Recommendation 5

The commitment to funding under the New Decade New Approach agreement was instrumental in: re-establishing the Executive in 2020; the allocation of funding for health workers’ pay and public services and securing the Executive’s finances on a sustainable footing. The extent to which NDNA has turbocharged infrastructure investment is, however, unclear. We ask the Government to set out how much 32 Investment inNorthern Ireland Barnett-based and other NDNA funding has been allocated for infrastructure investment since 2020. We note the Government’s general six-monthly updates on progress against NDNA objectives. However, we recommend that to increase transparency the Government publish periodic, detailed financial updates, breaking down how it has allocated NDNA funding so far, and how it plans to allocate the funding that remains, against NDNA objectives, including for example against the objective of using that funding to achieve 5,000 cybersecurity professionals by 2030.