CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Paper 3 Annex 1 29^th March 2019

STAND­ING ORDERS FOR MEET­INGS OF THE CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

1. Estab­lish­ment of the Board:

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (referred to as ​“the Board” in the rest of this doc­u­ment) was estab­lished on 25 March 2003 by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Des­ig­na­tion, Trans­ition­al and Con­sequen­tial Pro­vi­sions (Scot­land) Order 2003, which in turn was made under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. Under para­graph 19 of sched­ule 1 of that Act, the Nation­al Park Author­ity may determ­ine its own pro­ced­ures for con­duct­ing its business.

2. Applic­ab­il­ity of these Stand­ing Orders:

This paper sets out the pro­ced­ures which apply to meet­ings of the Board and of its com­mit­tees. These stand­ing orders are in addi­tion to any require­ments set out in the Act and in the found­ing des­ig­na­tion order, and any fur­ther Acts of Par­lia­ment or guid­ance from Scot­tish Ministers.

NPA Mem­ber­ship

3. Com­pos­i­tion of the NPA Board:

The NPA board com­prises 19 mem­bers as pre­scribed in the Des­ig­na­tion Order. The 19 is made up of 5 mem­bers dir­ectly elec­ted in accord­ance with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Elec­tions (Scot­land) Order 2003; 7 mem­bers dir­ectly appoin­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters and 7 appoin­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters on the nom­in­a­tion of the rel­ev­ant Loc­al Author­it­ies. All mem­bers are appoin­ted or elec­ted on an indi­vidu­al basis, and not as rep­res­ent­at­ives of organ­isa­tions. Dur­a­tion of appoint­ments is as set out in a Member’s let­ter of appoint­ment, and in the case of elec­ted Mem­bers is until the next NPA election.

Con­vener and Deputy Convener

4. Elec­tion of Con­vener and Deputy Convener:

In accord­ance with sched­ule 1, para­graph 11, of the Act, the board elects the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener from among its num­ber. At the second-last CNPA meet­ing before the term of office of a cur­rent Con­vener expires, elec­tion of the next Con­vener shall take place. The pro­cess of elec­tion for Con­vener shall be con­duc­ted by the Prop­er Officer. The pro­cess of elec­tion will be as follows:

a) Nom­in­a­tions: The Prop­er Officer or their author­ised rep­res­ent­at­ive will seek nom­in­a­tions from mem­bers of the NPA at least 15 work­ing days pri­or to the meet­ing. Any mem­ber may pro­pose anoth­er NPA mem­ber as Con­vener, and a third mem­ber must second the nom­in­a­tion for it to be val­id. Nom­in­a­tions must be received and val­id no later than sev­en work­ing days pri­or to the meet­ing, to allow a final list of val­id nom­in­ees to be cir­cu­lated by the Prop­er Officer to all mem­bers pri­or to the meet­ing in accord­ance with sched­ules for issue of Board papers for the meet­ing. Pro­posers and seconds of nom­in­a­tions may be delivered in any per­man­ent form – email, let­ter, recor­ded oral mes­sage – provided that the form provides a means of per­man­ent record of the pro­pos­al or second of a nom­in­a­tion to the sat­is­fac­tion of the Prop­er Officer. The mem­ber nom­in­ated must also provide a per­man­ent form of record that they con­sent to being nom­in­ated for the role in question.

b) State­ments: Each can­did­ate who has a val­id nom­in­a­tion will be asked if they wish to make a short state­ment to the meet­ing. Can­did­ates will be lis­ted on a bal­lot paper and invited to speak in the order in which their val­id­ated nom­in­a­tion is received by the Prop­er Officer, with first val­id nom­in­a­tion received lis­ted and speak­ing first.

c) Absent Mem­bers: Mem­bers who are absent from the meet­ing may be put for­ward for elec­tion, nom­in­ate or second a can­did­ate, provided they have made appro­pri­ate, signed writ­ten state­ments pri­or to the meet­ing to the Prop­er Officer their con­sent to being nom­in­ated. A state­ment by a can­did­ate who is unable to be present at the meet­ing may be read at the meeting.

