for a more complete assessment of the effect of some of the developments and decisions which have been highlighted in this paper. But

46
the penultimate question just posed raises a broader issue for international relations concerning cultural relations and cultural diplomacy.
On several occasions, this paper has noted the Government’s request that the British Council further align with UK interests. But the question of what those particular interests are and who determines them has not been clearly answered. In response to a question on where the British Council looks to determine UK interests for the organisation, a member of staff referred to business plans and corporate documents issued by Government departments setting out their policy priorities and strategies (Subject 1, 2014). This situation raises a key question for bodies working in cultural diplomacy and cultural relations: who sets or determines the national interest? Based on the definitions of both practices offered in this paper, it would make sense that a cultural diplomacy organisation would find those interests most clearly and appropriately articulated by Government. But debate on what is in the national interest forms the basis for politics – the national interest is a contested subject. Therefore, a cultural relations body might contest the Government’s idea of what is in the national interest, and such contestation would only be made possible by the fact of the organisations independence, both operational and editorial, from Government. But in the case of the British Council discussed in this paper, the extent of that independence is not quite so cut-and-dry.

47
Declaration
This dissertation is the sole work of the author, and has not been accepted in any previous application for a degree; all quotations and sources of information have been acknowledged.
I confirm that my research [x] did or did not [ ] require ethical approval.
If your research did require approval, please copy and paste the text of the email granting you approval below. Be sure to include your REC reference number.
I confirm that all research records (e.g. interview data and consent records) will be held securely for the required period of time and then destroyed in accordance with College guidelines. (The department will assume responsibility for this if you send your research records to the Senior Programme Officer Panagiotis Stasinopoulos.) [x] Yes For KCL guidance on research data management, please see: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/using/info- management/rdm/res-guide.aspx
Signed ________________________ Date _11 August 2014_____
Dear Timothy, Please find attached the outcome letter to your recent low risk research ethics application: KCL/13/14-288 - A Recent History of Cultural Relations in the UK: Changes at the British Council , reviewed by the WSG REP. Any specific conditions of approval laid out in the attached letter should be verified by your supervisor before data collection commences. Kind Regards, Annah Annah Whyton Research Support Assistant KCL | Rm 5.2 Franklin-Wilkins Building | Waterloo Bridge Wing | London SE1 9NH

48
Appendix A – List of Interview Subjects
Subject
Name
Title
1
Anonymous
Anonymous
2
Gordon Slaven
Head of Education Services, British Council
3
Anonymous
Member of British Council Corporate Affairs Team
4
Paul Fairclough
GREAT Programme Manager, British Council
5
Anonymous
Senior Management Team, Education & Society, British Council
6
Ben O’Loughlin
Professor of International Relations, Royal Holloway

49
Appendix B – British Council Financial Data from British Council Annual Reports and Corporate Plans
Financial Year FCO Total Grant-in-Aid Income from Services % ODA HMG
2004-05
£ 172,065,000
£ 192,279,000
Labour
2005-06
£ 189,210,000
£ 211,252,000
2006-07
£ 188,124,000
£ 231,808,000
2007-08
£ 189,462,000
£ 250,502,000
2008-09
£ 200,963,000
£ 313,228,000
2009-10
£ 200,763,000
£ 361,844,000
2010-11
£ 190,082,000
£ 387,116,000
Coalition
2011-12
£ 180,500,000
£ 432,135,000
2012-13
£ 171,500,000
£ 490,010,000
2013-14 £ 161,000,000 £ 674,000,000 59% 2014-15 £ 154,000,000 £ 796,000,000 65% 2015-16 £ 164,000,000 £ 837,000,000 69%
TBD
http://www.britishcouncil.org/organisation/how-we-work/reports-documents

