CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper | 10^th Decem­ber 2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: CEO REPORT AND CON­VENER UPDATE

Pre­pared by: GRANT MOIR, CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Pur­pose

1. To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Con­ser­va­tion

1. Cairngorms Nature: Cur­rent Nature Recov­ery Fund pro­jects total­ing £196,000 of invest­ment are on track for deliv­ery this fin­an­cial year. In light of Scot­tish Government’s recent announce­ment for a fur­ther £55 mil­lion Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund over the next 5 years, CNPA is work­ing closely with Cairngorms Nature part­ners to identi­fy and devel­op pro­jects for future rounds of fund­ing. These will be based on the pri­or­it­ies and actions in the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan.

2. Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject: Com­munit­ies of interest and place are at vari­ous stages of devel­op­ing and deliv­er­ing their own Caper­cail­lie action plans. These include a stra­tegic plan for moun­tain bik­ing in Badenoch and Strath­spey, an action plan for busi­nesses, an online sur­vey for Deeside res­id­ents and vis­it­ors and a report on the find­ings from vis­it­or research in Glen­more and Abernethy.

3. The Genet­ic diversity research report will be pub­lished in May 2022. The cur­rent focus for com­mu­nic­a­tions is on ensur­ing the scope of the pro­ject is clearly com­mu­nic­ated in the con­text of wider work for Caper­cail­lie. The NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee sub group report is expec­ted early 2022.

4. Wood­land Cre­ation: Pre­vi­ously repor­ted pro­pos­als for wood­land expan­sion at Muck­rach, Kin­rara, Glen Tromie and Mar Lodge con­tin­ue to be worked up and/​or pro­gressed. We have been con­sul­ted about a nat­ive wood­land cre­ation pro­pos­al at Ralia, which is still at an early stage. We have also been informed that there is interest in nat­ive wood­land cre­ation on the Ben Alder estate.

5. Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion: The pro­gress of Peat­land Action was repor­ted in detail to the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee in Octo­ber. The pro­gramme is on course to deliv­er slightly more than the tar­geted 557ha of peat­land res­tor­a­tion man­age­ment for 2021 sub­ject to weath­er and con­tract­or con­straints. Con­tract­or capa­city remains the biggest risk to tar­gets but is being tackled by a new entrant scheme and the devel­op­ment of a con­tract­or frame­work agreement.

6. Moor­land Man­age­ment: Nature Scot are tak­ing for­ward plans to devel­op a licens­ing sys­tem for grouse moor man­age­ment and for muir­burn. They are tak­ing a hol­ist­ic approach to licens­ing and are devel­op­ing new licences in the con­text of cli­mate change and biod­iversity crises. A pro­gramme board has been set up to over­see devel­op­ment and CNPA are rep­res­en­ted on that board.

7. Deer Man­age­ment: Work­ing with South Deeside and North Angus DMG, South Grampi­an DMG and West Grampi­an DMG to com­plete the devel­op­ment phase of Stra­tegic Land Man­age­ment Plans by March 2023 fol­low­ing pro­ced­ures set down by NLHF. NatureScot plan a heli­copter count across East Grampi­an area (SDNA DMG, SGDMG) some­time between Jan-March 2022.

Vis­it­or Experience

1. Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access For­um: met on 10 Novem­ber. The key agenda items dis­cussed were; NPPP4 con­sulta­tion, RSPB Aber­nethy Vis­it­or Man­age­ment Plan, Nature Scot­land time lim­ited water­borne access restric­tions at Loch Kinord, and Net­work Rail clos­ure of the ​‘ped­es­tri­an cross­ing’ at Dal­whinne. NatureScot will return to CLOAF in Feb to agree sum­mer 2022 access cri­ter­ia at Loch Kinord. CLOAF are con­tact­ing Net­work Rail to reit­er­ate the need for a safe cross­ing to be found quickly & offer sup­port in agree­ing the most effect­ive and safe cross­ing. CLOAF were also updated on the work across CNP man­aging for visitors.

