Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre Executive Agency (Hansard, 16 July 1996)

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers)

The agency's principal target for 1996–97 is to achieve a net operating surplus, excluding rent, of £493,000, after trading costs, and non-cash and notional costs, or of £1.03 million gross operating surplus.

The agency's other main targets are:

(a) to achieve total revenue of £6.297 million;
(b) to increase the proportion of events with more than 200 delegates to 26 per cent.;
(c) to increase the proportion of target revenue achieved six months in advance to 50 per cent.;
(d) to achieve at least four out of the following five quality of service targets:

an overall score for quality of service in client questionnaires of at least 77 per cent.; 99 per cent. of clients completing the client questionnaire to report that they would use the centre again;
the number of complaints received to be fewer than five per hundred events;
to achieve an average response time in dealing with complaints of less than 10 working days;
and to achieve at least one major industry award.

These targets reflect the agency's successful bid in the recent market test of the management of the conference centre, whose outcome was announced in another place on Thursday 13th February 1996 [Official Report, Volume 271, Column 483].