50
Appendix C – List of Standard Interview Questions for British Council Staff
1) What is your name and your role at the British Council? How long have you worked for the organisation?
2) How do you define cultural relations?
3) The British Council describes its relationship with the Government as ‘arm’s length’. The term ‘operational independence’ is also frequently used. What do these terms mean in practice?
4) How has the Briitsh Council’s accountability to Government changed in the last several years? Do you believe it is an appropriate level of accountability?
5) In an article on the current Coalition Government’s reforms of NDPBs, several UK academics wrote the following: “From a situation where many bodies had assumed ‘orphan status’, the common criticism from the chairs and chief executives of public bodies is now that the Cabinet Office is too controlling to the point that micro-management risks undermining the arm’s length relationship” (Flinders et al., 2014, 74) Do you agree with this assessment?
6) How have the Government’s requirements that a greater percentage of grant-in-aid be spent on ODA-eligible countries and activities had an impact on the British Council’s structure, operations, and programming?

51
Bibliography
1. Arndt, R.T., 2005. The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century. Brassey’s US, Dulles, Va.
2. Berridge, G., 2010. Diplomacy: theory and practice, 4th ed. ed. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York.
3. British Council, 2006. British Council Annual Report 2005-2006 (Annual Report).
7. British Council, 2010a. Board of Trustees - 2010 - 3rd Meeting - Minutes.
8. British Council, 2010b. British Council Annual Report 2009-2010 (Annual Report).
9. British Council, 2011a. Board of Trustees - 2011 - 3rd Meeting - Minutes.
10. British Council, 2011b. British Council Corporate Plan 2011-2015 (Corporate Plan). British Council, London, UK.
11. British Council, 2011c. British Council Annual Report 2010-2011 (Annual Report).
12. British Council, 2012a. Trust Pays: How international cultural relationships build trust in the UK and underpin the success of the UK economy. British Council, London.
13. British Council, 2012b. British Council Annual Report 2011-2012 (Annual Report).
14. British Council, 2013a. British Council Annual Report 2012-2013 (Annual Report).
15. British Council, 2013b. FCO performance and finances 2011-2012: Responses from the British Council and the BBC to the Committee’s Fifth Report of Session 2012-13. House of Commons, London, UK.
16. British Council, 2014. British Council Corporate Plan 2014-2016 (Corporate Plan). British Council, London, UK.
17. Carrington, D., 2011. Artists condemn British Council’s decision to axe climate programme. The Guardian.
18. Carter, P., 2005. Lord Carter of Coles - Public Diplomacy Review.
19. De Stacy Harrison, P., Babbage, B., Chin, C.S., Fair, T.W., Merrill, C., Schnee, C., Smullen III, F.W., Webb Jr., C.H., 2005. Cultural Diplomacy: The Linchpin of Public Diplomacy. US Department of State, Washington, DC.
20. Donaldson, F.L., 1984. The British Council: the first fifty years. J. Cape, London.
21. Edelman, 2014. Trust in Government Plunges to Historic Low - 2014 Trust Barometer [WWW Document]. Edelman. URL http://www.edelman.com/news/trust-in- government-plunges-to-historic-low/ (accessed 8.19.14).
22. Fairclough, P., 2014.
23. FCO, 2014a. Triennial Review of the British Council. Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
24. FCO, 2014b. Government response to the House of Lords Select Committee on Soft Power and the UK’s influence. Report Session 2013-2014 (HL 150).
25. FCO/British Council, 2013a. Foreign and Commonwealth Office and British Council Management Statement.
26. FCO/British Council, 2013b. Foreign and Commonwealth Office and British Council Financial Memorandum.
27. Flinders, M., Dommett, K., Tonkiss, K., 2014. Bonfires and Barbecues: Coalition Governance and the Politics of Quango Reform. Contemp. Br. Hist. 28, 56–80. doi:10.1080/13619462.2014.882776
28. HM Treasury, 2010. Spending Review 2010. HM Treasury, London.

