More than £100m has been pledged to six projects designed to improve the delivery of public services.
Ranging from an “e-pharmacy” initiative to a programme aimed at securing jobs for people with ill health and disabilities, the earmarked projects are part of the so-called transformation fund that was provided to the Northern Ireland Executive on its restoration in 2024.
Last year saw some £129m allocated from the UK government-backed fund for projects across healthcare, special educational needs, justice and infrastructure.
Secretary of State Hilary Benn described the latest list of allocations as a “significant milestone for Northern Ireland, and a clear signal of this government’s commitment to supporting the Executive to deliver better public services”.
“At the heart of this funding is a simple goal: making public services work better for the people who rely on them every day,” he said.
Stormont Finance Minister John O’Dowd said the projects would “not only deliver greater efficiency and long-term savings across government, but will also strengthen healthcare, support families, help our farmers and the agri-food sector, and lay the groundwork for bold, system-wide change in the years ahead”.
“The Executive is committed to changing how we deliver services to improve lives, strengthen communities, and achieve better outcomes, as set out in the programme for government,” the Sinn Féin minister said.
“At its heart, transformation is about working differently to make services more effective, resilient, and sustainable, especially in a time of constrained public finances.”
The largest allocation of £42m will deliver electronic prescription transfer and a new digital platform for community pharmacy clinical services.
The other allocations include £29.2 million for the Together for Families project, a partnership to establish a region-wide model to enable families to access the help they need, and the £16m Pathways to Work and Wellbeing proposal to support more people with ill-health and disabilities to enter and remain in employment.
A digital workplace programme to modernise records and information management across the civil service will receive £6m, while a data linkage office to share information across departments will get £5.3m
There will also £4m bovine tuberculosis research project.
The investments will be complemented by a further £30 million from the National Lottery Community Fund and £5.6 million from the Shared Island Fund.
Health Minister Mike Nesbitt said the e-pharmacy project would “genuinely transform patient experience”.
“This project and the new digital platform will help to make health and social care as safe as possible, accelerate primary care reform and help support our move towards a neighbourhood model of care for primary, community and social care,” he said.