CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE BOARD MEETING

held by telephone/​video con­fer­ence on Fri­day 10^th Decem­ber 2021 at 2pm

PRESENT (By video con­fer­en­cing unless stated otherwise)

• Xan­der McDade (Con­vener)
• Geva Black­ett
• Peter Argyle
• Car­o­lyn Cad­dick (Deputy Convener)
• Deirdre Fal­con­er
• Pippa Had­ley
• Janet Hunter
• John Kirk
• John Lath­am
• Douglas McAdam
• Elean­or Mackintosh
• Wil­lie McKenna
• lan McLar­en
• Dr Fiona McLean
• Wil­li­am Munro
• Anne Rae Macdonald
• Dr Gaen­er Rodger
• Derek Ross
• Judith Webb

In Attend­ance:

• Grant Moir, Chief Executive,
• Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices & Deputy Chief Executive
• Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Place
• Pete Crane, Head of Vis­it­or Services
• Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature & Cli­mate Change Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Planning
• Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Development
• Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Communications
• Helen Mason – Minute Taker

Apo­lo­gies: None

Wel­come and Introduction

1. Xan­der McDade the Board Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meeting.

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Declar­a­tions of Interest

1. The Board Con­vener invited Declar­a­tions of interest.

2. Fiona Mclean declared a New Interest for the record while not­ing this does not have spe­cif­ic rel­ev­ance for this meeting:

   • Reas­on: She has become a mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee for Scot­land Nation­al Lot­tery, Her­it­age Fund. This might be rel­ev­ant for the Her­it­age Hori­zons project.

Minutes of Last Meet­ings held – for approval

1. The draft Minutes of the last meet­ing held on 10^th Septem­ber 2021 were agreed with no amendments.

Mat­ters Arising

1. The Board Con­vener provided an update on the action points from pre­vi­ous minutes:

   • a) 10 Sept Minutes — At Para. 13(i) -In Hand- Dir­ect­or of Nature & Cli­mate Change agreed to col­late the mon­it­or­ing res­ults for some of the spe­cies that could be obtained over the last 5 – 10 years but not to level of indi­vidu­al estates to retain con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of data and send it to the Board.
   • b) 10 Sept Minutes – Action Point at Para. 13(ii) -In Hand- Dav­id Heth­er­ing­ton, Wood­land Officer to give Board Mem­ber John Lath­am a call to dis­cuss wood­land ripari­an schemes on Donside.
   • c) 10 Sept Minutes – Action Point at Para. 13(iii) -In Hand- Peat­land Board vis­it to be organ­ised for the Spring of 2022
   • d) 28 May Minutes – Action Point at Para 26(i) — Closed – Com­mu­nic­a­tions team advised to put out tick and sheep scar­ing warn­ings through the Authority’s social media chan­nels, which will go out in due course.
   • e) 11 June Minutes – Action Point at Para 16(ii) — In Hand ‑Board Busi­ness ses­sion around redu­cing wild­fires will be sched­uled to coin­cide with the review of the ranger ser­vice in the autumn.
   • f) 11 June Minutes – Action Point at Para 21 (iii) – Closed– CNPA records regard­ing the own­er­ship of Brae­mar Hous­ing Pro­ject were being updated.
   • g) 11 June Minutes – Action Point at Para 21 (iv) – In Hand – The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices will talk to the Board Con­vener about bring­ing the ongo­ing review of stra­tegic risk back to the Board via the Gov­ernance Committee.

2. Action Points Arising: None

CEO Report & Board Con­vener Update (Paper 1)

1. Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive, intro­duced Paper I which was 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. He spe­cific­ally brought the fol­low­ing to the Board’s attention:

