190614CNPABdPaper3Annex1CorporatePlanReporting

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

COR­POR­ATE PLAN REPORTING

Con­ser­va­tion and Land Management

Pri­or­ity I – Sup­port land­scape-scale con­ser­va­tion, spe­cific­ally the expan­sion of nat­ive and mont­ane wood­land, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, nat­ur­al flood man­age­ment and Caper­cail­lie management

Key Work Areas	Update
• Deliv­er peat­land res­tor­a­tion and wood­land expan­sion targets	Peat­land Action awar­ded £1.3million in 2018⁄19 for ten pro­jects cov­er­ing 1052 hec­tares. This year a fur­ther 9 pro­jects approx­im­ately cov­er­ing 2500 hec­tares are in the pipeline with a budget of £1.5m. The nation­al budget for Peat­land Action is £3m so com­pet­i­tion will be high for funds. Wood­land expan­sion is pro­gress­ing well in some key areas through deer man­age­ment e.g. on Mar Lodge Estate and the ​‘Cairngorms Con­nect’ Estates (owned by RSPB, Wild­land Ltd, Forest and Land Scot­land and SNH). We are also in dis­cus­sion with a num­ber of oth­er private estates poten­tially lead­ing to some large schemes of 200ha or more. In the six East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship estates we anti­cip­ate wood­land expan­sion of 2 – 3000 hec­tares over the next ten years, the major­ity of which will be through regen­er­a­tion on Mar Lodge estate. Across the Nation­al Park as a whole we need to see great­er uptake of the Forestry Grant Scheme if we are to achieve NPPP targets.
• Devel­op and deliv­er Cairngorms Nature Strategy with wider partnership	The review of the first Cairngorms Nature Action Plan (2013−2018) was well received by stake­hold­ers and part­ners at the Cairngorms Nature sem­in­ar in June 2018. The on-line report http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​p​a​r​t​n​e​r​s​h​i​p​/​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​-​p​a​r​k​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​g​i​e​s​/cnap describes the partnership’s main achieve­ments and pro­gress against tar­gets. The next Action Plan (2019 – 2024) was launched at a Holyrood recep­tion and in Boat of Garten in Feb­ru­ary 2019The Strategy Group con­tin­ues to meet quarterly to mon­it­or and over­see deliv­ery of the Plan.
• Deliv­er Caper­cail­lie Framework	The £550,000 HLF and LEAD­ER sup­por­ted devel­op­ment phase is ongo­ing with work focussed on identi­fy­ing where res­id­ents and vis­it­ors can play a part in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion. The pilot pro­gramme of com­munity engage­ment work in Carr-bridge is put­ting people at the heart of con­ser­va­tion decision mak­ing, com­ple­ment­ing audi­ence devel­op­ment work with oth­er com­munit­ies of place and interest, work to estab­lish more inform­a­tion about the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion and work to devel­op pro­pos­als for wood­land expan­sion and enhance­ment. Learn­ing and evid­ence from the devel­op­ment phase will sup­port a second round applic­a­tion for a £3.5 mil­lion deliv­ery phase in March 2020.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

Pri­or­ity 2 — Ensure deer man­age­ment is focused on deliv­er­ing pub­lic interest pri­or­it­ies spe­cific­ally the expan­sion of nat­ive wood­lands and peat­land restoration