2. Tread Lightly in the Park: After more than a dec­ade of CNPA using ​‘Tread Lightly’ to encour­age respons­ible out­door access it is pleas­ing to see it being used nation­ally by Vis­it Scot­land; Step for­ward and tread lightly. Scot­land is Call­ing. — You­Tube. A new mobile phone app has been developed to share the com­munity path inform­a­tion, and leaf­lets are being redesigned for Kin­gussie, Aviemore, Grant­own and Brae­mar, with a brand new leaf­let for Kin­craig. These will be prin­ted & ready for spring 2022.

3. Long Dis­tance Routes: Work con­tin­ues on upgrad­ing sec­tions of the Spey­side Way between Kin­craig and Kin­gussie that were not part of the ​‘new build’. Design for realign­ment in Anagach Woods, Grant­own-on-Spey, and Kin­craig, are being sub­mit­ted for Improv­ing Pub­lic Access fund­ing. Moray Coun­cil is cur­rently man­aging an upgrade to the Spey­side Way from Car­ron to Crag­gan­more to make it more suit­able for cyc­lists, walk­ers and horse riders. A six mile upgrade from Craigel­lach­ie to Car­ron was com­pleted in the autumn of 2019. Form­al open­ing of the exten­sion is in Cairngorms is sched­uled for March 2022. Plan­ning con­sent for a poten­tial exten­sion to Deeside Way (Inver­cauld to Brae­mar) has been exten­ded until Septem­ber 2022 and CNPA are in dis­cus­sion with part­ners over fund­ing to start con­struc­tion in spring 2022. Sus­trans are at the start of review­ing the nation­al cycle net­work look­ing at pos­sible improve­ments to NCN7 and NCN195 (Deeside Way) in Cairngorms. Trans­port Scot­land have set out the pre­ferred route for the Non-Motor­ized User path (NMU) from Aviemore to Car­rbridge. Dul­nain Bridge Com­munity Devel­op­ment Trust has sub­mit­ted an applic­a­tion to Sus­trans to fund a NMU route along­side A95 from Grant­own to Dul­nain Bridge that links with the new dis­til­lery and has their support.

4. Volun­teer­ing and Health Walks: Just over half the volun­teer rangers are now reg­u­larly involved, giv­ing over 1000 hours this year. In addi­tion to con­tinu­ing to sup­port part­ner and CNPA Rangers they have begun tri­al­ling the patrol of com­munity routes includ­ing on the Spey­side Way between Boat of Garten and Aviemore. We have sup­por­ted over 20 oppor­tun­it­ies for mem­bers of the pub­lic to volun­teer with ourselves or part­ners and have seen sig­ni­fic­antly high­er rates of sign-up com­pared to pre-pan­dem­ic, reflec­ted in the grow­ing Volun­teer Cairngorms mail­ing list of almost 800 sub­scribers. Heath Walks con­tin­ue to sup­port 12 groups meet­ing weekly around the Nation­al Park fol­low­ing COV­ID safe pro­to­cols. Elev­en indi­vidu­als (inc four rangers) recently par­ti­cip­ated in Walk Lead­er train­ing. Wee Walks Week in Octo­ber pro­moted short, loc­al walks and the bene­fits of walk­ing for phys­ic­al and men­tal health with social medi­an engage­ment reach­ing 80,153 accounts and with the Ranger videos were the most pop­u­lar form of con­tent from the week.