   • a) The Pro­gramme for Gov­ern­ment has come out show­ing what will be com­ing for­ward over the next par­lia­ment­ary term.
   • b) Nature Recov­ery Fund with NatureScot, oper­at­ing over the next five years. Dis­cus­sions on Monday about what we are going to do in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.
   • c) Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan con­sulta­tion. Over 800 responses had been received to date, with most organ­isa­tion­al responses expec­ted over the next week. There have been a lot of meet­ings cov­er­ing this. It will be put on the Board Meet­ing for 13^th Janu­ary and Form­al Con­sulta­tion Report com­piled dur­ing January.
   • d) CNPA had received a good budget set­tle­ment for the Nation­al Park which will be taken for­ward in updates to the Resources Com­mit­tee and in the Oper­a­tion­al Plan to the March Board Meet­ing in the com­ing year.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   • a) A query was made about the NPPP con­sulta­tion responses and how we are weight­ing responses from organ­isa­tions rep­res­ent­ing large num­bers of people in rela­tion to indi­vidu­al responses. The CEO explained we don’t weight responses but look at the qual­ity of argu­ments for the final plan to work out the right way for­ward for the next five years. In a fur­ther com­ment a mem­ber sug­ges­ted we should look at the size of the rel­ev­ant con­stitu­ency when we assess the argu­ment being put for­ward. The CEO respon­ded that ulti­mately, we look for con­sensus. If lots of people say some­thing should be amended, we look at what we can do. This inform­a­tion will be taken to the Board, then we will amend before finally decid­ing on it in April. The pro­cess is not for­mu­laic: it is for the board to gauge the strength of argu­ment made in responses and to judge and determ­ine appro­pri­ate levels of response. Mem­bers com­men­ted on the import­ance of how the plan was presen­ted and could the Board be told how they are to be presen­ted before we are giv­en the res­ults. The Board Con­vener con­firmed to mem­bers we would be con­sid­er­ing the responses in the New Year and encour­age every­one they know to respond by the dead­line next Fri­day. There will be fol­low up pub­li­city going out to encour­age any fur­ther responses.
   • b) A ques­tion was asked about the pro­posed path near Brae­mar that would form part of a Deeside Way exten­sion; has fund­ing been secured for the exten­sion? The CEO said CNPA had agreed to fund the pro­ject and that Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil are tak­ing a paper regard­ing fund­ing to their Com­mit­tee soon. The plan­ning per­mis­sion has been exten­ded until next autumn.
   • c) Parag 16 about the hous­ing sum­mit and the press reports about bring­ing for­ward hous­ing for key work­ers and loc­al people in Badenoch and Strath­spey. Fur­ther details would be pub­li­cised in near future by the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship who had organ­ized the event.
   • d) Parag 30 – 31, good to see the young on the Kick­start Scheme we had developed for Rangers get­ting per­man­ent jobs.
   • e) Refer­ring to the Annex about the Hous­ing Con­fer­ence on the Board Con­vener report, is there any­thing we should be aware of? The Board Con­vener made the fol­low­ing points: There was good rep­res­ent­a­tion at the Hous­ing Con­fer­ence, and he described the actions com­ing out of the meet­ing. Reas­sured the Board there was now work under­taken by stat­utory and non-stat­utory part­ners and there will be actions and devel­op­ments in the com­ing months. I. Imme­di­ate issues were around Key Work­ers and the eco­nomy, 2. The medi­um term ensur­ing middle mar­ket rent­al prop­er­ties and 3. Long term need to devel­op a more sus­tain­able hous­ing situation.
   • f) The Board Con­vener said the point he had made at the meet­ing was around the les­sons we’ve learned over Cov­id about get­ting money to be avail­able more quickly.
   • g) The Board Con­vener gave an update on the vis­it with Lor­na Slater, Min­is­ter for Green Skills, Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy and Biod­iversity. It was a pro­duct­ive day, and she will come back some­time in the New Year and hope­fully speak to the full Board.
   • h) Com­ment was made about the impress­ive amount that has been achieved by staff, espe­cially under the present cir­cum­stances, and con­grat­u­la­tions were passed on to every­body involved.
   • i) Com­ment relat­ing to COP26. Will there be an oppor­tun­ity to get some feed­back and dis­cus­sion the out­comes of COP26 espe­cially in the light of the NPPP. The Chief Exec­ut­ive ref­er­enced the planned Board ses­sion in Janu­ary look­ing at NP Part­ner­ship Plan includ­ing COP26 and oth­er things such as the Scot­tish Biod­iversity Strategy which was in devel­op­ment at present.
   • j) NPPP — Does the Board get to see the con­sulta­tion responses in full? If indi­vidu­al responses are con­fid­en­tial, why do they have to give an email address? If people must phone for a copy of the form was there a mes­sage which asks them for their con­tact details. The Chief Exec­ut­ive replied that all responses are pub­licly avail­able. People get asked if they wish their com­ments to be pub­lished or not. Responses can be seen but not who made them. The report will break­down into type of response such as res­id­ents, land man­agers etc. Officers will try to get as much as this as pos­sible for 13^th Janu­ary meet­ing. It was noted that the admin team can take con­tact details by phone when paper cop­ies of response forms are reques­ted, which there can also be down­loaded from the website.
   • k) Con­grat­u­la­tions to the Chief Exec­ut­ive and team for the excel­lent report.
   • l) Con­cern about long dis­tant routes para­graph 11. There was a very boggy area around Grant­own in par­tic­u­lar. The Chief Exec­ut­ive explained it was 4 – 5 km sec­tion of the Spey­side Way, just out­side the Nation­al Park which was High­land Coun­cil respons­ib­il­ity. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices explained they are aware and would have a fur­ther dis­cus­sion out­side the meet­ing. Also noted Moray Coun­cil has addi­tion­al fund­ing for upgrad­ing along the old rail­way line in Moray. Explained there are no quick solu­tions but will be look­ing it going forward.

