The world-famous British Council, which receives £126.5 million ($154.8 million) of annual United Kingdom aid funding for development and anti-disinformation work overseas, is in danger of going bust, its boss is warning.
The institution — which spends almost £1 billion a year on charitable activities — is in “real financial peril” because it must start paying back a £197 million emergency government loan from the start of the new financial year in April, Chief Executive Scott McDonald told a parliamentary inquiry.
McDonald described the loan — provided to ensure survival through the COVID-19 pandemic – as impossible to repay “in the near term,” warning the Council is faced with pulling out of up to 40 of the 200 countries in which it works, having already left 18 countries, including Afghanistan and South Sudan, in its urgent search for savings.