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Information Administration Department, Foreign Office/Commonwealth Office, S.W.1.
PX 6/2/30
30 January, 1969.
12
A
Dear Head of Mission,
Overseas Information Expenditure
I am grateful for the comments sent to me in answer to my letter IA.6/2/63 of 29 August last about reductions in Overseas Information Expenditure next year, and also for the reports sent to us on the reviews of Information and British Council activities carried out in accordance with my letter IA. 10/32 of 1 April last. These comments, together with those contained in the Annual Information Policy Reports, were taken into account in the preparation of the Estimates for 1969/70 which have now been approved. The purpose of this letter is to describe the main changes to be made in Overseas Information Expenditure next year (paras.2-7), and the prospects for the following three years (para.8).
1969/70 Estimates
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2. As reported in para.3 of my letter of 29 August, Ministers decided last August to make a cut of £14m. in the forecast (at early 1968 prices) of overall Overseas Information Expenditure in 1969/70. On the other hand we have been able to persuade the Treasury that £1.8m. should be added for risen costs", in accordance with Sir Harold Beeley's recommendation. that the Overseas Information expenditure limit should be adjusted upwards annually to include the additional costs, caused by rising prices, of carrying on the existing level of activity. In money terms the Estimates of recurrent expenditure for 1969/70 will therefore total about £27.3m. as compared with £26.5m. in the present financial year (both figures exclude the Ministry of Overseas Development's share of British Council expenditure, which totals about £4.5m.) In real terms this represents a cut of nearly £lm. in recurrent expenditure. Nearly £300,000 of this has come from reductions in Information staffs and operational expenditure at our missions, £400,000 from C.0.I., £100,000 net from the BBC External Services and £70,000 net from the British Council. A saving of £130,000 from the closure of the Francistown broadcasting relay was partly offset by the need for additional expenditure to operate the Masirah Relay which is expected to come on to the air about the beginning of April.
3.
In addition we had originally planned to spend about £3.7m. in 1969/70 of the £13m. Ministers agreed in December 1967 we could spend on capital projects over a four year period but this figure has now been reduced to £2.9m. This sum provides £1.4m. to be spent on Osaka Expo 70 and £400,000 for a start on the modernisation of the BBC Far Eastern relay at Tebrau for which Malaysian agreement has at last been obtained. The main reduction has come from the British Council's provision for grants for the construction of hostels for Overseas Students (OSWEP) and through postponement of a start on their Delhi H.Q. and from a rephasing of expenditure on Tebrau.
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