3. The Board noted the Paper. The Board Con­vener thanked the Chief Exec­ut­ive and his team on behalf of the Board.

4. Action Point Arising:

   • i. Meet­ing to be arranged by Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices about the Spey­side Way sec­tion main­ten­ance with the High­land Council.

Man­aging Vis­it­ors in 2021 (Paper 2) for discussion

1. The Board dis­cussed arrange­ments for man­aging for vis­it­ors that were in place over 2021 and the pro­pos­als in 2022, all of which are sub­ject to the con­firm­a­tion of the CNPA budget.

2. Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place, Pete Crane, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Olly Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions intro­duced the report.

Anne Rae Mac­don­ald left the meeting

The approach to man­aging for vis­it­ors in the Nation­al Park this year had been gen­er­ally very suc­cess­ful, and the feed­back has been pos­it­ive across the Nation­al Park. There were lots still to do but plans were in place with part­ners. The CNPA Ranger Ser­vice has been a great asset out on the ground and had com­ple­men­ted the work of oth­er site-based rangers very effectively.

1. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:
   • a) Some con­cern was expressed about the Pay­back Scheme – con­di­tion of paths around Glen­more was poor. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices was not aware of requests from key organ­isa­tions there for path improve­ments. A site vis­it was pro­posed with the mem­ber con­cerned to vis­it to the paths in question.
   • b) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices spoke about the Vol­un­tary Giv­ing Scheme which was being led by the Cairngorms Trust. Work has been going on to devel­op a scheme but has been inter­rup­ted by Cov­id. Dona­tions to the value of circa £5,000 — 10,000 per year were com­ing from vis­it­ors and busi­nesses for infra­struc­ture and nature res­tor­a­tion work. The Cairngorms Trust has fun­ded some path infra­struc­ture improve­ments from dona­tions already received. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices noted he expec­ted to update the Board over the course of the com­ing year about how this ini­ti­at­ive can evolve.
   • c) Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place noted we get very good feed­back about the qual­ity paths and tracks in the Vis­it­or Sur­vey – 94% of vis­it­ors had said paths were in good, or very good, con­di­tion and the feed­back was more pos­it­ive than the last time we con­duc­ted the sur­vey. Also, there was now an Infra­struc­ture Officer (Liz Hende­r­son) in place who will be pre­par­ing a stra­tegic plan for these issues.
   • d) Con­cern was also expressed about the path on the Spey­side Way between Inver­uglas and Drumguish which was very muddy. This would be looked at in addi­tion to the pre­vi­ous paths dis­cussed. Con­vener noted that this year there was more money avail­able for use on paths and an Infra­struc­ture Officer in place.
   • e) Camper­vans and price of sites – the Cairngorm Moun­tain camp­site prices are con­sidered high. Wastewa­ter and fresh water sites are near each oth­er and dif­fi­cult to access, with use of buck­ets neces­sary for waste water. The point was noted.
   • f) Note made that all the Rangers are doing a good job and it is excel­lent that there are now more of them.
   • g) Request for cla­ri­fic­a­tion of how people can con­tact rangers out of hours. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained the sys­tem involving mes­sages and answer machines. If the call goes to answer machine a mes­sage can be left, and a per­son will respond. In work­ing hours, mes­sages are checked and picked up regularly.
   • h) How are the vari­able elec­tron­ic signs we rent powered? Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices explained they are a mix. Some are sol­ar powered, some are bat­tery and sol­ar, some are bat­tery, some are mains. Officers con­firmed this was one issue that was to be picked up in review and we need to con­nect the man­age­ment of the signage.
