British Council to offer outsourcing advice to public-sector bodies

The British Council is set to advise other government-funded bodies on how to cut costs and successfully outsource jobs to India.

The Council relocated both its finance and IT departments to Delhi last year, and now says it is open to the idea of sharing its experience and offering advice to the rest of the public sector.

This comes after the government's Comprehensive Spending Review, in which severe cuts were outlined for the public sector.

"Over the past two years the British Council has made itself significantly more efficient," said Martin Davidson, the chief executive of the British Council.

"We have maintained our international cultural and educational work for the UK at a time when our purchasing power overseas has been hit hard by the fall in the value of the pound and increased costs overseas," he added.

"Our drive to reduce costs is also partly in preparation for reduced grant funding, currently a third of our income, following the spending review.

"The first stages of this move have been a great success, and consequently the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development have shown an interest in our experiences. We are open to more informal sharing of these and, where it makes financial sense, to working closely with other parts of the public sector [to develop their strategy]."