The long awaited report by the National Audit Office into the dome has revealed that it was bankrupt before it opened. The report puts further pressure on dome minister Lord Falconer.

The report concluded that visitor targets of 12 million were "ambitious and inherently risky". Auditors said the figure was a "broad brush estimate, and was not based on any clear vision on the dome's content".

It heavily criticised ministers and the management of the Greenwich attraction for "weakness in financial controls". It said that the New Millennium Experience Company, which had been set up to run the dome, was unable to track an quantify the contracts that it had entered into.

The report says: "The task of managing the project has been complicated by the complex organisational arrangements put in place from the outset, and by the failure to put in sufficiently robust financial management."

The report adds that the company lacked sufficient operational expertise and that the marketing strategy had carried a very high risk and was "based on the dome selling itself by word of mouth". The report says that, as a consequence, the marketing budget was set too low.

There is some praise - the report states that "Opening the dome on time was a major achievement. The dome has attracted a very large number of paying visitors: by July their number had beaten the record for 1999 (2.69 million) for a UK pay-to-visit attraction. A recent survey showed that 87 per cent of visitors were satisfied with the services provided by the dome's hosts."

The culture and media secretary Chris Smith gave his reaction to the report, conceding that experts with knowledge of running major attractions should have been employed.

"I welcome the report by the National Audit Office into the millennium dome and the lessons it highlights for the future," he said. "The Millennium Experience was a unique project. The report highlights the key issues that affected the dome's performance. It also recognises its achievements. The Government takes Public Accounts Committee hearings very seriously and awaits their views on the NAO report with interest."