Conclusion 15

Since the agreement of the FCDO’s initial £60 million loan to the British Council in July 2020, the relationship between the organisations has changed. The FCDO is now not only the British Council’s departmental sponsor, overseeing how it spends its grant-in-aid money, but is also a lender with commercial responsibilities.35 In its role as a lender, the FCDO commissioned four external reviews of the proposed turnaround plan, which were carried out over the eight months from September 2025 to April 2026. The reviews covered areas such as options for restructuring the British Council’s loan, cashflow and revenue projections and cost a total of £600,000, of which £540,000 was paid by the British Council.36 The FCDO told us that it will be more embedded within the British Council’s financial governance from now on, at the invitation of the British Council’s Chief Executive,37 and that the grant-in-aid relationship is still at the heart of how the FCDO and British Council work together.38 35 Q 4 36 C&AG’s Report, Figure 12 37 Q 58 38 Q 4 13 2 Delivering the British Council’s financial recovery Lessons from the failure of the 2020 business plan