 | | | Thursday, 9 November, 2000, 11:43 GMT Dome report at a glance
The Dome has spent �628m of National Lottery money
The main points of the National Audit Office report into the Millennium Dome.Millennium Dome visitor number targets were "ambitious and inherently risky". There was a failure to put in sufficiently robust financial management. The New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) proved unable "to track and quantify fully the contractual commitments it has entered into". The NMEC "experienced difficulty in establishing the full extent of its liabilities". Visitor numbers target "involved significant risk". The NMEC did not have sufficient experience in running a large visitor attraction. The Dome's marketing strategy had too little money devoted to it and was based on word of mouth reports; free media exposure and was "very high risk". Opening the Dome on time was a major achievement. The company estimates that each time the Dome received "bad press", sales inquiries dropped by 30% to 50% in the following week. NMEC found it had not "sufficiently explained" the Dome's content to the public. The complex organisational structure between ministers, the Millennium Commission and NMEC created a situation where "all the parties are not always in agreement as to where in practice the burden of influence and authority has lain". The first signs of budgetary pressure had emerged in November 1998 - 14 months before the Dome opened. NMEC may have been insolvent since February 2000. | | Internet links:
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