The report detailed how the Executive is overperforming in terms of tackling health waiting lists
The Executive are making "tangible progress" in delivering the Programme for Government despite a funding deficit, the First and deputy First Ministers have claimed. The original 2024-2027 PfG set out a sweeping, ambitious vision across nine key priorities, promising a new era of "opportunity and hope.
" Today’s Annual Report reveals the hard data on what has actually been achieved in one year, including smashed targets in childcare, massive reductions in the worst hospital waiting lists, and a £102.6m injection into a new tranche of public sector transformation projects announced by theThe original PfG promised to provide a 15 per cent childcare subsidy to 13,500 eligible children as an immediate stopgap. Today’s report reveals they doubled that target, reaching 27,238 children across 20,206 families .
The report estimates this intervention saved local families a combined £26 million. Furthermore, a £55m overall investment in early years provision enabled 105 settings to transition to full-time pre-school education, creating 2,500 new full-time places.also overperformed on affordable housing. The original goal was to deliver 847 shared ownership homes this year; the annual report confirms they delivered 940 Co-Ownership intermediate homes.
Health remains the region's most pressing crisis, with the PfG previously acknowledging Northern Ireland has the longest hospital waiting times in the UK. To combat this, the Executive set an initial baseline target to invest £135m a year to treat an additional 70,000 patients. The figures in today's report reveal a massive overperformance against that metric, with the £135m injection actually delivering over 237,000 additional outpatient, diagnostic, and inpatient procedures.
While a completely separate £76m funding stream targeted 250,000 time-critical and cancer appointments, the broader investment's impact on the region's longest-suffering patients has been dramatic. The report boasts a 100 per cent reduction in waits of more than four years for a colonoscopy.
Meanwhile, four-year waits for tonsillectomies plummeted by 94 per cent, primary hip replacements by 92 per cent, and knee replacements by 90 per cent. Despite the early wins, the sheer scale of Northern Ireland's structural challenges means progress in several areas remains a slow burn. Magee campus to 10,000 students is moving steadily but slowly.
The Executive has invested £27m, resulting in a 21 per cent rise in applications, but the current student population sits at 6,505,Similarly, the overarching goal for social housing is to build 5,850 new homes by 2027. This year, work started on 1,765 homes, meaning the pace will need to be maintained or accelerated to hit the final target.
On the environmental front, the Executive has delivered 20 of 37 actions in theAs the Executive enters the final year of its mandate, it faces a profound fiscal cliff edge. The report details how Ministers are currently locked in negotiations with the UK Treasury to secure a full Fiscal Framework.
The Executive is demanding borrowing powers to revitalise theAsked about the lack of agreement on a proposed three-year budget, Ms O’Neill said the budget settlement from the UK Government is “not good enough. ”“Whenever we’re compared in terms of relative need starting point with Scotland and Wales, we’re underfunded, so we’re asking for what is right, people here pay their taxes and they’re entitled to have good public services.
”“Agreeing a budget doesn’t deal with the fact there would be a billion pounds missing in terms of our core public services,” she said.
“There is no way within this financial year that we can either cut or revenue raise to make up that £1 billion gap. “We believe that type of revenue raising or cuts to public services would have a hugely detrimental impact on the citizens of Northern Ireland.
The SDLP Leader of the Opposition, Matthew O'Toole, said that the report is evidence that Sinn Féin and thehave "given up even pretending to govern together," stating that it highlighted both the lack of delivery and the inability of the First Ministers and their parties to keep up the pretence of governing together. Matthew O’Toole said that the vast majority of the efforts under the so-called nine key priorities include generalised descriptions of intention and effort rather than specific actions, let alone improved outcomes.
’s finance committee, said the refusal of the Executive to set a Budget could jeopardise progress on the small number of areas where there has been delivery, as well as fundamentally damaging virtually every other area of Government.
“The First and deputy First Minister may be happy to engage in photo opportunities today to keep up the pretence of governing this place together, but the reality is quite different and that’s borne out in today’s Programme for Government progress report. Sinn Féin and the DUP are constantly at each other’s throats, turning the work of government into a game of one-upmanship to serve their own party political ends," he said.
“The attempt by Executive Ministers to claim credit for the bare minimum is in complete contrast to what’s actually being delivered. When it comes to our health service, building new homes, agreeing a Budget, major infrastructure projects and cleaning up Lough Neagh, to name just a few examples, the Executive are falling well short of their own meagre targets.
Northern Ireland Executive Stormont Michelle O'neill Emma Little-Pengelly Department Of Health Department For Communities Housing DAERA Lough Neagh Ulster University SDLP
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