Debate contribution: Public-sector Transformation Fund: Tranche 2

Debate contribution by Mr John O'Dowd on 26 May 2026.

MLA

Mr John O'Dowd

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

26 May 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Ministerial Statement

Heading

Public-sector Transformation Fund: Tranche 2

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5582373

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The Executive set out their vision for the delivery of public services in the Programme for Government (PFG). It is clear that transforming how we deliver our public services is central to meeting many of the challenges that the Executive face now and in the years ahead. 'Reform and Transformation of Public Services' is one of the nine key priorities in the Programme for Government. At its core, transformation is about changing how we work so that our services become more effective, more resilient and more sustainable. That is increasingly important, given the constrained public finances. That means designing services around citizens, not organisational structures; cutting duplication and unnecessary complexity; planning our workforce better so that skills are used where they add the most value; using data wisely in order to guide decisions and support early action; focusing on prevention, not just managing demand; and making sure that every pound that we spend delivers the greatest possible impact, achieving better outcomes and responding to the changing needs of the community. The transformation fund has a part to play in that. Last March, I announced £129 million for six transformation projects across healthcare, special educational needs, justice and infrastructure. While those projects are still in the relatively early stages of delivery, it is encouraging to note the progress that has been made. Almost 300,000 more people now have access to a wider range of supports in their GP practice. Some 114 student classroom assistants are availing themselves of new training, which is aimed at supporting children with additional needs in early years settings. Four thousand policing hours have been saved, and court time is already being freed up in order to focus on the most serious criminal cases. The first natural flood management scheme has already commenced, with the potential to reduce flooding, improve water quality and make our urban spaces greener. A digital maturity assessment of the Civil Service has been completed, and work is in train to appoint a chief digital officer. Those are just some of the early successes resulting from the fund. The 2026-27 year marks a critical expansion phase for the transformation fund and the projects that it is supporting. I am therefore pleased to announce today that, following a second call for proposals from Departments, £102·6 million of public funding from the transformation fund is being provided to a further six projects across the public sector to support the continued transformation of our public services. That £102·6 million represents the funding remaining from the original £235 million. These projects have significant potential to bring about visible and lasting improvements to the way in which front-line services are delivered, including to some of our most vulnerable people. They will embed prevention and early intervention to ensure that people can access the services that they need where and when they need them; address some of the most pressing public-sector challenges; and lay the foundations for system-wide reforms to improve the sustainability of services in the longer term. I am pleased that additional funding of £30 million from the National Lottery community fund and approximately £5·6 million from the Shared Island Fund has been leveraged to support those transformative projects. The six proposals for which I am announcing funding today reflect the board's recommendations. They have been agreed by the Executive, and I have secured the release of the funding from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The successful proposals and funding amounts are as follows. There will be £42 million for the Department of Health's ePharmacy primary care digital reform programme, which will deliver digitisation of the over 45 million prescription items issued each year, replacing paper prescriptions with a faster, safer, electronic system capable of being available 24/7, including in evenings, at weekends and on bank holidays. The investment will also enable over 500 community pharmacies across the region to provide more clinical services, improving access to care closer to home and reducing reliance on GP appointments. It will deliver reduced waiting and travel time for patients, with no need to collect paper prescriptions from GP practices or out-of-hours centres, improving convenience and patient experience, as well as reduced pressure on GPs, hospitals and emergency services, supporting the shift of care into the community and allowing clinicians to focus on more complex cases. It will also deliver £18 million cash releasing savings over 10 years, with £3·5 million recurring annually, alongside reduced paper use and travel, contributing to more sustainable health services. There will be £29·2 million, also for the Department of Health, for Together for Families. The investment will deliver earlier, easier help for families at scale, strengthening 29 family support hubs that offer region-wide coverage and adding new, targeted neighbourhood support so that families get timely help before problems escalate. It will also deliver reduced pressure on crisis services and £30 million investment from the National Lottery community fund for a transformative new partnership between the Department of Health, the fund and the voluntary and community sector. Better value for the public purse will be achieved by shifting spend left: investment will focus on prevention and reduce reliance on high-cost interventions at a later stage. There will also be measurable efficiency and savings potential, with a moderate estimate of around £34 million in savings over 10 years. There will be £16 million for the Department for Communities for its pathways to work and well-being proposal. Together with a contribution from DFC, the investment will deliver a redesigned health and work model delivered in partnership with the Department of Health and the Department for the Economy and offering stronger integration between employability and health services to support more people to find and sustain employment; support for 3,750 people to improve work and well-being outcomes, through working in partnership with local organisations; a commission on work and well-being, bringing together independent experts across health and employability, to set a forward approach to tackling health- and disability-related economic inactivity and shape long-term recommendations for scaling up interventions; a shift to early intervention and prevention, responding to individual needs as early as possible to prevent long-term economic detachment and higher-cost public-service interventions in the long term; and an estimated long-term financial benefit of £103 million, driven by reduced duplication, higher productivity and lower long-term demand on public services. There will be an allocation of £6 million to the Department of Finance for its digital workplace solution. The investment will deliver modernised records and information management across the Civil Service, replacing an ageing system that is used by 26,900 staff; recurring savings of £400,000 per year from 2029-2030, once legacy support and infrastructure costs are removed; reduced duplication and manual handling, supporting faster access to information and freeing staff time for citizen-facing activity; and the secure foundations required for the future use of AI-enabled tools in government, strengthening transparency and decision-making over the long term. There will be £5·3 million for the Department of Finance's NISRA data linkage office. The investment will deliver two data pathfinder projects to highlight the power of integrated data for policymaking across key PFG priorities; a stronger data-driven culture to provide better outcomes for citizens; and improved financial sustainability by delivering efficiency gains.

