There are good things going on at the V&A but not enough people know about them

Sir John Bourn, NAO

The National Audit Office (NAO), a government spending watchdog, said most people "have no idea" what is inside the museum.

The fall in visitor figures by 200,000 last year makes the V&A Britain's most expensive museum in terms of government subsidy - as the taxpayer pays �25 for each visitor.

NAO head Sir John Bourn said: "There are good things going on at the V&A but not enough people know about them."

Libeskind's proposed extension to the V&A

But the report found that though visitors described the museum and its three branch museums, the Theatre Museum, Museum of Childhood and Wellington Museum, as "dusty", 99% were satisfied by their visit.

The museum, which once advertised itself as "an ace cafe with a museum attached", has responded by saying it can redeem itself.

Blockbuster

The V&A management has pledged to rebrand the museum, which is the national museum of art and design.

It expects visitor numbers to pick up due to a �31m redevelopment of the British Galleries, due for completion later this year, and a controversial �80m extension by architect Daniel Libeskind to be in place by 2005.

A V&A spokesperson said that visitor numbers had risen since the period covered by the report and are forecast to rise by 9% in 2000-2001.

Part of the drop in attendance in 1999-2000 was due to the decision to mount a specialist interest exhibition on Sikh art rather than a crowd-drawing "blockbuster", said the spokesman.

That display attracted only 119,000 people, but was one of the V&A's most successful initiatives in broadening the range of its visitors, with 63% of those attending from the Sikh community, 73% making their first trip to the museum and 41% on their first trip to any museum.