CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 29^th March 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS AND ENGAGE­MENT STRATEGY 2018 – 2022 PRO­GRESS REPORT

Title: COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS AND ENGAGE­MENT STRATEGY 2018 – 2022 PRO­GRESS REPORT

Pre­pared by: FRAN­COISE VAN BUUREN, HEAD OF COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS AND ENGAGEMENT

Pur­pose

This paper presents the pro­gress made against the Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment Strategy 2018 – 2022 dur­ing ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ and sets out the pri­or­ity areas of work for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀. The strategy sup­ports the deliv­ery of the Cor­por­ate Plan and involves all Board and staff mem­bers in its deliv­ery. It con­tains the stra­tegic com­mu­nic­a­tions pri­or­it­ies, aims and out­comes for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA).

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Note the pro­gress made against the CNPA Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment Strategy 2018 – 2022 dur­ing ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ and the pro­posed pri­or­ity areas of work for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀.

COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS AND ENGAGE­MENT STRATEGY 2018 – 2022 PRO­GRESS REPORT – FOR INFORMATION

Stra­tegic Context

1. The CNPA provides lead­er­ship for the Nation­al Park and has a key role in coordin­at­ing the deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) across pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions work­ing in the Park.

2. The NPPP provides the frame­work for the CNPA’s Cor­por­ate Plan which sets out what the CNPA’s con­tri­bu­tion will be to deliv­er the NPPP.

3. With­in this stra­tegic con­text, the CNPA’s Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment Strategy sets out how our com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­it­ies will sup­port the deliv­ery of the CNPA’s Cor­por­ate Plan and the col­lab­or­at­ive deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and is delivered by all CNPA staff and Board members.

Pri­or­it­ies

1. Giv­en our lim­ited resources, the strategy aims to achieve the best pos­sible out­comes through improved part­ner­ship work­ing, good use of research and eval­u­ation, innov­a­tion and a stronger focus on the use of digit­al communications.

2. The strategy will build on our pre­vi­ous work to increase aware­ness, engage­ment and involve­ment in the Park and con­tin­ue with our com­mu­nic­a­tions cam­paigns to deliv­er a con­sist­ent and strong mes­sage to our tar­get audi­ences. Our cam­paigns are:

   a) ​‘Make it Yours’ which encour­ages loc­al busi­ness and res­id­ents to pro­mote the Park, deliv­er a bet­ter visitor/​customer exper­i­ence and bene­fit from the Park brand;

   b) Cairngorms Nature which encour­ages vis­it­ors and res­id­ents to get out and enjoy the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Park and;

   c) Act­ive Cairngorms which encour­ages vis­it­ors and res­id­ents to be more act­ive in the Park.

3. The Strategy also sets out clear long-term out­comes and pri­or­ity work areas along with tar­get per­form­ance indic­at­ors to help mon­it­or progress.

Fin­ance

1. The budget and staff resources iden­ti­fied for the deliv­ery of the Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment Strategy are included in the budget alloc­ated for the deliv­ery of the CNPA Cor­por­ate Plan and the oper­a­tion­al plan ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀.

Stra­tegic Risk Management

1. The Stra­tegic Risk Register for the CNPA has been updated to reflect the Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment Strategy and agreed by the Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee. Intern­al aud­it­ors have reviewed our digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions and stake­hold­er engage­ment work and their recom­mend­a­tions are being implemented.

Suc­cess Measures

1. Spe­cif­ic tar­gets iden­ti­fied in the Com­mu­nic­a­tions & Engage­ment Strategy to be achieved by 2022 are:

   a) Main­tain aware­ness by vis­it­ors — 91% of vis­it­ors are aware they are in a Nation­al Park, of those 93% are aware before their vis­it. 47% can describe the park brand (Vis­it­or Sur­vey 2020).

   b) Main­tain aware­ness by MSPs — most know a little about the CNP, a third know it well/​a fair amount, 43% are favour­able towards it (MSP sur­vey 2020).

   c) Increase aware­ness through digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions — 400,000 web­site ses­sions and 50,000 social media fol­low­ers (google analytics).

   d) Increase engage­ment in our cam­paigns – 3000 par­ti­cipants enjoy the Cairngorms Nature Big Week­end, 600 par­ti­cipants in Wee Walks Week, 2,500 John Muir Awards under­taken each year and 100 vis­it­or facing staff attend ​‘Make it Yours’ present­a­tions each year (CNPA eval­u­ation & feed­back surveys).

   e) Increase involve­ment in caring for the Park — 220 Brand Charter Hold­ers, 60 juni­or rangers and 30 volun­teer rangers are recruited and trained. A vis­it­or giv­ing scheme is tri­alled to raise funds for the Cairngorms Trust in sup­port of two com­munity pro­jects (CNPA evaluation).

