Taxpayers face a £50,000 bill to give British Council a new typeface

The British Council claims the unique text style created by consultants will help establish its 'identity'.

But last night critics said the 'British Council Sans' font was an absurd waste of money when dozens of others are available for free.

The British Council - which was founded in 1934 and receives £200million a year from the Government - is headed by the former Labour leader Lord Kinnock.

It has already been accused of squandering £85,000 on a new logo which consists of four blue dots on a white background and is supposed to symbolise the four countries of the UK.

The TaxPayers' Alliance pressure group, which used Freedom of Information laws to uncover the cost of the new font, called it a 'total waste of money'.

Spokesman Matthew Elliott said: 'It's bad enough that quangos like the British Council spend so much of our hard-earned taxes, but they certainly shouldn't be frittering them away on things like this.

'This money could have spent on essential services, but instead it has been thrown away.'

The council, however, expressed delight with the results. Tony Bains, its head of design, insisted: 'Commissioning our own font was the best investment we could have made in our identity.'

A British Council spokesman said: 'A detailed report published by the National Audit Office today into whether the British Council uses its resources economically and efficiently concluded that the British Council's performance is strong and we are valued by our customers and stakeholders.

'The decision to commission a bespoke font saved the British Council over £500,000.

'Without a bespoke font, every user and every supplier in the 110 countries we operate in worldwide would have had to buy legal versions of the Century Schoolbook and Univers fonts previously used.'

The British Council was established to promote the nation's culture, education, science and technology abroad.

It has offices in 220 cities in 110 countries and one of its main areas of focus is education.

It offers English language teaching and encourages foreign students to come and study in the UK.