Key Work Areas	Update
• Sup­port pop­u­la­tion mod­el­ling and herb­i­vore impact assessments	Util­ising fund­ing from SNH, Hab­it­at Impact Assess­ments (HIA) car­ried out over bal­ance of land­hold­ings with­in West Grampi­an Deer Man­age­ment Group (DMG) and South Deeside North Angus DMG. Wood­land deer pop­u­la­tion and impact assess­ment pro­ject launched across Aber­nethy and Rothiemurchus (Cairngorms Spey­side DMG). Oth­er HIA pro­jects agreed for Spring 2019 across Dor­back, Phoines, Ralia (pos­sibly Del­nabo), fun­ded by estates (CSDMG). Sup­port­ing pop­u­la­tion mod­el devel­op­ment, based on reg­u­lar counts, across West Grampi­an DMG and South Deeside North Angus DMG. Cairngorms Spey­side DMG pop­u­la­tion man­age­ment based on hab­it­at per­form­ance. Facil­it­at­ing ongo­ing review and dis­cus­sion of cull­ing regimes to meet dif­fer­ent land use policies between Wild­land, Atholl, Dalnacardoch.
• Work closely with Deer Man­age­ment Groups to deliv­er pub­lic interest priorities	Asso­ci­ation of Deer Man­age­ment Groups (ADMG) ini­ti­ated ​‘Health Check’ review of Deer Man­age­ment Plan imple­ment­a­tion (pub­lic interest pri­or­it­ies) car­ried out, pri­or to SNH review of all DMGs in 2019, across Cairngorms Spey­side DMG, South Deeside North Angus DMG, West Grampi­an DMG, Upper Deeside DMG, East Grampi­an DMG. Res­ults repor­ted to DMGs, ADMG, SNH. The review is ongo­ing with report­ing expec­ted in Septem­ber 2019. Work­ing with SNH, South Deeside North Angus DMG and East Grampi­an DMG regard­ing cull plan­ning to address Caen­lochan SAC impacts.

Pri­or­ity 3 — Sup­port sus­tain­able moor­land man­age­ment to deliv­er great­er hab­it­at diversity and good man­age­ment practice

Key Work Areas

Update

• Deliv­er with estates the work pro­gramme of the East Cairngorms Moor­land Partnership

Work Pro­gramme agreed cov­er­ing poten­tial for 9 indi­vidu­al ECMP pro­ject top­ics. # Ini­tial phase of Wader Mon­it­or­ing pro­ject (in part­ner­ship with BTO) com­plete and set to con­tin­ue for a second year in 2019. # Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion pro­jects under­way on Bal­mor­al, Inver­cauld, Mar. Poten­tial pro­jects iden­ti­fied for 2019 on Glenavon, Glen­liv­et, Mar Lodge. # Recent wood­land expan­sion and poten­tial quan­ti­fied. We anti­cip­ate wood­land expan­sion of 2 – 3000 hec­tares over the next ten years. # Dis­cus­sions with ECMP and loc­al Rap­tor Study groups on num­bers of rap­tors breed­ing on the estates has helped devel­op a shared under­stand­ing of rap­tor status. More field­work planned in 2019 to provide more detailed information.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

• Estab­lish a Cairngorms Upland Advis­ory Group	# Muir­burn plans reviewed and map­ping in pro­gress with all six estates indic­at­ing areas of ​‘no burn’. # Col­lect­ing and col­lat­ing data on wild­life man­age­ment (includ­ing Moun­tain Hares) with view to devel­op­ment of a planned man­age­ment approach. Imple­ment­a­tion of moun­tain hare mon­it­or­ing as developed by JHI/GWCT con­tin­ues. # Enga­ging People: devel­op­ing pro­pos­al for Bal­later-based inter­pret­a­tion facil­ity. Cairngorms Uplands Advis­ory group met for the first time in March 2019. It was an ini­tial set up meet­ing to set out remit and ​‘ground rules’. It was well atten­ded and already has stim­u­lated some use­ful sug­ges­tions for CNPA play­ing a lead role in devel­op­ing policies of Nation­al interest e.g. use CUAG to help devel­op Best Prac­tice Guid­ance for ATV use in the uplands.
• Elim­in­ate rap­tor per­se­cu­tion and devel­op wild­life tour­ism pro­ject around raptors	5 spe­cial con­stables appoin­ted in CNP. Work on devel­op­ing a wild­life crime rap­tor track­er with BTO ongo­ing. Dis­cus­sions with Wer­ritty ​‘grouse man­age­ment review’ ongo­ing. It is inten­ded that the Bal­later inter­pret­a­tion will include ele­ments of rap­tor conservation/​interest but this will rely on rap­tors main­tain ter­rit­or­ies across their nat­ur­al range.