Pro­gress made dur­ing 2018

1. Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions & Social Media

We anti­cip­ate con­sid­er­able change both in terms of how we com­mu­nic­ate and engage with our audi­ences and in terms of the polit­ic­al cli­mate and our avail­able resources. Con­sequently, we have iden­ti­fied ​‘Digit­al First’ as one of our core prin­ciples. We will con­tin­ue to build our digit­al and social media cap­ab­il­it­ies in recog­ni­tion that more people are enga­ging with us in this way and it provides an effect­ive and cost-effi­cient means of reach­ing spe­cif­ic audi­ences. The Com­mu­nic­a­tions & Engage­ment Strategy has set tar­gets to increase aware­ness through digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions by achiev­ing 400,000 web­site ses­sions and 50,000 social media fol­low­ers by 2022. Dur­ing 2018 we achieved 240,968 web­site ses­sions and 33,000 social media fol­low­ers. An over­view of our digit­al per­form­ance dur­ing 2018 is presen­ted in Annex I.

1. Engage­ment & Involve­ment in our campaigns

Our com­mu­nic­a­tions cam­paigns con­tin­ue to build momentum res­ult­ing in increased engage­ment through our com­mu­nic­a­tions and events pro­grammes as well as great­er com­mit­ment to get involved in the work of the Park. A report on pro­gress made dur­ing 2018 is presen­ted in Annex 2. Below is an over­view of the pro­gress made against our agreed tar­gets for ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉.

C&E Activ­ity	2018⁄19 Tar­get	Pro­gress to date	Com­ments
Make It Yours Campaign	Present­a­tions: 100 vis­it­or facing staff Brand Charter hold­ers: 163	91 Vis­it­or facing staff 163 brand charter holders	Feed­back is pos­it­ive and 100% would wel­come CNPA back for future events. Brand Charter hold­ers, busi­nesses and com­munit­ies sup­port is avail­able online includ­ing a Gael­ic as an Asset toolkit. 10 part­ner­ship agree­ments with loc­al inform­a­tion centres are in place.
Cairngorms Nature Campaign	CNBW attendees: 2200  CN Sem­in­ar attendees: 135  SM fol­low­ers: 14.4K Volun­teer­ing – 30 VRs	CNBW 2018 attendees: 1590  CNS 2018 attendees: 98  CNAP & Forest Strategy launch attendees 140+ Holyrood exhib­i­tion & event 27 guests plus 31 MSPs SM fol­low­ers 19.9K Volun­teer Rangers – 26	CNBW 2019 pro­gramme of 60+ events to be launched by April and opens 10th May when the Cairngorms Trust will launch a vol­un­tary vis­it­or giv­ing scheme. Cairngorms Nature Action Plan 2019 – 24 launched 1 March 2019, along with the CNP Forest Strategy. They were also presen­ted at an event and exhib­i­tion at Holyrood hos­ted by Graeme Dey MSP 19 – 21 Feb. Volun­teer­ing Cairngorms event on 23 Feb had over 100 attendees and a fur­ther 12 volun­teer rangers are being recruited.
Act­ive Cairngorms Campaign	Wee Walks Week: 440  Health Walk Groups: 16 (reduced from 25) SM fol­low­ers tar­get 2,880	WWW 2018: 439  Health Walk Groups: 16  SM fol­low­ers: 3,759	WWW will take place 9 – 15 Sept 2019. CNPA sup­ports 16 Cairngorms Health Walk groups, 51 new walk­ers joined the pro­gramme & 9 train­ing ses­sions had 91 attendances.
Digit­al Communications	Web­site: Users (new) Ses­sions 228K Ave page views 3  Social Media: Fol­low­ers 28.8K Reach (new) Engage­ment rate (new): Face­book Twitter	Web­site: Users 197,506  Ses­sions 240,968  Ave page views 2.88  Social Media: Fol­low­ers 33K Reach 3,914, 261  Ave. Engage­ment rate: Face­book — 7% Twit­ter — 2%	A digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions strategy has been pre­pared and is being imple­men­ted. Ana­lys­is of 2018 stat­ist­ics along­side a review of our web­site is in pro­gress. New web­site host­ing and sup­port ser­vice agen­cies will be in place by April. New digit­al tools have been intro­duced includ­ing an online media lib­rary, story map­ping, infograph­ics, google maps and use of video to make our con­tent more dynam­ic and engaging.

Pri­or­it­ies for 2019

1. At the Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Brand Board group meet­ing held in Feb­ru­ary it was agreed the focus dur­ing 2019 should be:

   a) To use a Com­mu­nic­a­tions Grid approach to bet­ter co-ordin­ate and focus our com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­ity so that there is a strong com­mu­nic­a­tions theme each month which deliv­ers a more con­sist­ent mes­sage with our tar­get audiences.

   b) To intro­duce a Board Buddy Sys­tem to ensure all com­munity coun­cils have a clear point of con­tact with the CNPA Board via the dir­ectly elec­ted Board mem­ber and oth­er Board mem­bers to encour­age res­id­ents to engage with us more reg­u­larly through an ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tion about the Park and the work of the CNPA.

   c) To con­tin­ue to build our Digit­al Capa­city and pro­duce enga­ging and dynam­ic con­tent to extend our over­all reach and engage­ment levels.

   d) To share stor­ies to illus­trate the role of the CNPA and pro­mote our achieve­ments with loc­al res­id­ents and deliv­ery partners.

Next Steps

1. A pro­gress report for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ will be pre­pared and presen­ted to the Board in March 2020.

Fran­coise van Buuren 28 Feb­ru­ary 2019 francoisevanbuuren@​cairngorms.​co.​uk