As an Executive, we are determined to protect the availability and quality of frontline public services in the face of cuts to our budget. We will do this by working together to increase productivity in all areas of our public services in the coming years. By identifying better and more efficient ways of working we aim to deliver services to citizens at a lower cost than today. This means identifying and removing waste and embracing new ways of working and sharing.

Very often, the configuration and condition of our public infrastructure contributes to costs being higher than they could be. The location, size and design of our public buildings are the result of investment decisions taken many years, or decades ago. A lot has changed since.

Our population has increased and a greater proportion is now older. Our towns and cities have grown and people's needs and expectations about service entitlement and service standards have changed. New technology, for example, is opening up faster and better ways of delivering services, often at a lower cost per transaction. More energy efficient solutions are now available, delivering both cost and emission reductions and with the potential to increase our use of renewable energy sources rather than the traditional fossil fuels.

With less money to go around, we will invest in better and more efficient ways to deliver essential public services rather than simply cut the availability or quality of those services in order to save money.

The Investment Strategy will provide a focus for this work.

We are ensuring that comprehensive and up-to-date information on the entire public sector estate is available to those best placed to identify waste and take action. In future, for example, information on vacant space in one area of government will be available to all departments and this will reduce the chance that unnecessary contracts for new space are entered into. Value can then be created from surplus and underutilised assets. We will also be able to benchmark property performance across the public sector in order to identify opportunities for improvement.

Better data can now help us to make well-informed investment decisions. Strategic estates planning models capable of simulating the impact on accessibility, cost, quality and performance of a wide range of investment alternatives will be developed for all major service areas. Work is already underway. These models will be used to help ensure that individual capital schemes improve overall productivity. This work will help departments to reduce the amount spent on external consultants.

Where it makes sense, there will be more focus on joining-up and co-locating services that are delivered by different public bodies. This is good for service users and reflects our determination to put the needs of citizens at the heart of the Investment Strategy. By putting complementary services 'under the one roof in the community, we aim to make it easier and more convenient for people to access essential public services. It will also help us to protect frontline services from the cuts imposed on our budget. By spreading the fixed costs of delivery between a number of services, we can reinvest the savings.

Citizens in North Belfast can now access primary healthcare, library, advice centre and swimming pool/leisure facilities all under the one roof. The Grove Health & Wellbeing Centre replaces a number of older facilities on different sites. More projects like this one will be delivered under the Investment Strategy as the Executive encourages better co-ordination of investment plans across government departments, local authorities and other providers.

For all our public services, driving up productivity and improving service quality in the years ahead will require a careful balance to be struck on where and how services are delivered across the region. Some services are increasingly specialised and high cost and so work best only when centralised. Such services are most sustainable at a small number of places that serve the entire population. In other cases, modern technology and the internet will empower us to bring services right into the home - increasing accessibility and convenience and even expanding what it is possible to provide.

As an Executive, we do not seek simply to replicate historic patterns of provision in our future investment plans. Instead, we are determined that informed choices, based on the best evidence of what works, will deliver the right infrastructure to ensure our essential public services are financially and operationally sustainable into the future and deliver the quality of service people deserve.