d) Elec­tion Pro­cess: Elec­tion will be by abso­lute major­ity, using a single, trans­fer­rable vote sys­tem as follows:

i. Mem­bers will be asked to state clearly on their vot­ing paper their pre­ferred can­did­ate in their order of pref­er­ence, e.g. can­did­ate A = 1, can­did­ate C = 2, can­did­ate B = 3 etc.; ii. Only Mem­bers who are present may vote; iii. Once all votes are cast and col­lec­ted, the Prop­er Officer sup­por­ted by a second officer will count all first pref­er­ences. If this count gives rise to a can­did­ate hold­ing a major­ity of votes, they shall be declared as elec­ted to the role. If this count does not give a major­ity for a single can­did­ate, the can­did­ate receiv­ing few­est votes shall be excluded and their votes real­loc­ated to remain­ing can­did­ates on basis of any second pref­er­ences stated; iv. This pro­cess will con­tin­ue until one can­did­ate emerges with an abso­lute major­ity of the votes cast by those mem­bers present and vot­ing. v. Where there is an equal­ity of votes among those can­did­ate who have least votes, then a decision on who is to be excluded will be determ­ined by lot. vi. Where there is an equal­ity of votes with only two can­did­ates for a pos­i­tion, then a decision on who is to be elec­ted will be determ­ined by lot. vii. If it is the case that there is only one can­did­ate for either pos­i­tion, then that per­son will be declared elec­ted. viii. Vot­ing will be by secret ballot.

5. Tie-Break Pro­ced­ures: Where any part of the elec­tion pro­cess is required to be determ­ined by ​“lot”, this will be achieved through the pro­cess estab­lished as an Annex to these Stand­ing Orders and in force at the time of the election.

6. Term of Office: The dur­a­tion of the office of Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener will be 3 years (unless the mem­ber con­cerned ceases to be a Mem­ber of the NPA, or resigns from the pos­i­tion of Convener/​Deputy Con­vener before the end of the period).

7. Vacan­cies: For cases in which a Convener/​Deputy Con­vener resigns or ceases to be a Mem­ber, the elec­tion pro­cess will apply as the first item of busi­ness at the next board meet­ing fol­low­ing the vacancy arising.

8. Sim­ul­tan­eous Elec­tions: The above pro­cess in para­graphs 4 – 5 will also apply to the elec­tion of Deputy Con­vener, which shall take place after the elec­tion of Con­vener if both posts are to be decided at the same meeting.

Quor­um

9. Quor­um for Board Meet­ings: The quor­um of the NPA board will be half of its total num­ber plus one — in oth­er words, 10 Mem­bers. This will apply regard­less of vacan­cies in mem­ber­ship. No busi­ness will be trans­acted at a board meet­ing unless a quor­um is present. If the Con­vener of the meet­ing finds dur­ing a board meet­ing that the num­ber of mem­bers present has reduced below the quor­um, the meet­ing shall end at that point. All attend­ance and absences shall be recor­ded in the minutes of the meet­ing. The quor­um for com­mit­tees will be as agreed for each com­mit­tee individually.

10. Par­ti­cip­a­tion Meth­ods: Par­ti­cip­a­tion will nor­mally be in per­son, but may excep­tion­ally (with agree­ment of the Con­vener of the meet­ing) be by tele­phone or video-con­fer­ence provided the Member’s con­tri­bu­tion is fully access­ible to all mem­bers and pub­lic attend­ing the meet­ing. In these cases, such mem­bers will be deemed to be present and con­sti­tute part of the board for the pur­pose of the meeting.

11. Non-Vot­ing Attendees: People who are not mem­bers of the NPA board may be invited by the Con­vener to attend and speak for all or part of the meet­ing, but they will not be entitled to vote.

Sched­ule of Meetings

12. Schedul­ing of Meet­ings: The board shall approve in advance of each cal­en­dar year a pro­vi­sion­al set of dates and ven­ues for its board meet­ings. The sched­ule will be pub­lished on the CNPA web­site, and pos­ted up in the recep­tion area of the CNPA offices, and will be noti­fied to the five loc­al author­it­ies with part of their area with­in the Park.

