A new report finds the Stormont government is failing when it comes to improving people’s lives in Northern Ireland.
The research from the think tank Pivotal says policies fall because of a lack of leadership.
The report has interviews from former civil servants who contributed anonymously.
One said that ministers get distracted by day-to-day events and lose focus on long-term goals, describing the civil service role they had as working in an unstable political context, and having to be a political priest, diplomat and fire-fighter to ministers.
One of the Pivotal recommendations is that MLAs need to strengthen scrutiny and shift focus from party politics to public service.