5. Edu­ca­tion and Learn­ing and Inclu­sion: The Cairngorms Youth Action Team con­tin­ue to be involved in a num­ber of online events. A con­sult­ant has been engaged to work with CYAT to devel­op and deliv­er a youth led grant scheme in part­ner­ship with Cairngorms Trust, fund­ing has come through the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. This pro­ject will run from Novem­ber 2021 to March 2022. John Muir Award activ­ity is slowly begin­ning to return to pre Cov­id levels but still con­sid­er­ably lower than pre­vi­ous years. Juni­or Ranger taster events are being organ­ised for over the winter months to begin to re-estab­lish the pro­gramme. The sec­ond­ary schools have been con­tac­ted with a view to get­ting involved in the pro­gramme in the sum­mer of 2022. Some 113 people enjoyed the activ­it­ies laid on by Cairngorms Ranger Ser­vices and oth­er part­ners at the Out­door Fest­iv­al for All at Glen­more on 30^th Octo­ber. Par­ti­cipants were new Scots recently arrived to Aber­deen and Dun­dee. The event was part of the ongo­ing ​‘Our Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Pro­ject’ run by Back­bone fun­ded by CNPA and NatureScot.

Rur­al Development

1. Plan­ning Guid­ance: The con­sulta­tion peri­od on plan­ning guid­ance cov­er­ing Design and Place­mak­ing, Developer Oblig­a­tions and Hous­ing closed on 19 Novem­ber. There were rel­at­ively few form­al responses to the con­sulta­tions but a num­ber of dis­cus­sions with part­ners, indi­vidu­als and through the Developers For­um. The responses are now being ana­lysed and a staff expect to bring a form­al report on changes to the guid­ance on Design and Place­mak­ing and Developer Oblig­a­tions to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in Janu­ary 2022. The Hous­ing sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance will require more sub­stan­tial change and we expect to have an inform­al dis­cus­sion with the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee on poten­tial changes in January.

2. Plan­ning Case­work: The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved a range of small scale devel­op­ments in Septem­ber and Novem­ber, includ­ing afford­able hous­ing in Boat of Garten and Kin­gussie. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee will be asked to determ­ine applic­a­tions for improved vis­it­or facil­it­ies at the High­land Wild­life Park, rur­al busi­ness units near Brae­mar and small-scale vis­it­or accom­mod­a­tion in Glen Tromie.

3. Com­munity-led Hous­ing Deliv­ery: CNPA gave present­a­tion at the Hous­ing Sum­mit hos­ted by Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship in Aviemore on 22 Nov, atten­ded by Kate For­bes MSP and Shona Robison MSP (Cab Sec. for Social Justice, Hous­ing and Loc­al Gov­ern­ment). Recent busi­ness sur­vey has shown that 68% of busi­nesses indic­ated that a lack of afford­able hous­ing inhib­ited their abil­ity to recruit; 39% indic­ated it was hav­ing a major impact; over half of the busi­nesses (59%) expec­ted the issues to worsen if no action was taken. There are cur­rently 180 vacan­cies in Badenoch and Strath­spey lis­ted on rel­ev­ant web­site and around 50 of these will not be filled due to a short­age of suit­able homes. Plans are being developed for estab­lish­ment of a trust to encour­age busi­ness col­lab­or­a­tion on deliv­ery of hous­ing for loc­al work­ers. The Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust (CHT) have been com­mis­sioned to devel­op a site agnost­ic devel­op­ment pro­pos­al that deliv­ers c.80 homes that range from tran­si­ent work­er accom­mod­a­tion through to homes to rent and self-build plots where the tar­get rate for homes that are held for loc­al people in per­petu­ity is 80%.

4. Eco­nom­ic Action Plan: The Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group met in Novem­ber to dis­cuss the NP Part­ner­ship Plan and devel­op­ment staff from Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land led excel­lent dis­cus­sion on skills and train­ing chal­lenges and the oppor­tun­it­ies from the Plan. This has led to devel­op­ment­al work on tour­ism hos­pit­al­ity train­ing and coordin­a­tion the work under­taken by loc­al author­it­ies across the Park on skills issues. New pro­ject officer from Coun­tryside Learn­ing Scot­land, Bry­ony Dowson, is now in post and devel­op­ing links between schools and estates. Work being under­taken by Grow­biz on devel­op­ing a rur­ally focused approach to enter­prise sup­port has been exten­ded. Rur­al Devel­op­ment Officer Tania Alli­od con­tin­ues to work with the High­land Good Food Part­ner­ship and devel­op eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies across the Park.