   • i) It was noted that over­all, vis­it­or man­age­ment was bet­ter this year but what was pro­por­tion of pos­it­ive /​negative encoun­ters with Rangers? Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices explained that about 12,000 people have per­son­ally talked with Rangers — he estim­ated that 99% of all con­tacts are pos­it­ive. CNPA fun­ded Police Scot­land on Fri­days and Sat­urdays of the peak sea­son in Glen­more. Two people were charged over the six-week hol­i­day peri­od for illeg­al beha­viour which is low in com­par­is­on to oth­er offences.
   • j) The Annex 2 table showed few­er fires with could lead to some­thing ser­i­ous, but it was still approach­ing 1,000 instances. Are rangers adequately equipped with tools and powers? It would be good to see the year-on-year fig­ures com­ing down. Is there an issue that mes­saging has been designed to appeal to people who think dif­fer­ently about the Nation­al Park to the people who design the mes­saging? Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices explained that this year Glen­more has seen more gas fires bought from loc­al out­lets. It was not a quick win but we are see­ing some pos­it­ive change. A tiny minor­ity were behav­ing irresponsibly/​illeg­ally.
   • k) What about infra­struc­ture and pri­or­it­ies of next year with par­tic­u­lar ref­er­ence to Angus Glens? Officers respon­ded that the team have done pos­it­ive work early in year with Angus Coun­cil and part­ners get­ting toi­lets open again. Through Her­it­age Hori­zons, dis­cus­sion about pub­lic trans­port and oth­er options are tak­ing place. A sea­son­al ranger has also been loc­ated in Angus area this year.
   • l) Organ­isa­tions such as Wild­Scot­land had dis­cussed the use of fires as a key part of out­door exper­i­ence and bush­craft. In oth­er areas (e.g., North Amer­ica and Scand­inavia) infra­struc­ture was provided in man­aged areas so people can still enjoy fires. Officers were hav­ing dis­cus­sions with Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice, look­ing at train­ing for rangers on ways to man­age fires.
   • m) Com­ment was made about lit­ter and the 581 bags picked up by rangers. We need to get mes­sage about lit­ter out to people bet­ter. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place explained that this lit­ter was just that col­lec­ted by the Park Author­ity rangers. There were many com­munity-led lit­ter-picks organ­ised across the Nation­al Park – the Green Recov­ery Fund had helped by fund­ing six com­munit­ies with lit­ter pick­ing equip­ment and had provided some ranger sup­port. The Keep Scot­land Beau­ti­ful 2022 Spring Clean dates were 21^st March — 21^st April. Fur­ther work would be under­taken to devel­op a Cairngorms Lit­ter Net­work. It was noted that lit­ter was a Scot­land-wide issue with a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in lit­ter­ing in the lock­down period.
   • n) The Con­vener asked for detail about Kick­start Rangers and Juni­or Ranger schemes. Officers noted the good thing was it was tak­ing young people who were on unem­ploy­ment bene­fit. It was planned to do a sim­il­ar thing to Kick­start next year, giv­ing a path­way for young people but with CNPA fund­ing. It was noted that we also have a team of Volun­teer Rangers and were restart­ing the Juni­or Ranger programme.
   • o) Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment repor­ted that CNPA had just been accred­ited as a Guar­an­teed Young Employ­ee organ­isa­tion. We have made a com­mit­ment to employ young people with Ranger Train­ing com­mit­ments over the next twelve months. Mem­bers noted it was good to see we have led the way in youth employ­ment and that the Kick­start Scheme was a Cairngorms ini­ti­at­ive; well done to all involved.
   • p) In con­clu­sion the Con­vener noted we are doing more than was detailed in paper — the num­ber of issues raised with CNPA had dropped notice­ably. The increase in num­ber rangers and man­age­ment of facil­it­ies had made a sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ence. He thanked Janet Hunter for her work in the Tour­ism Recov­ery Group and the Board mem­bers for their sup­port in these initiatives.

