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4.
We have kept an unallocated reserve of about £m. under the revised expenditure limit to provide for rising costs during the course of the year and other unforeseen contingencies.
The Official Information Services
5. The reduction in recurrent expenditure on our own information staff and operations mentioned above has come about mainly as a result of inspections during the last year and the reorganisation of the Information Departments in the Office. It has been argued by some (e.g. in the recent report of the Sub-Committee on Television Overseas) that Information staffs abroad have been cut to a level where in some cases they are no longer adequate to make full use of the relatively expensive material provided by COI. With this in mind we have thought it right in general to look for any further economies that might be required elsewhere e.g., in the COI or BBC services, at least until we see what the Duncan Committee has to recommend. The main savings on the COI vote have come from the recasting of their TV services (£165,000), from a halving in the provision for exhibitions other than Osaka (£85,000), from cuts in radio services, from reductions in newspaper sales promotions and presentations, from visual publicity, and from widespread smaller staff reductions and other economies on other services. Details of the cuts in T.V., radio and visual publicity have been sent to information officers by Information Policy Department.
The BBC External Services
6. In the case of the BBC, gross savings are to be made of £400,000 in their forecast of capital expenditure in 1969/70 and of more than £200,000 in recurrent expenditure. The recurrent savings are the result of a radical reorganisation of their English Language Services, including a reduction of special English broadcasts for Africa, the ending of the Hebrew Service (the savings from which are being transferred to finance additional British Council activity directed to Israel), and economies spread over the whole field of External Services expenditure, including the Transcription and Monitoring Services, the central programme departments and transmitter operations. Against this there will be additional expenditure on the maintenance of broadcasts to Eastern Europe at the level to which it was increased following the invasion of Czechoslovakia and on certain other items. The whole pattern of broadcasting to Europe has been recast to make the best possible use of the three-fold increase in the power which is now being used for medium wave broadcasts from Crowborough, with increases in French and German as well as in the Eastern European languages. In consequence the total of hours broadcast by the External Services will in fact be greater than before despite the cut in real expenditure.
British Council
7.
In addition to the planned expansion of the British Council's operations in Indonesia, Southern France, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Somalia referred to in para.4 of Bob Cursons's letter of 8 February 1968, and the expansion in Israel referred to above, we have this year only been able to finance two additional posts in Iran which it was agreed should have a very high priority. Action on the many other bids which we have received from Heads of Missions for increases in
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