The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

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British Council restructure halted

31.01.08 Alison Flood

The controversial restructuring at the British Council has been suspended until further notice. The restructure was to see the literature team, along with specialist teams in dance, drama and music, disbanded to fit a new "project-based" multi-disciplinary arts strategy. Around 10 specialist literature staff, including director Susie Nicklin, were asked to apply for new roles.

The British Council has now said that, starting in February, it will start a two-month period of consultation about its international arts strategy and how it should respond to the "changing contexts" in which it works. It will consult arts organisations, regional development agencies, cultural bodies, and practitioners "to ensure that the British Council provides the best international platform for the UK's arts and creative industries to promote their work and themselves to audiences worldwide", it said in a statement.

At the end of the consultation period, it will announce the new shape of its arts strategy, with any changes to the internal structure of the arts teams to be made at that time.

The organisation said: "For more than seventy years, the British Council has been a champion of UK creative ideas and achievements. As the UK's international cultural relations body, the arts and creativity will remain firmly at the heart of our work in building mutually beneficial relationships between people based on trust, respect and understanding."

The British Council's literature team works with partners in 70 countries to promote British authors overseas and share best practice on reader development, literary festivals and publishing. It is running the cultural programme for the Arab world at this year's London Book Fair, as well as the International Young Publishing Entrepreneur Award. Its 350 projects include teenage reading schemes in -Russia, oral poetry in Africa and creative writing in Bangladesh.

People Alison Flood British Council