Finally, £4 million has been allocated to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for a bovine TB pilot for the transformation of disease control delivery. That investment will deliver a first-of-its-kind regionalised research pilot to redesign the control of bovine TB; a preventative, evidence-led approach to target a disease programme that is currently costing over £60 million per year; Shared Island funding of approximately £5·6 million, which equates to roughly €6·4 million; and direct savings of around £275,000 by 2028-29, with substantially larger savings expected as the model scales up. Long-term projections show that a sustained reduction in disease prevalence could deliver annual savings of up to £2·8 million, improving the financial sustainability of a programme that has cost around £750 million over the past 20 years. Members will know that I am ambitious about what I believe transformation can deliver. The transformation board is, too. In fact, reflecting the strength of applications received, the board has recommended supporting another five projects that it assessed as meeting the criteria for funding but which could not be funded from the £235 million funding envelope that is currently available. As Members will be aware, I have proposed in my draft Budget that additional funding be allocated by the Executive for transformation over the Budget period. Once the multi-year Budget has been agreed, it will therefore be my intention to seek Executive agreement that those proposals be supported, using the additional funding set aside for transformation in the Budget. I will update Members further at that point. I once again express my thanks to the public-sector transformation board for all its work throughout the process, and to Departments for their engagement with the programme. The board will continue to monitor the delivery of all funded projects. It is supported in that regard by the delivery unit, based in the Executive Office, which will work very closely with my officials. Dependent on the outcome of discussions about the draft Budget, I intend to engage further with the board on determining the best approach for commissioning future bids to enable wider reform and transformation. The transformation fund on its own will not deliver all the reforms required to our public services. It is essential that we look to embed successful approaches in mainstream delivery and that we share learning and good practice. The transformation board is providing an active challenge function, encouraging projects to be innovative and agile and to take managed risks and adopt new ways of doing business. That is critical, given that demand for services is outpacing the funding available. It is clear that the transformation fund can make, and is making, an important contribution. The projects being announced today will unlock additional funding, encourage cross-sectoral and cross-departmental collaboration, and maximise the impact of transformation funding in driving improvements in service delivery, promoting prevention and early intervention approaches, delivering cost savings and placing public services on a more sustainable footing. Today's announcement therefore represents another important milestone in the transformation journey.

Matthew O'Toole continues in his guise as the glass-half-empty guy in the Assembly. I have just announced hundreds of millions of pounds of investment in public services, following up on transformation and making real, tangible change to people's lives that they are witnessing on a daily basis. I remind him that almost 300,000 more people now have access to a wider range of supports in their GP practices; 4,000 policing hours have been saved; 114 student classroom assistants are availing themselves of new training; the first natural flood management scheme has commenced; and a digital maturity assessment of the Civil Service has been completed. Today's announcement will continue that programme of change across our Civil Service and public services. Citizens whom he and I represent will see a real change in how their public services are delivered. I will continue to engage with the British Government around the Budget to ensure that this place is fairly funded, and I hope that I have his support in that task.

I do not have in front of me sight of the letter to which the Member refers. The first tranche of projects has taken longer to get off the ground than was first hoped, but I have announced, as I reiterated to Mr O'Toole, where we have seen significant progress. There have been delays in some of the projects, particularly in Education with delivery of the new investment in SEN. I would like to see that increase significantly over time, as I am sure that everybody would, and I believe that it will as time moves forward. There has also been a delay in some of the Justice funding being delivered. I think that that is related to the ongoing industrial action from barristers and so on. I do not have the exact figures in front of me, but no money has been lost to this project. The Treasury has agreed to re-profile all that funding. As I said during my address, the board, the delivery unit in the Executive and individual responsible Ministers have to ensure, as they continue to monitor this, that spend is taking place at the speed that we want.