5. Tour­ism Action Plan: The Cairngorms Response Group has con­tin­ued to meet around monthly and full meet­ing of Tour­ism Part­ner­ship is planned in Janu­ary. As part of COP26, CNPA and the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship became sig­nat­or­ies and launch part­ners of the Glas­gow Declar­a­tion on Cli­mate Action in Tour­ism and par­ti­cip­ated in and our role as sus­tain­able des­tin­a­tion was high­lighted through par­ti­cip­a­tion in inter­na­tion­al pan­el on ​“Cata­lys­ing a Dec­ade of Cli­mate Action in Glob­al Travel and Tour­ism”. New mar­ket research has been com­mis­sioned with CBP which will be built into devel­op­ment of the next Tour­ism Action Plan.

6. Tour­ism and Busi­ness Data: CNPA com­mis­sion annu­al ana­lys­is of vis­it­or num­bers and the eco­nom­ic value of tour­ism to the Cairngorms through a STEAM report. We now have data avail­able for 2020 which shows a 73% drop in vis­it­or num­bers when com­pared with 2019 fig­ures, though we con­sider that the meth­od­o­logy used has under-estim­ated the num­ber of post-lock­down vis­it­ors to key coun­tryside loc­a­tions, so will treat the data with a degree of cau­tion. More pos­it­ively, Q3 of the Cairngorms Busi­ness Baro­met­er has recently been pub­lished show­ing busi­ness con­fid­ence rebound­ing to high­er levels than the long term aver­age. Accom­mod­a­tion occu­pancy levels were also high­er than the long-term aver­age, though con­cerns remain around staff avail­ab­il­ity and sup­pli­er costs.

7. Badenoch Great Place Pro­ject: The part­ner­ship Pro­ject has now form­ally fin­ished with very pos­it­ive final eval­u­ation report and com­ments by major fund­ing part­ner Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund. A paper with les­sons learnt been dis­cussed with CNPA Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee. Leg­acy Plan is in place and Leg­acy Board is meet­ing in early Decem­ber. As part of that work, Vis­itScot­land recently pro­moted excel­lent piece on the area in Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Magazine: https://​www​.nation​al​geo​graph​ic​.com/​t​r​a​v​e​l​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​p​a​i​d​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​-​s​c​o​t​l​a​n​d​s​-​s​t​o​r​y​l​a​n​d​s​-​e​x​p​l​o​r​e​-​t​h​e​-​l​i​v​i​n​g​-​l​a​n​d​s​c​a​p​e​s​-​o​f​-​b​a​d​enoch

Stake­hold­er Engagement

1. COP26: CNPA staff were present for a vari­ety of events across the two weeks. Park staff engaged with hun­dreds of del­eg­ates as part of an Envir­on­ment and Eco­nom­ies Lead­ers’ Group stand, which was loc­ated right out­side the main plen­ary rooms (where the main dis­cus­sions were tak­ing place). The Chief Exec­ut­ive was invited to deliv­er a speech on the impacts of cli­mate change on snow levels in the Park at the Cryo­sphere Pavil­ion, and also took part in a pan­el event with oth­er UK Nation­al Parks, show­cas­ing our Net Zero with Nature work with Pal­la­di­um. The Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment par­ti­cip­ated in a Vis­itScot­land event about Cli­mate Change and Tour­ism, and Janet Hunter atten­ded their ​‘Des­tin­a­tion Net Zero’ event in her role as Chair of the Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship. CNPA signed up to the Glas­gow Declar­a­tion (an off­shoot of the Tour­ism Declares ini­ti­at­ive) as part of these activities.

2. Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan: The form­al phase of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan con­sulta­tion launched on Thursday 23 Septem­ber, with the draft plan made avail­able via a ded­ic­ated Com­mon­place web­site, long-format pdf, print and screen read­er-friendly ver­sions. At the time of writ­ing, nearly 800 responses had been received through the Com­mon­place plat­form alone.