Wil­lie McK­enna left the meeting

1. The Board noted:

   • a) The wide-ran­ging, part­ner­ship work which has been under­taken across the Nation­al Park to encour­age vis­it­ors to respect, pro­tect and enjoy the Cairngorms.
   • b) The feed­back received from loc­al partners.
     • Con­vener pro­posed – Deputy Con­vener seconded the paper. The paper was agreed.

2. Action Points Arising:

   • i. Mur­ray Fer­guson to organ­ise site vis­it to looks a path con­di­tion in key areas of Glen­more and Spey­side Way with Wil­lie McK­enna and Deirdre Falconer.

Anne Rae Mac­don­ald re-joined the meeting

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Cor­por­ate Plan 2023 to 2027 Devel­op­ment Timetable – (Paper 3)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced Paper 3. He explained that the paper sought to estab­lish a straight­for­ward approach to ensure that the next Cor­por­ate Plan for the CNPA was developed after the new NPPP is approved in 2022. He added that the paper sought to ensure a one-year, trans­ition­al stra­tegic plan is developed as a bridging doc­u­ment between the end of the cur­rent Cor­por­ate Plan in March 2022 and the com­mence­ment of the next long term Cor­por­ate Plan from March 2023.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   • a) A query was put wheth­er it needs to be cleared by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices cla­ri­fied that we could approve the plan ourselves, while he will keep our Spon­sor Team appraised of the evol­u­tion of the plan.
   • b) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion of the one-year plan — a light touch revi­sion of what we have at the moment? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained it was 3‑way struc­tured approach:
     • i. look­ing at the evolving NPPP
     • ii. Key mul­ti­year pro­gram com­mit­ments run­ning forward.
     • iii. Resid­ual ele­ments of Cor­por­ate plan which had not quite reached a con­clu­sion by March 2022.
     • A draft will be brought to the Board Meet­ing in March and pick up any resid­ual actions necessary.
   • c) Was this tim­ing ambi­tious for being ready in March? The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices respon­ded this would be a stra­tegic, high-level doc­u­ment with key out­comes over the next year. It will be achiev­able over the next couple of months before board meet­ing in March, and a require­ment to struc­ture the Authority’s oper­a­tions over the com­ing year. The CEO added that most detail will be in oper­a­tion­al plan — come to the Board in March. Then the year to devel­op the 4‑year plan going for­ward. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed that the spon­sor team con­tent with how we are approach­ing it.
   • d) Com­ment about this in rela­tion to the NPPP which has not been agreed yet. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices — we will look at the plan as it was evolving so when we do need to fin­ance ele­ments in the first year these are iden­ti­fied, while seek­ing to ensure we have the budget in place straight away when we start the NPPP.

3. The Board:

   • a) Agreed the timetable for the devel­op­ment of the 2023 to 2027 Cor­por­ate Plan set out in Annex 1.
   • b) Agreed the trans­ition­al arrange­ments for cor­por­ate plan­ning over ²⁰²²⁄₂₃.

4. The Board Con­vener moved, Deputy Con­vener seconded and the paper agreed.

5. Action Point Arising: none

Cairngorms Green Recov­ery Fund (Paper 4)

1. Mur­ray Fer­guson intro­duced Paper 4. Over­all, the Fund had proved extremely pop­u­lar and has promp­ted the deliv­ery of very good vari­ety of pro­jects all across the Nation­al Park. The les­sons learned, both at the CNPA and at the Cairngorms Trust, will be use­ful as the com­munity-man­aged grant scheme and oth­er pro­jects are developed. He also noted:

   • a) Thanks to the extern­al part­ners who had helped with the evaluation.
   • b) It was good to see mem­bers were able to vis­it the Aviemore Ice Rink and Ritchie’s waste man­age­ment facil­ity near Aviemore which have bene­fit­ted from the Fund.
   • c) Look­ing to the future a fur­ther round of the Green Recov­ery Fund is not envis­aged but the Com­munity Man­aged Grant Scheme under the Her­it­age Horizons/​Cairngorms 2030 Pro­ject will provide sim­il­ar support.

