British Council to help other public bodies outsource to India

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

The council successfully moved its finance and IT departments to Delhi last year, creating 180 jobs there, and now wants to take its experience to the rest of the public sector which is facing severe cuts under government austerity measures.

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

"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 our learning and, where it makes financial sense, to working closely with other parts of the public sector over the coming years."