13. Spe­cial Meet­ings: The Con­vener may con­vene a spe­cial meet­ing of the board when it appears that an item of busi­ness requires urgent atten­tion. In the absence of the Con­vener, such a meet­ing may be con­vened by the Deputy Con­vener. Any mem­ber may request that such a meet­ing be called, but the final decision rests with the Con­vener (or Deputy Con­vener in the absence of the Con­vener) unless the request is made to the Prop­er Officer by at least 10 mem­bers in which case the meet­ing must be called with­in 21 days of receipt of the request.

14. Role of the Chief Exec­ut­ive: The Chief Exec­ut­ive is respons­ible for over­all organ­isa­tion, man­age­ment and staff­ing of the NPA. It is the respons­ib­il­ity of the Chief Exec­ut­ive to advise the board on mat­ters of fin­an­cial pro­pri­ety and reg­u­lar­ity. The Chief Exec­ut­ive shall have the right to attend and speak at all Board meet­ings and Com­mit­tee meet­ings (albeit without vot­ing rights), except for parts of meet­ings when agreed by Board Mem­bers that the mat­ters under dis­cus­sion should involve Mem­bers only, for example where per­form­ance, remu­ner­a­tion or con­duct of the Chief Exec­ut­ive is under discussion.

Pub­lic Attend­ance at Meetings

15. Pub­lic Access to Meet­ings: The Nation­al Parks Scot­land Act (Sched­ule 2, para­graph 12) provides that access to meet­ings and doc­u­ments of the NPA board are covered by the pro­vi­sions of Part IIIA of the Loc­al Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1973. In broad terms this means that meet­ings of the CNPA board are to be open to the pub­lic, unless there are good reas­ons to the con­trary (such as breach of an oblig­a­tion of con­fid­ence, or a con­fid­en­tial staff­ing mat­ter). Annex I to these stand­ing orders sets out more detail.

16. Role of the Prop­er Officer: The Prop­er Officer for the CNPA is appoin­ted by the board (as required under the terms of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000) and is charged with ensur­ing the applic­a­tion of the pro­vi­sions out­lined in para­graph 15 above about pub­lic access to meet­ings. The Prop­er Officer advises on the issues that arise, such as exclu­sion of papers from pub­lic inspec­tion, for example, if it is decided this relates to an item likely to be taken in private session.

17. Access­ib­il­ity of Ven­ues: The ven­ues for board meet­ings will be decided by the Con­vener in dis­cus­sion with the Deputy Con­vener and Chief Exec­ut­ive, ensur­ing good access by the pub­lic of all abilities.

Board Papers

18. Pre­par­a­tion and Cir­cu­la­tion of Board Papers: Board papers will be pre­pared by CNPA offi­cials, and con­sidered and approved by the Chief Exec­ut­ive pri­or to sub­mis­sion to the board. The CNPA’s policy will be to cir­cu­late papers to Mem­bers 7 clear days in advance of a meet­ing. As required through stat­utory pro­vi­sions in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act, cop­ies of the papers will be sent to the five loc­al author­it­ies with part of their area with­in the Park. Papers will be avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion at all the offices of the CNPA. Papers will also be sent to the spon­sor divi­sion of the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, and will be made avail­able on the CNPA web­site. The CNPA will strive to ensure the papers of the board and its com­mit­tees are made as read­ily avail­able as pos­sible to mem­bers of the pub­lic, but com­men­sur­ate with the need to make prudent use of resources. Meth­ods of ensur­ing this will be kept under review, but is likely to mean, for example, that staff will not be required to send out cop­ies of papers on request except in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stance. Cop­ies of papers may be avail­able at board meet­ings and com­mit­tee meet­ings to mem­bers of the pub­lic who attend, depend­ing on ven­ue and avail­ab­il­ity of facil­it­ies. Cop­ies of board papers will be avail­able on the CNPA’s web­site as soon as they have been cir­cu­lated to Members.

19. Pre-cir­cu­la­tion of Draft Papers: Drafts of papers will nor­mally be cir­cu­lated to the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener 14 clear days in advance of a meet­ing. The cir­cu­la­tion of drafts is inten­ded to allow seni­or man­agers to brief the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener on mat­ters being raised, and allow for feed­back to be giv­en. The Chief Exec­ut­ive and Man­age­ment Team remain respons­ible for final­ising papers for cir­cu­la­tion to the Board hav­ing con­sidered any feed­back received to drafts, where adequate time has been received for feed­back to be reviewed pri­or to issue of papers to the full Board.

