O’Dowd announces £102.6 million for transformation projects

Date published: 26 May 2026

Announcing the funding, Minister O’Dowd said: “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.

“At its heart, transformation is about working differently to make services more effective, resilient, and sustainable, especially in a time of constrained public finances.

“Last year I announced £129 million from the Transformation Fund for six public sector projects across healthcare, special educational needs, justice and infrastructure. 

“I am now pleased to announce the second tranche of funding and a further £102.6 million for an additional six projects to support the continued transformation of our services. This is complemented by a further £30 million from the National Lottery Community Fund and £5.6 million from the Shared Island Fund.” 

The six proposals recommend by the Transformation Board and being funded are:

• £42m for the ePharmacy Primary Care Digital Reform Programme, delivering electronic prescription transfer and a new digital platform for community pharmacy clinical services, expanding access to care and bringing treatment closer to patients’ homes.
• £29.2m for the Together for Families project. A new partnership between the Department of Health, The National Lottery Community Fund and the Voluntary and Community sector which will establish a regionwide, tiered model of early help to ensure families can access the right help, at the right time and in the right place. The National Lottery Community Fund will contribute an additional £30m to the project - its first strategic investment of this kind in Northern Ireland.
• £16m for Department for Communities’ Pathways to Work and Wellbeing proposal. The Department for Communities has established a Commission on Work and Wellbeing as part of a wider initiative to support more people with ill health and disabilities to enter and remain in employment. Delivered in partnership with the Department of Health and Department for the Economy, the funding will help build stronger integration between employability and health services to support more people to find and sustain employment.
• £6m for the Department of Finance’s Digital Workplace programme to modernise records and information management across the Civil Service, to reduce duplication and manual handling, helping to support faster access to information and freeing up staff time for citizen-facing activity.
• £4m for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs’ Bovine Tuberculosis Research Project to deliver a first of its kind regionalised pilot, working with partners across Ireland to redesign the control of bovine tuberculosis. A Shared Island Fund investment of approximately £5.6m will also be used to support the Bovine Tuberculosis Research Project.
• £5.3m for Department of Finance’s NISRA Data Linkage Office to deliver two pathfinder projects to examine the capability to safely link data across departments in support of evidence-based policy making improving outcomes and better targeting of public services.

Concluding, Minister O’Dowd said: “The Transformation Fund is a key step in improving public services and delivering the reforms people need and deserve.

“This investment will 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.”