3. The plan has been pro­moted extens­ively both on and off­line over the past few months, with ded­ic­ated press releases and videos cre­ated, includ­ing a part­ner­ship with the Press and Journ­al and Inverness Cour­i­er, and paid advert­ising in the Deeside and Don­side Piper, Strath­spey Her­ald and the Dun­dee Cour­i­er. This was accom­pan­ied by a paid social media advert­ising cam­paign, tar­get­ing a range of audi­ences includ­ing loc­al res­id­ents, work­ers and vis­it­ors to the Park.

4. A toolkit with resources for e‑newsletters, social media and print pub­lic­a­tions was cir­cu­lated to hun­dreds of part­ner organ­isa­tions, posters and fly­ers were dis­trib­uted to com­munit­ies and busi­nesses across the Park, and a leaf­let was sent to every house­hold in the area, explain­ing how people could get involved. Face to face ses­sions have been delivered with spe­cif­ic com­munity groups, schools, farm­ers and oth­er land man­agers, loc­al busi­nesses and so on, with a series of 1:1 inter­views tak­ing place with harder to reach audi­ences (includ­ing eth­nic minor­ity groups and audi­ences with access­ib­il­ity needs). These activ­it­ies will con­tin­ue until the con­sulta­tion closes on Fri­day 17 December.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions

1. Act­ive Cairngorms: Wee Walks Week took place from 25 – 31 Octo­ber to cel­eb­rate the best short walks in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, encour­aging as many people as pos­sible to get out there and enjoy a walk with fam­ily, friends and col­leagues. Along­side press and social media activ­ity, we also launched our new com­munity paths and trails online resource, which has seen over 100 short walks digit­ised and made avail­able to search online for free. The plan is to gath­er audi­ence feed­back on this resource and add addi­tion­al trails and routes to it over time.

2. Cairngorms Nature: In col­lab­or­a­tion with RZSS, RSPB and FLS, we pro­moted the news that 3,000 lar­vae of the crit­ic­ally endangered pine hov­er­fly were released in three care­fully chosen forests across the Park. The story was widely covered in out­lets ran­ging from the BBC to the P&J. We also marked the start of COP26 with two stor­ies on peat­land res­tor­a­tion in the Park – one intro­du­cing the brand new peat­land team, the second major­ing on our plans to unlock con­tract­or capa­city to deliv­er the scale of work required.

3. Cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions: Stake­hold­er engage­ment comms sur­round­ing the Park Plan have dom­in­ated our comms activ­ity over the past few months, with spe­cif­ics covered in sec­tion 22 above. In addi­tion to this, we show­cased US Sec­ret­ary of the Interi­or Deb Haaland’s vis­it to Muir of Din­net in Novem­ber, and high­lighted con­nec­tions between activ­ity at COP26 and work going on in the Park, includ­ing Her­it­age Hori­zons and NPPP4. Over the past 12 months we have also pro­duced 59 posts across three sep­ar­ate social media chan­nels cel­eb­rat­ing Gael­ic lan­guage and cul­ture, with a recent focus on shinty and water­bod­ies in the Park.

4. Web­site and social media: An audit of the Park’s web­site has been con­duc­ted by web access­ib­il­ity experts DAC over the past month or so, includ­ing dir­ect feed­back from users. We plan to work through the vari­ous actions iden­ti­fied in the report with our web developers over the com­ing months, and find­ings will influ­ence the devel­op­ment of a new CNP web­site over the next 12 – 18 months, too.