Mem­bers’ Issues and Ques­tions at Board Meetings

20. Any Oth­er Com­pet­ent Busi­ness: Each board meet­ing will take an item at the end of the agenda of Any Oth­er Com­pet­ent Busi­ness under which a mem­ber may raise an issue if they con­sider the mat­ter is of sig­ni­fic­ant interest and rel­ev­ance to the Board as a whole. In keep­ing with the rules on open­ness and trans­par­ency, this may only draw atten­tion of Mem­bers to an issue and may lead to its addi­tion to a future agenda. Such issues/​questions must be noti­fied to the Con­vener in advance of the meet­ing– it will not always be prac­tic­al for Mem­bers to do so in writ­ing, but advance notice should be giv­en orally to the Con­vener before the start of the meet­ing, unless the mat­ter is one which has aris­en dur­ing the course of the meet­ing. It is clearly in the interests of effi­cient use of everyone’s time that Mem­bers use this item with dis­cre­tion. On ques­tions of order, includ­ing wheth­er an item is con­sidered ​“com­pet­ent” the Convener’s rul­ing will be final.

Con­ven­ing Meetings

21. Presid­ing at Meet­ings: At a meet­ing of the NPA board, the Con­vener will preside. In his/​her absence the Deputy Con­vener will preside. If neither is able to be present, the Con­vener will indic­ate which oth­er mem­ber should preside. If no advice from the Con­vener is avail­able, Board Mem­bers present will choose by major­ity vote of those present, that one of their num­ber will preside. If deemed neces­sary by the Chief Exec­ut­ive and Prop­er Officer in such cir­cum­stances, for example where there are mul­tiple nom­in­a­tions of mem­bers to preside, an elec­tion may be car­ried out in line with the elec­tion pro­cess set out in these Stand­ing Orders.

22. Con­ven­ing of Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Meet­ings: Plan­ning Com­mit­tees will be con­vened by the per­son agreed by the whole NPA Board as the Con­vener of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee; and in his/​her absence, by the Vice Plan­ning Con­vener who is also agreed by the whole board. In the absence of both of these indi­vidu­als, the mem­bers of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee shall use para­graph 21 of the Board Stand­ing Orders in determ­in­ing who shall con­vene the meeting.

23. Respons­ib­il­it­ies of the Con­vener: The Con­vener of a Board meet­ing or Com­mit­tee meet­ing will pre­serve order; determ­ine all mat­ters of order, com­pet­ency and rel­ev­ancy; and will ensure mem­bers have suf­fi­cient oppor­tun­ity to express their views on any mat­ter under consideration.

Board Decisions

24. Decision-Mak­ing Pro­cess: Decisions of the board will gen­er­ally be by con­sensus of attend­ing mem­bers. A mem­ber depart­ing early will be treated as a non-attend­ing mem­ber for the pur­pose of any decision taken after the time of depar­ture. A board mem­ber may have his/​her dis­sent recor­ded to a decision of the Board provided he/​she has atten­ded for the whole of the dis­cus­sion and decision, and asks to record his/​her dis­sent imme­di­ately after the decision is concluded.

25. Writ­ten Com­ments: Writ­ten com­ments on agenda items sub­mit­ted by board mem­bers who are not attend­ing will be cir­cu­lated to Board Mem­bers, and will be read into the record of the meet­ing by the Convener.

26. Urgent Decisions: Excep­tion­ally, if a Board decision is required urgently and it is not pos­sible to con­vene a meet­ing, the mat­ter will be dealt with through cor­res­pond­ence. The decision to do this will be made by the Con­vener or Deputy Con­vener. In such cir­cum­stances, views will be sent to the Con­vener (or Deputy Con­vener, as appro­pri­ate). The decision will be rat­i­fied at the next board meeting.

27. Vot­ing Pro­ced­ures: At board meet­ings, where a decision is neces­sary it will be reached by simple major­ity fol­low­ing a vote (with the Con­vener hav­ing the cast­ing vote in cases of a tied vote) on the fol­low­ing occasions:

a) when the Con­vener detects that there is a body of opin­ion among mem­bers who either dis­agree with a pro­pos­al or have expressed reser­va­tions about it and no clear con­sensus has emerged; b) when a mem­ber requests a vote to be taken and this is sup­por­ted by anoth­er mem­ber in attend­ance; c) any oth­er cir­cum­stances where at the Convener’s dis­cre­tion it is felt that a decision should be pre­ceded by a vote.