52
29. Holden, J., 2013. Influence and atraction culture and the race for soft power in the 21st century. British council, London.
30. House of Commons, 2006. Public Diplomacy - Third Report of Session 2005-2006. House of Commons, London, UK.
31. House of Commons, 2008. British Council: Achieving Impact - Fifty-Sixth report of 2007-08. TSO, London.
32. House of Commons, 2013a. FCO performance and finances -2012-2013 - Evidence from BBC and British Council - Sixth report of session 2013-2014. House of Commons, London, UK.
33. House of Commons, 2013b. FCO Performance and Finances 2011-12 - Fifth Report of Session 2012-13. House of Commons, London, UK.
34. House of Commons, 2014. FCO performance and finances 2012-13 - Sixth Report of Session 2013-14. House of Commons, London, UK.
35. House of Lords, 2014. Soft Power and the UK’s Influence - Evidence Volume 1 (A-G). House of Lords, London.
36. Lee, J.M., 1995. The Reorganisation of the British Council: Management Improvisation and Policy Uncertainty. Public Adm. 73, 339–355. doi:10.1111/j.1467- 9299.1995.tb00832.x
37. Lee, M., McMurry, R.E., 1947. The Cultural Approach: Another Way in International Relations. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC.
38. Melissen, J. (Ed.), 2005. The new public diplomacy: soft power in international relations, Studies in diplomacy and international relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [UK] ; New York.
39. National Audit Office, 2008. The British Council: achieving impact. Stationery Office, London.
40. Nye, J.S., 2004. Soft power: the means to success in world politics, 1st ed. ed. Public Affairs, New York.
41. O’Loughlin, B., 2014.
42. Oxford Dictionaries, 2014. culture: definition of culture in Oxford dictionary (British & World English) [WWW Document]. URL http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/culture (accessed 8.20.14).
43. Pahlavi, P., 2007. Evaluating Public Diplomacy Programmes. Hague J. Dipl. 2, 255– 281. doi:10.1163/187119007X240523
44. Pamment, J., 2012. New public diplomacy in the 21st century a comparative study of policy and practice. Routledge, New York.
45. Pamment, J., 2014a. “Putting the GREAT Back into Britain”: National Identity, Public- Private Collaboration & Transfers of Brand Equity in 2012’s Global Promotional Campaign. Br. J. Polit. Int. Relat. n/a–n/a. doi:10.1111/1467-856X.12039
46. Pamment, J., 2014b. Articulating influence: Toward a research agenda for interpreting the evaluation of soft power, public diplomacy and nation brands. Public Relat. Rev. 40, 50–59. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.11.019
47. Porter, A., 2010. Quango cuts: BBC World Service and British Council face anxious wait.
48. Roberts, I., Satow, E.M. (Eds.), 2011. Satow’s diplomatic practice, 6th ed. ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford ; New York.
49. Rose, M., Wadham-Smith, N., 2004. Mutuality, Trust, and Cultural Relations. British Council, London, UK.

53
50. Schneider, C., 2005. Culture Communicates: US Diplomacy That Works, in: Melissen, J. (Ed.), Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke [UK] ; New York, p. 221.
51. Seib, P., 2011. Considering Soft Power’s Future. Huffington Post.
52. Slaven, G., 2014.
53. Subject 1, 2014.
54. Subject 3, 2014.
55. Subject 5, 2014.
56. Taylor, R., 1988. Cultural Diplomacy - The Future, in: Biopolitics - The Bio- Environment. Presented at the Biopolitics: the Bio-Environment - Bios in the Next Millenium, Biopolitics International Organisation, Athens, Greece.
57. Wilton, C., Griffin, J., Fotheringham, A., 2002. Changing Perceptions: Review of Public Diplomacy. Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London, UK.

Tim Rivera Dissertation

More Related Content

What's hot (9)

Viewers also liked (16)

Similar to Tim Rivera Dissertation (19)

Recently uploaded (20)

Tim Rivera Dissertation