Organ­isa­tion­al Development

1. Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan­ning (BCP): Fol­low­ing extens­ive con­sulta­tion with man­age­ment and staff, and tak­ing into account the exper­i­ences, impacts and les­sons learnt over the past 18 months of home work­ing, we are mov­ing towards a tri­al ​“hybrid” work­ing approach, whereby staff may work 50% of their con­trac­tu­al hours from home and 50% from the office by agree­ment with line man­agers. Staff wish­ing to work more than 50% from home will have to apply form­ally. Aligned with this approach, the office has been recon­figured to facil­it­ate addi­tion­al meet­ing spaces, to sup­port more col­lab­or­at­ive work­ing. Staff will be able to book desks and meet­ing spaces from the end of Novem­ber. Fol­low­ing SG guid­ance, the office is still restric­ted by I metre dis­tan­cing, and as a res­ult we will not be able to form­ally com­mence the full trail hybrid approach until next year when these dis­tan­cing restric­tions are removed. In the mean­time, the office recon­fig­ur­a­tion does allow for increased staff num­bers to access the office. We are also now able to sup­port meet­ings of up to 12 people in the board room and SMT are meet­ing monthly on site (in addi­tion to weekly vir­tu­al meetings).

2. Staff­ing update: Since Septem­ber, staff­ing updates are as fol­lows: a) Staff who left the organ­isa­tion were:

   i. The following Seasonal Rangers completed their fixed term contracts in October: - Harris Brooker, Anthony Seivwright, Scott Hastings, Craig Fraser, Blair Johnston, Vicky Inglis, Gillian Gibson, Louise Emslie, Tom Cole
   

   b) Intern­al pro­mo­tions, fol­low­ing a com­pet­it­ive intern­al recruit­ment pro­cess were:

   i. Adam Streeter-Smith has been seconded to the Recreation and Access Manager for 2 years, to replace David Clyne who moved into the Head of Heritage Horizons post.
   ii. Scott Hastings who joined as one of our Kickstart Trainee Rangers was promoted to full-time Seasonal ranger, to replace Lianne Starbuck-Stephen who secured permanent employment elsewhere.
   iii. Amy Mackenzie was appointed to the permanent Finance Officer post, replacing Diane Buchan who retired.
   iv. Lynn Anderson was seconded to the fixed term Project Management Officer post to support the Heritage Horizons and other major projects lead by the CNPA
   v. Dot Harris was seconded to the fixed term Peatland GIS Officer post.
   vi. Liz Henderson was seconded to the fixed term Infrastructure Manager post.
   vii. Two Heritage Horizon posts have been appointed internally: - Mike Woolvin to the Research and Knowledge Exchange Officer post, and Tania Alliod to the Learning and Engagement post. Both are fixed term posts for 18 months. The remaining posts- are now being recruited externally. These are the Sustainable Transport Officers (x 2 fte), the Nature Based Solutions Officers (x 2 fte), and the Green Health Ranger (I fte)
   viii. Sarah Henshall was promoted to the permanent Head of Conservation post, which will commence at the end of her maternity leave in January.
   

   Recruit­ment is cur­rently live for posts that have become vacant as a res­ult of intern­al appointments.

   c) Extern­al appoint­ments, fol­low­ing a com­pet­it­ive extern­al recruit­ment pro­cess were as follows:

   i. James Lee was appointed to the fixed term ICT Technician post.
   ii. Louise Fenlon joined the Comms team as Communications Coordinator.
   iii. Fiona Holmes was appointed to the fixed RLUP (Regional Land Use Partnership) & Agricultural Officer post
   iv. Josie Slade was appointed to the fixed term Cairngorms Nature Engagement Officer post.
   

3. Youth Employ­ment: a) Internships:

   i. Bruce Macdonald completes his internship in December, supporting Gaelic work within the Communications team.
   ii. Vanessa Altweck, Admin Intern, is in the process of revamping the Equalities Mainstreaming report which will be presented to Board in March.
   

   b) Kick­Start posts: The 4 Kick­start posts were suc­cess­ful, with one of the train­ee rangers, Scott Hast­ings hav­ing been pro­moted to Sea­son­al Ranger. The remain­ing 3 came to the end of their con­trasts in Novem­ber, but all repor­ted that the exper­i­ence was life chan­ging for them. See full report in end of sea­son review.