28. Secret Bal­lot: Only attend­ing mem­bers will be able to vote, and gen­er­ally this will be done by a show of hands. At the Convener’s dis­cre­tion, this can be con­duc­ted through a secret bal­lot. In such cir­cum­stances the Con­vener will arrange for officers to issue and col­lect bal­lot papers, count the vote, and announce the res­ult to the board.

29. Recon­sid­er­a­tion of Decisions: A decision made by the Board will not gen­er­ally be recon­sidered by the board with­in 6 months of that decision being car­ried, except in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances and with the agree­ment of the board. In such cir­cum­stances, there­fore, a major­ity of the Board must be in favour of recon­sid­er­ing a decision with­in peri­od of 6 months from the ori­gin­al decision for the decision to be brought back as an item of busi­ness with­in the 6 month time period.

30. Mem­bers’ Code of Con­duct: In cases pur­su­ant to either para­graph 24 (record of dis­sent) or 27 (decision by vote rather than con­sensus) the require­ments of the CNPA Mem­bers’ Code of Con­duct shall remain in force in full for all sub­sequent engage­ment by mem­bers on the sub­jects in ques­tion. The require­ments of the Code on Duty, Lead­er­ship and Respect are likely to require that all mem­bers sup­port the for­ward dir­ec­tion estab­lished by a decision of the Author­ity in their future actions irre­spect­ive of their dis­sent recor­ded or vot­ing dir­ec­tion on a spe­cif­ic mat­ter. This require­ment is rein­forced through para­graph 34 of these Stand­ing Orders.

Declar­a­tion of Interests

31. Register of Mem­bers’ Interests: The NPA holds a register of Mem­bers’ interests, avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion. The rules on regis­tra­tion and declar­a­tion of interests are set out in the Mem­bers’ Code of Conduct.

32. Declar­a­tions of Interest: Mem­bers must con­sider their poten­tial interests in items of busi­ness at all meet­ings of the Author­ity, make any declar­a­tions of interest and take any neces­sary action required by those declar­a­tions of interest at each meet­ing pri­or to com­mence­ment of con­sid­er­a­tion of the rel­ev­ant item of busi­ness. A stand­ing item will be included in all agen­das sup­port­ing meet­ings of the Author­ity and its Com­mit­tees allow­ing for declar­a­tions of interest in items of busi­ness of the meet­ing to be considered.

Per­son­al Liab­il­ity of Members

33. Per­son­al Liab­il­ity: As set out in the Mod­el Code of Con­duct for Mem­bers, if an indi­vidu­al Board Mem­ber incurs a civil liab­il­ity in the course of car­ry­ing out his/​her respons­ib­il­it­ies for the Board, that Mem­ber will not be required to per­son­ally pay that liab­il­ity provided he/​she acted hon­estly and in good faith. This indem­nity does not, how­ever, pro­tect a Mem­ber who acts reck­lessly or in bad faith.

Cor­por­ate Respons­ib­il­ity and Confidentiality

34. Cor­por­ate Respons­ib­il­ity and Con­fid­en­ti­al­ity: Board Mem­bers share cor­por­ate respons­ib­il­ity for decisions taken by the Board as a whole. Mem­bers must there­fore either accept and pub­licly sup­port the col­lect­ive decision of the Board or resign. Mem­bers must respect the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of sens­it­ive inform­a­tion held by the organ­isa­tion, as well as the dis­cus­sions and papers taken in private session.

Board Minutes

35. Respons­ib­il­ity for Minutes: The Chief Exec­ut­ive is respons­ible for put­ting in place appro­pri­ate arrange­ments for tak­ing minutes of all Board and Com­mit­tee meet­ings. Taken in con­junc­tion with the papers presen­ted to the meet­ing, the minutes should provide a cor­rect record of the meet­ing and the decisions reached, and suf­fi­cient detail to indic­ate the issues dis­cussed in reach­ing those decisions.

