The Executive has published its long-awaited Programme for Government, some seven months after the restoration of Stormont institutions.
The 88-page document has been criticised for a lack of “clear targets” on how Stormont ministers will tackle crumbling public services, pressure on the health service and housing shortages.
But how does the Programme for Government stack up with other devolved administrations?
While the Scottish and and Welsh governments haven’t been subject to the same repeated breakdowns of institutions, many of the same issues plaguing Stormont have also been seen across the Irish Sea.
The Scottish government publishes an annual Programme for Government detailing the priorities for the coming year, with the 2024/2025 version published just last week. It runs to 47 pages and focuses on key themes of eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency and ensuring high quality and sustainable public services.
Meanwhile, the Welsh government last published its Programme for Government following the 2021 Senedd election, with annual reports published measuring performance against its objectives. The Welsh document is a significantly more straightforward, running to 15 pages with a bullet point led strategy focusing on healthcare, economy and climate issues.
Here’s a look at how Stormont’s PfG compares to its Scottish and Welsh equivalents in two key areas - health and housing.
Health
Taking in the highest percentage of Stormont’s budget, Northern Ireland’s health and social car services have been in a dire state for years, with waiting lists longer than in other devolved administrations.
While the Stormont plan says it will invest an additional £76million to cut waiting lists, it provides little detail on exactly how that money will be spent, and even in the same paragraph admits: “it will not be possible to reduce our lengthy waiting times within the funding currently available.”
By comparison, the Scottish PfG released last week contains a series of specific plans on how it will tackle waiting lists, including:
- Targets to free up 210,000 unnecessary outpatient appointments
- Delivering around 20,000 extra orthopaedic, ophthalmology and general surgery procedures annually in new National Treatment Centres
- Driving improvements in productivity through the delivery of a Theatre Scheduling System, which in pilot sites has improved efficiency by up to 20%
- Improving timely access to cancer services by opening a further Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Service, bringing the national total to six
While the Welsh strategy doesn’t provide the same level of detail, it does include promises to build a new medical school, providing treatment which has been delayed due to the pandemic and delivering better access to medical professionals.
Housing
The Stormont plan admits that the Executive “has not been able to deliver on its ambition of 2,500 new social homes a year”, but provides no real substance on how many of these it will build.
Rather than setting out a detailed plan, the Stormont document suggests, after seven months of government, that it will produce a housing strategy at some stage in the future.
“We will deliver a Northern Ireland Housing Supply Strategy to provide a long-term framework for the policies and actions required to increase the supply of homes across all tenures and reduce housing stress,” the document says.
The Welsh Programme for Government clearly states: “We will build 20,000 new low carbon social homes for rent.”
It also promises to establish a national construction company which will support local councils and social landlords to increase housing supply, amid a raft of other housing measures,
The Scottish PfG refers to its clear target of building 110,000 homes by 2032, and says that it has hit more than 21,000 of that target between March 2022 and March 2024.