2. The Board Con­vener thanked Wil­lie Mun­ro regard­ing his role in this pro­ject. Wil­lie Mun­ro said it was good to see range of pro­jects com­ing through and was impressed by qual­ity of applic­a­tions and quick turn-around of paper­work by key staff. Good if there were some­thing sim­il­ar going for­ward and look at scope for par­ti­cip­at­ory budget­ing for communities.

3. The CEO thanked Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place and team. It had been a very pos­it­ive pro­ject includ­ing allow­ing access match fund­ing such as the ice rink.

4. The Board

   • a) Noted the suc­cess of Phase I of the Green Recov­ery Fund, which was delivered in part­ner­ship with the Cairngorms Trust in 2020 – 21 to sup­port com­munit­ies and busi­nesses in their recov­ery from COV­ID-19 pandemic.
   • b) Noted the pro­gress to date with deliv­ery of Phase 2 of the Fund which is ongo­ing, and all pro­jects are sched­uled for com­ple­tion by the end of March 2022.

5. Pro­posed Board Con­vener, Seconded Wil­lie Mun­ro and Agreed.

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Draft Minutes of Board Com­mit­tees (Paper 5)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced Paper 5 which had been pre­pared by Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board.

2. The fol­low­ing draft minutes dated 29^th Octo­ber 2021 of pub­lic meet­ings were presen­ted to the Board but not yet in the pub­lic domain:

   • Draft Resources Com­mit­tee Minutes
   • Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes
   • Draft Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Minutes
   • Draft Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Minutes

The CEO reques­ted that if the mem­bers of the Board had any ques­tions about the minutes to please take up with com­mit­tee chairs, vice-chairs, him­self, or seni­or officers respons­ible for Com­mit­tee papers.

1. The Board noted the draft minutes of the Board Committees.

2. Action Point Arising:

   • i. Mem­bers of the Board with any ques­tions about the com­mit­tee minutes to please take up with com­mit­tee chairs, vice-chairs or board convener.

AOCB

1. The Board Con­vener spoke about the planned res­id­en­tial Board Strategy Ses­sion at the Aviemore High­land Resort on 13/​14th Janu­ary, not­ing there are back-up plans if there are Cov­id restric­tions. If mem­bers have con­cerns or points around the con­tent of the meet­ing, please con­tact him.

2. New Code of Con­duct had been agreed by the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment for Scot­tish Coun­cil­lors and Mem­bers of Devolved Pub­lic Bod­ies. Dav­id Camer­on Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices as prop­er officer was also made by the Stand­ards Com­mis­sion for Scot­land. The Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee will review the mod­el Code of Con­duct pri­or to a paper for the CNPA Board to approve in early 2022.

3. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained the new Mod­el Code must go to the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee then on to the Board and was con­scious the revised Code had come at the same time as the budget and there was a lot to be con­sidered. Sev­er­al changes of eth­os of the Code and changes to guid­ance that go along with the Code. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices will arrange for the doc­u­ments to be on the board portal in the next few days – any­one can ref­er­ence and lodge ques­tions with him.

4. The Con­vener, on behalf of the Board expressed thanks to the staff team over the past year — dif­fi­cult to appre­ci­ate how much the staff put in. Round of applause for their hard work. It was agreed by the Board for the CEO to write to all staff before the Christ­mas Break to express thanks.

5. Action Points Arising:

   • i. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices will arrange for the doc­u­ments relat­ing to the new code of con­duct to be on the board portal in the next few days.
   • ii. Board Con­vener to write let­ter of thanks to the staff.
   • iii. Aviemore High­land Resort Meet­ing – con­tact Board Con­vener with any con­cerns or points.

Date of Next Meeting

1. Next form­al Board meet­ing to be held on 11^th March 2022.

2. The pub­lic part of this meet­ing closed 15.54.