36. Con­tent of Minutes: Minutes should include the action points agreed at the meet­ing, and these car­ried for­ward to fol­low­ing meet­ings until discharged.

37. Approv­al of Minutes: Draft minutes will be approved by the Chief Exec­ut­ive and the Con­vener of the meet­ing, marked clearly as ​“draft”, and cir­cu­lated to Mem­bers, who can pro­pose amend­ments in writ­ing or raise these at the next board meet­ing. The Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener and Chief Exec­ut­ive will arbit­rate over mat­ters of dissent.

38. Final­isa­tion of Minutes: Minutes will be approved at the fol­low­ing meet­ing, and minuted as a cor­rect record (sub­ject to any amend­ments agreed) at that fol­low­ing meet­ing. Approved minutes will be put on the CNPA website.

39. Minutes of Restric­ted Meet­ings: With ref­er­ence to para­graph 14, the Con­vener is respons­ible for mak­ing arrange­ments to have appro­pri­ate minutes taken of any meet­ing or part meet­ing where the Board has agreed that only mem­bers should be present. The Con­vener with the Board must determ­ine at which stage, if any, these minutes may become pub­lic. In this regard, the Con­vener must com­ply with all require­ments of the Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Act 2002 and asso­ci­ated reg­u­la­tion and must per­son­ally deal with all inter­ac­tions in man­aging any inform­a­tion requests.

Com­mit­tees

40. Estab­lish­ment and Oper­a­tion of Com­mit­tees: In accord­ance with Sched­ule 1 para­graph 17 of the Act, The Board may estab­lish Com­mit­tees, and may appoint onto those Com­mit­tees people who are not NPA board mem­bers, but a major­ity of Com­mit­tee mem­bers must be NPA board mem­bers. The board may del­eg­ate func­tions and decisions to Com­mit­tees, or to officers of the CNPA. The board shall decide the remit and mem­ber­ship of com­mit­tees. Com­mit­tees shall report dir­ect to the board. Com­mit­tees, oth­er than Plan­ning Com­mit­tee provided for at para­graph 22, shall appoint a Chair­per­son and a Vice Chair­per­son at their first meet­ing fol­low­ing agree­ment of their mem­ber­ship by the Board, from among the mem­ber­ship of the Com­mit­tee agreed by the Board. Com­mit­tee Chairs and Vice Chairs must be CNPA Board mem­bers. Com­mit­tee Chairs and Vice Chairs shall serve for a peri­od of three years, or the remain­ing part of the three year Com­mit­tee cycle with ref­er­ence to para­graph 43.

41. Stand­ing Orders for Com­mit­tees: These stand­ing orders shall apply to each Com­mit­tee of the Board unless a Com­mit­tee adopts its own stand­ing orders, in which case they must be endorsed by the whole Board. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in par­tic­u­lar will be expec­ted to have its own stand­ing orders cov­er­ing issues which arise only in the con­text of determ­in­ing plan­ning applic­a­tions (such as deal­ing with rep­res­ent­a­tions by applic­ants, man­age­ment of site vis­its, etc).

42. Cir­cu­la­tion of Com­mit­tee Doc­u­ments: Agen­das and minutes of all com­mit­tee meet­ings will be sent to all mem­bers of the Board.

43. Com­mit­tee Mem­ber­ship Cycles: Com­mit­tee mem­ber­ships will be estab­lished for a term of three years, and mem­ber­ship reviewed in full every three years. Appoint­ments made dur­ing each three year cycle will be for the remain­ing dur­a­tion of that three year cycle.

44. Min­im­um Board Rep­res­ent­a­tion on Com­mit­tees: Com­mit­tees shall have at least 6 Board mem­bers appoin­ted to their membership.

45. Quor­um for Com­mit­tee Meet­ings: Com­mit­tee meet­ings shall be quor­ate provided that at least 4 mem­bers are present to con­duct busi­ness. If meet­ings remain without a quor­um 15 minutes after the des­ig­nated start time then the meet­ing shall be post­poned with the Chief Exec­ut­ive and Prop­er Officer then respons­ible for arran­ging an appro­pri­ate date and time for the meet­ing to take place.

