The British Council is an educational and cultural organisation to support British culture, but a big part of this organisation is now going to be based abroad,' spokesman Dave Cliff said.

The union is reportedly considering lodging a complaint before a tribunal.

The union claims that British Council staff are civil servants but British Council chief executive Martin Davidson said they were public servants.

Davidson told the Times, 'Our spending power overseas has been hit by the fall in the value of sterling in the last year. To ensure that we continue to spend as much of the money we receive from the taxpayer as possible on our programmes abroad, we are cutting our running costs by creating leaner, lighter and more effective administrative and back-office functions.'

The paper said final decisions about which jobs will go to India will be taken in the next few weeks, but they are expected to include 58 finance posts, up to 40 IT posts and 15 posts for a new centre of excellence.