I commend that project. Not only is it being brought forward through this transformation fund but it has been able to secure Shared Island funding. Where we can lever in further funding from other organisations or other areas, that is vital. I have had engagement with the Minister on that matter. Clearly, it is an important project for animal welfare and for the welfare of farmers because diagnosis of TB in a herd can be quite detrimental to farming families. The cost of this over the past number of years has continued to rise, so we have to get a handle on it, and I think that this project will be a way forward.

I set out in my statement areas where there will be projected savings as part of the transformation. They are of higher scale in some areas than in others. Obviously, the importance of this is to save funds that can be redirected back into public services. The public seeing an improved public service, whether that improvement is in health, education, bovine TB or wherever it may be, is the important element of the transformation fund. It is about where we are improving public services and seeing the public get easier access to those public services and seeing real results for themselves.

It is an important development over a wide range of areas. It reduces bureaucracy in GP services and allows easier access for the public to the prescriptions that they need, with those being forwarded to their pharmacist. Obviously, it highlights again the importance of pharmacy in the primary care sector. It is a project of modernisation. In this day and age, GPs should not have to be signing a paper prescription that is then brought or sent to a pharmacist, and then dealt with etc. It is a great project, and I think that it will make a huge difference to GP services, to GPs, to those who use a GP and to those who use a pharmacist.

I do believe that it has achieved those aims. As I said to a previous questioner, there have been delays and maybe not as quick a pace as we would have liked to see in some projects at the start. That is now steadily uplifting and moving forward, however, and I read out the figures. Even with regard to GP services, almost 300,000 more people now have access to a wider range of supports in GP practices as a direct result of the transformation fund. We just talked about the next stage with pharmacies, so this is about real change happening in real time, and the general public seeing the difference.

The two projects that are on time within the first tranche are in the Department for Infrastructure, namely flood management and the recruitment of independent inspectors. I understand that advertisements have been out for that recruitment process, which may have already closed, and applications are being assessed. With regard to tranche 1, therefore, DFI is on time.

That is an innovative new partnership between statutory children's and social care services and the voluntary sector, providing enhanced, targeted and more easily accessed help for families before problems escalate. It will mean fewer children entering care and more returning to their families where it is safe to do so, improving outcomes for children and addressing rising and unsustainable demand. It will also deliver measurable efficiency savings. It seems somewhat crass to talk about efficiency savings when talking about such an important issue but around £34 million over 10 years can be directed back into the service. The details and minutiae of those matters are best discussed with individual sponsoring Ministers on how exactly that will work, how they will work in tandem with the community and voluntary sector, and how they can support each other in delivering better outcomes for children.

I have set aside around £100 million in the draft Budget for transformation. When we do have a final Budget, I would like to see money set aside for transformation. I have witnessed at first hand not only how that transformation pot has delivered outcomes for the public but how, when the Civil Service is given a bit of space and some money to be innovative and to allow it to plan and to do things differently, it presents projects such as those that have been successful. Therefore, let us give our Civil Service and public servants the space and money to transform, and then we see the changes on the ground.

My Department's project is about enabling the Civil Service and the wider public sector to move forward in an informed way on digitalisation, the use of AI and so on. We have to learn from elsewhere and ensure that, at its heart, the project is people-focused and based on the needs of the community — the public whom we serve — and staff and that there is a human focus at all times. AI can and will be transformative for our public services, but we cannot and should not replace the emotion and connection that only humans can bring to the equation.

I cannot provide a time frame for that today. Ongoing engagement will be required between the Department and the hubs, the community and voluntary sector and all the others involved. We want to see the funds make a difference on the ground as quickly as possible. As I said, the delivery unit in TEO, the board, and, indeed, Ministers will monitor the progress of individual projects in the time ahead.

The pathways to work and well-being proposal has been allocated about £16 million, plus there is to be a contribution from DFC. It will be an innovative health and work model to support 3,750 people to find sustainable employment. It will be piloted in two council areas on a cross-departmental basis and in partnership with a range of local organisations. A commission on work and well-being will be established to shape long-term plans to scale up interventions. That work will be carried out over time with DFC and, as I said, with local organisations, which, in many instances, I suspect, will be from the community and voluntary sector. As the Member pointed out, the sector has significant experience in the area. It is up to the sponsor Departments to finalise how the project will proceed.

That is a matter for the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs. It will be for him to decide the best way forward for bovine TB control.

I understand the detail required by the question, but the detail of the administration of the projects is best placed with the Health Minister, the Communities Minister or the project manager of each project.

The investment will be made over a number of years. The principle for all the transformation projects is that they are funded through transformation funding but the Departments will adopt them and bring them into their funding baseline. That is the objective. It is about long-term change, not four or five years of change. It is about Departments doing things differently by embedding the projects by using the seed funding and then making that the way that they do things in the future.

The transformation board and the delivery unit in the Executive Office will continue to monitor the delivery of the projects. The relevant Minister also has a responsibility, and I have no doubt that the relevant Committees will play their part.

3,309 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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