Del­eg­a­tion of Functions

46. Del­eg­a­tion of Author­ity: As set out in Sched­ule 1 of The Act, the Board may del­eg­ate author­ity (gen­er­ally or spe­cific­ally) to Com­mit­tees of the Board, to staff, or to any of its Members.

Sus­pen­sion and Amend­ments of Stand­ing Orders

47. Amend­ments to Stand­ing Orders: These stand­ing orders may be sus­pen­ded, var­ied, revoked or added to only by the NPA board, and any such alter­a­tions will require the con­sent of 10 mem­bers. Notice of the inten­tion to bring for­ward pro­posed amend­ments to stand­ing orders must be sig­ni­fied at the pre­vi­ous board meet­ing. Not­with­stand­ing this pro­vi­sion, no stand­ing order may be sus­pen­ded or amended if this would con­tra­vene any stat­utory pro­vi­sion or dir­ec­tion made by Scot­tish Ministers.

Oth­er Pro­vi­sions which togeth­er with these stand­ing orders, provide for the con­duct of NPA board meetings

• Loc­al Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1973, Part III (by vir­tue of Sched­ule 2, para­graph 12, of the Nation­al Parks Scot­land) Act)
  • Access to Meet­ings and Documents
• Mem­bers’ Code of Conduct
  • Regis­tra­tion of Interests

Annex 1 to CNPA Stand­ing Orders

Access to Meet­ings and Doc­u­ments –Rules Gov­ern­ing the CNPA

Sched­ule 2 para­graph 12 of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 applies Part IIIA of the Loc­al Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1973 to a Nation­al Park Author­ity. Its pro­vi­sions are broadly as follows:

1. Meet­ings Open to the Pub­lic, Unless: Meet­ings of the CNPA and its Com­mit­tees to be open to the pub­lic, unless: a) Con­fid­en­tial inform­a­tion would thereby be dis­closed in breach of an oblig­a­tion of con­fid­ence; this includes inform­a­tion fur­nished by the Gov­ern­ment on terms which for­bid dis­clos­ure to the pub­lic, of inform­a­tion for which dis­clos­ure is pro­hib­ited by law or a court order; b) These pro­vi­sions, includ­ing pro­vi­sions for mak­ing papers and oth­er inform­a­tion avail­able to the pub­lic, have been aug­men­ted by the Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Act 2002, Envir­on­ment­al Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2004, and the INSPIRE (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2009.

   Or, the CNPA resolves to exclude the pub­lic from con­sid­er­a­tion of a par­tic­u­lar item when they con­sider it is likely that there would be dis­clos­ure of exempt inform­a­tion as follows:

   a) Inform­a­tion relat­ing to a par­tic­u­lar employ­ee or poten­tial employ­ee of the CNPA, or par­tic­u­lar office hold­er or poten­tial office hold­er. b) Inform­a­tion relat­ing to a par­tic­u­lar indi­vidu­al who is an occu­pi­er of accom­mod­a­tion provided by the CNPA; a recip­i­ent of or applic­ant for fin­an­cial assist­ance from the CNPA; a recip­i­ent of or applic­ant for any ser­vice provided by the CNPA. c) Inform­a­tion relat­ing to the fin­an­cial or busi­ness affairs of any par­tic­u­lar per­son; d) The amount of any expendit­ure pro­posed to be incurred by the CNPA, or terms pro­posed under any par­tic­u­lar con­tract for prop­erty, goods or ser­vices. e) The iden­tity of any per­son offer­ing any par­tic­u­lar tender for a con­tract with the CNPA. f) Inform­a­tion relat­ing to any con­sulta­tion or nego­ti­ations in con­nec­tion with labour rela­tions mat­ters arising between the CNPA or Min­is­ter and employ­ees or office hold­ers of the CNPA. g) Any instruc­tions to Coun­sel and any opin­ion of Coun­sel in con­nec­tion with leg­al pro­ceed­ings by or against the CNPA, or the determ­in­a­tion of any mat­ter by the CNPA. h) Inform­a­tion which, if dis­closed to the pub­lic, would reveal that the CNPA pro­poses to make an order or dir­ec­tion under an enact­ment. i) Oth­er leg­al con­sid­er­a­tions pur­su­ant to our oblig­a­tions under the Data Pro­tec­tion Act 1998.