4. Shared Ser­vices: Con­tin­ued work to provide HR and payroll sup­port to the Scot­tish Land Commission.

5. Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment: All staff have been invited to com­plete the Best Com­pan­ies Staff Engage­ment Sur­vey. Res­ults are expec­ted in late Decem­ber. Res­ults will inform the evolving Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy.

6. Cairngorms Equal­it­ies For­um: Con­tin­ues to meet monthly provid­ing essen­tial guid­ance and sup­port to all our equal­it­ies work. An Intern­ally focussed Equal­ity, Diversity and Inclu­sion Advocacy group, com­pris­ing staff across teams, grades and minor­ity groups, has been set up to enhance diversity and ensure that equal­it­ies is at the heart of all our intern­al policies and procedures.

7. LEADER/​Cairngorms Trust: Our focus for LEAD­ER has turned to effect­ive and com­pli­ant clos­ure of the cur­rent pro­gramme, which comes to an end on 31 Decem­ber with final expendit­ure needed to be made by mid-Decem­ber to be cer­tain of eli­gib­il­ity and defray­al of expendit­ure from bank accounts pri­or to 31 Decem­ber. An intern­al audit has been under­taken on our clos­ure pro­cesses and repor­ted through the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee, com­ment­ing on the well pre­pared sys­tems while high­light­ing a small num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions for improve­ment which will help ensure we close the pro­gramme as effect­ively as pos­sible. There may be resid­ual poten­tial of extern­al audit by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment as the Man­aging Author­ity for the nation­al pro­gramme and/​or the European Com­mis­sion as part of its over­all pro­gramme closure.

8. Look­ing for­ward, we are fully engaged with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and the UK Gov­ern­ment across a num­ber of policy devel­op­ment areas in con­sid­er­a­tion of the future shape of Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment fund­ing, with the main object­ive that alloc­a­tion meth­od­o­logy for loc­ally based com­munity devel­op­ment fund­ing con­tin­ues to recog­nise and make use of nation­al park bound­ar­ies in Scot­land. This remains a key driver around the cur­rent draft Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

9. Cairngorms Trust: Char­ity activ­it­ies and vol­un­tary giv­ing: The Cairngorms Trust has secured £50,000 from Scot­tish Government’s Test­ing Change funds which sup­port exist­ing Loc­al Action Groups in tri­al­ling a range of activ­it­ies which may help demon­strate the best way for­ward with future, domest­ic­ally fun­ded, com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment. The Trust is tak­ing for­ward a Youth Loc­al Action Group with the sup­port of the Cairngorms Youth Action Team, with a fund­ing alloc­a­tion for young people to make grant awards for youth led pro­jects. The Trust are also using some of the funds to make grant awards with­in a ​“Green Change Fund” which builds on the green recov­ery grants pre­vi­ously awar­ded in part­ner­ship with the Authority.

10. The Trust con­tin­ues to have a focus on the devel­op­ment of vol­un­tary giv­ing. Trust­ees are plan­ning an enhanced approach to this over 2022 with­in their busi­ness plans for the char­ity over the year ahead.

Grant Moir Novem­ber 2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper | 10^th Decem­ber 2021

Board Con­vener Report – For Information

Extern­al Engage­ments (1^st Septem­ber 2021 – 30^th Novem­ber 2021)

In addi­tion to sched­uled Board meet­ings and intern­al meet­ings, I have atten­ded the fol­low­ing extern­al engage­ments in my capa­city as Con­vener of the Board since our last Board meeting.

Date	Engage­ment	Ven­ue
3⁄9	Meet­ing with Jam­ie Wilson MSP	Online
7⁄9	High­land Council/​CNPA Joint Strategy meet­ing re Badenoch and Strathspey	Online
14⁄9	CNPA/CBP Chairs Meeting	Online
20⁄9	Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship AGM	Online
22⁄11	Hous­ing Summit	Online
24⁄11	Stand­ards Com­mis­sion Chairs Workshop	Online

Xan­der McDade Board Convener