British Council
The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language ; encouraging cultural, scientific, technological and educational cooperation with the United Kingdom. The organisation has been called a soft power extension of UK foreign policy, as well as a tool for propaganda.
The British Council is governed by a royal charter. It is also a public corporation and an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Its headquarters are in Stratford, London. Its chair is Paul Thompson and its chief executive is Scott McDonald.
History
1930s-40s
In 1934, the British Foreign Office officials created the "British Committee for Relations with Other Countries" to support English education abroad, promote British culture and fight the rise of the extreme ideologies of communism and fascism. The name quickly became the British Council for Relations with Other Countries. In 1936, the organisation's name was officially shortened to the British Council.The British Council opened its first four offices in Bucharest, Cairo, Lisbon and Warsaw in 1938. The offices in Portugal are currently the oldest in continuous operation in the world. In 1940, King George VI granted the British Council a Royal Charter for promoting "a wider knowledge of and the English language abroad and developing closer cultural relations between and other countries".
The British Council undertook a promotion of British culture overseas in 1942. The music section of the project was a recording of significant recent compositions by British composers: E. J. Moeran's Symphony in G minor was the first work to be recorded under this initiative, followed by recordings of Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, Bliss's Piano Concerto, Bax's Third Symphony, and Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius.
File:British Council 02.jpg|thumb|British Council building in Madrid, Spain|alt=In August 1944, after the liberation of Paris, Austin Gill was sent by the British Council to reestablish the Paris office, which soon had tours by the Old Vic company, Julian Huxley and T. S. Eliot.
In 1946, the British Council collected handicraft products from crafts that were being practised in the British countryside for an "Exhibition of Rural Handicrafts from Great Britain" that travelled to Australia and New Zealand. The majority of the collection was sold to the Museum of English Rural Life in 1960 and 1961.
In 1948, the British Council sponsored a tour by the Old Vic Theatre Company to Australia and New Zealand. The cast was led by Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, performing a repertoire of three plays: Richard III, The School for Scandal, and Skin of Our Teeth. In Australia, the company gave 179 performances and were seen by over 300,000 people. The tour made a profit of about £40,000.
21st century
The Russian Foreign Ministry ordered the British Council to close its offices outside Moscow in 2007. The Ministry alleged that it had violated Russian tax regulations, a move that British officials claimed was retaliation over the British expulsion of Russian diplomats allegedly involved with the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. This caused the British Council to cease carrying out all English-language examinations in Russia in January 2008. In early 2009, a Russian arbitration court ruled that the majority of the tax claims, valued at $6.6 million, were unjustified.In June 2025, Russia designated the British Council as an “undesirable organisation,” resulting in the suspension of its remaining activities in the country, and limiting access for Russian students and educators to English-language examinations, academic resources, and cultural exchange programmes. Following the designation, Russia’s Federal Security Service stated that it had identified and 'warned' university teaching staff in four regions who had cooperated with the British Council. The decision restricts Russian citizens’ access to IELTS certification, which is a common requirement for emigration, study, and employment in numerous countries. Russia also cited the British Council’s alleged support for the 'LGBT movement', which had been officially banned in Russia under legislation designating it as 'extremist'.
Attacks
In 1984, Kenneth Whitty, Deputy Director of the British Council in Athens, was murdered by militants from the Abu Nidal Organisation.On 19 August 2011 a group of armed men attacked the British Council office in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, killing at least 12 people – none of them British – and temporarily took over the compound. All the attackers were killed in counter-attacks by forces guarding the compound. The British Council office was relocated to the British Embassy compound, as the British Council compound was destroyed in the suicide attack.
In 2013, the British Council in Tripoli, Libya was targeted by a car bomb on the morning of 23 April. Diplomatic sources were reported as saying that "the bombers were foiled as they were preparing to park a rigged vehicle in front of the compound gate". The attempted attack was simultaneous with the attack on the French Embassy in Tripoli on the same day that injured two French security guards, one severely, and wounded several residents in neighbouring houses. A jihadist group calling itself the Mujahedeen Brigade was suspected, possibly linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
On 28 August 2025, the British Council building in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv was damaged in a Russian missile strike, with one security guard injured. The Russian Ambassador to the UK, Andrey Kelin, was summoned to the Foreign Office by Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
Organisation
The British Council is a charity governed by royal charter. It is also a public corporation and an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Its headquarters are in Stratford, London. Its chair is Paul Thompson, and its CEO is Scott McDonald.The British Council's total income in 2014–2015 was £973 million principally made up of £154.9 million grant-in-aid received from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; £637 million income from fees and teaching and examinations services; and £164 million from contracts.
The British Council works in more than 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the UK and the English language; encouraging cultural, scientific, technological and educational understanding and cooperation; changing people's lives through access to UK education, skills, qualifications, culture and society; and attracting people who matter to the future of the UK and engaging them with the UK's culture, educational opportunities and its diverse, modern, open society.
In 2014–2015, the British Council spent: £489 million developing a wider knowledge of the English language; £238 million encouraging educational cooperation and promoting the advancement of education; £155 million building capacity for social change; £80 million encouraging cultural, scientific and technological cooperation; and £10 million on governance, tax and trading expenses.
During the COVID-19 pandemic the British Council took a £200 million rolling emergency loan from the government at commercial interest rates, requiring annual renewal. In 2025, this loan was seen as risk to the financial stability of the council.
Notable activities
English and examinations
The British Council offers face-to-face teaching in more than 80 teaching centres in more than 50 countries.Three million candidates took UK examinations with the British Council in more than 850 towns and cities in 2014–2015.
The British Council jointly runs the global IELTS English-language standardised test with Cambridge University Press and Assessment and IDP Education Australia. Over 2.5 million IELTS tests were delivered in 2014–2015.