2. Res­ol­u­tion to Exclude Pub­lic: Where a res­ol­u­tion is passed to exclude the pub­lic on these grounds, the res­ol­u­tion must identi­fy the pro­ceed­ings affected, and state the reas­ons. The meet­ing is then not required to be open to the public.

3. Pub­lic Notice of Meet­ings: For a meet­ing of the CNPA, pub­lic notice of the time and place of the meet­ings shall be pos­ted at the offices of the CNPA at least 3 clear days before the meet­ing (unless the meet­ing is con­vened at short­er notice).

4. Facil­it­ies for Press: Where a meet­ing is open to the pub­lic, duly accred­ited mem­bers of the press shall be giv­en reas­on­able facil­it­ies (as far as is prac­tic­able) for tak­ing their report of the meet­ing (but not neces­sar­ily photographs).

5. Access to Agenda and Reports: Cop­ies of the agenda and reports for the meet­ing shall be open to inspec­tion by mem­bers of the pub­lic at the CNPA offices at least 3 days in advance of the meet­ing (except where the meet­ing is con­vened at short­er notice). It is for the Prop­er Officer to exclude from this such reports as are not likely to be open to the pub­lic. Cop­ies of reports and agenda shall be avail­able to the pub­lic at the meeting.

6. Con­sid­er­a­tion of Items: An item of busi­ness may not be con­sidered at a meet­ing unless the report (assum­ing it is open to the pub­lic) has been avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion as set out above, or if there are spe­cial cir­cum­stances (to be spe­cified in the minutes) which lead the Con­vener to the view that the item must be con­sidered as a mat­ter of urgency.

7. Mark­ing of Non-Pub­lic Doc­u­ments: Every report which is not open to the pub­lic shall be marked appro­pri­ately, with reas­on giv­en for its exclu­sion from pub­lic circulation.

8. Access for Media: Media out­lets may request a copy of a meet­ing agenda and reports.

9. Reten­tion of Doc­u­ments: Vari­ous meet­ing doc­u­ments shall be avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion up to 6 years after a meet­ing — the minutes, agenda, and rel­ev­ant reports.

10. Sum­mary of Closed Pro­ceed­ings: Where vari­ous parts of a meet­ing are closed to the pub­lic, to pre­vent dis­clos­ure of exempt inform­a­tion, and the minutes do not provide the pub­lic with a reas­on­ably fair and coher­ent record of the pro­ceed­ings, where pos­sible the prop­er office shall make a writ­ten sum­mary to provide such a record without dis­clos­ing the exempt information.

11. Applic­ab­il­ity to Com­mit­tees: The rules above apply to all Com­mit­tees of the CNPA in addi­tion to the full Board.

12. Register of Com­mit­tee Mem­bers: The CNPA shall keep a register of the names of mem­bers of each of its cur­rent com­mit­tees, open to the pub­lic. All mem­bers shall be con­tact­able through the CNPA Offices.

Annex 2

Draw­ing Lots / Tie-Break Procedure

Where oper­a­tion of the Stand­ing Orders elec­tion pro­ced­ures requires a tie-break pro­ced­ure to be imple­men­ted, the fol­low­ing pro­ced­ures shall apply.

Where the tie break is required between only two can­did­ates, a tie-break shall be effected by the toss of a coin. The Prop­er officer will agree with both can­did­ates which side of the coin to be used rep­res­ents heads and which side rep­res­ents tails. The Prop­er Officer shall ask whichever can­did­ate is lis­ted highest in the order of can­did­ates included in the ori­gin­al bal­lot to call either heads or tails, toss the coin and declare who is the win­ner of the tie break based on that coin toss. It will be at the Prop­er Officer’s sole dis­cre­tion to ensure the coin toss is clear and rep­res­ents a final con­clu­sion to the process.

Where the tie break is between three or more can­did­ates, the tie break shall be effected by each can­did­ate cut­ting a deck of cards. The win­ner of the tie break shall be based on the can­did­ate draw­ing the highest value card based on the suit rank, in ascend­ing order, of club, dia­mond, heart, spade and the card order in ascend­ing order of two to ace. Each can­did­ate shall retain their card drawn, with the Prop­er Officer declar­ing the can­did­ate to be excluded by that tie break based on their card held.