Vis­it­or Experience

Pri­or­ity I — Con­tin­ue to ensure vis­it­or infra­struc­ture meets the expect­a­tions of vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park and help deliv­er a sus­tain­able tour­ism economy

Key Work Areas	Update
• Fin­ish Spey­side Way exten­sion, the Moun­tains and the People Pro­gramme and start Deeside Way extension	Spey­side Way Exten­sion – fund­ing and plan­ning con­sent in place to com­plete con­struc­tion autumn 2019. Work also under­way with THC and MC to update inform­a­tion and inter­pret­a­tion on the new route. Deeside Way – Brae­mar to Inver­cauld Bridge plan­ning con­sent approved with fund­ing being invest­ig­ated. Moun­tains & People — 67% of moun­tain path improve­ments complete
• Deliv­er Tour­ism Action Plan and devel­op and deliv­er with part­ners a Vis­it­or Giv­ing scheme	Tour­ism Action Plan – Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship twice yearly. Pro­gramme is on tar­get with the excep­tion of delays in VS Total Qual­ity Des­tin­a­tion Pro­gramme. Vis­it­or Giv­ing – CNPA Board agreed this work June 2018 & Cairngorms Trust launched in May 2019. Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund (RTIF) — CNPA suc­cess­fully secured fund­ing for two pro­jects on Nation­al Nature Reserves at Glen­more (mul­ti­use tar­mac path) and Muir of Din­net (car park­ing, toi­let upgrade and sewage dis­pos­al) with work on both sched­uled for com­ple­tion in 2019.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

• Pro­gress with deliv­ery of Cairngorm/​Glenmore Strategy

Forestry & Land Scot­land is devel­op­ing vis­it­or man­age­ment plan includ­ing the RTIF pro­ject above HIE hav­ing com­mis­sioned an uplift review to determ­ine future devel­op­ment at Cairngorm is eval­u­at­ing long term oppor­tun­it­ies while improv­ing the vis­it­or inter­pret­a­tion at Coire Cas in 2019. Funicu­lar is closed for 2019 while engin­eer­ing invest­ig­a­tions are fully eval­u­ated. CNPA is attend­ing the Funicu­lar Response Group which is coordin­at­ing the future. HIE has provided Aviemore and Glen­more Com­munity Trust (AGCT) a fund­ing pack­age of over £90,000) to sup­port their devel­op­ment of detailed plans for com­munity own­er­ship of the Cairngorm Moun­tain Ski Resort.

Pri­or­ity 2 — Increase phys­ic­al activ­ity in both res­id­ents and vis­it­ors and sup­port deliv­ery of Scotland’s Nat­ur­al Health Service

Key Work Areas	Update
• Devel­op and deliv­er Act­ive Cairngorms with Act­ive Aviemore and Health Walks as flag­ship projects	Act­ive Aviemore – CNPA in part­ner­ship with High­land Coun­cil, Hitrans, Sus­trans, NHS High­land and AVCC has com­pleted Stage I Pro­ject Devel­op­ment study into improv­ing multi-use trans­port in Aviemore. Fund­ing is agreed to pro­duce detailed designs by 2020. Detailed designs are being pro­duced for the area lead­ing into the new hos­pit­al with £200,000 fund­ing secured for build with match fund­ing anti­cip­ated once the design is agreed. CNPA is now sup­port­ing 16 Health Walk groups with­in the Nation­al Park with those out­with the Park sup­por­ted by loc­al authorities.
• Expand and deliv­er volun­teer­ing pro­gramme and spe­cific­ally Volun­teer Rangers	14 volun­teer rangers trained with 12 more com­plet­ing train­ing in June 2019 as part of our ongo­ing pro­ject sup­por­ted by Cairngorms LEAD­ER. Work under­way on sus­tain­ing volun­teer work developed by Moun­tains and People project.

Pri­or­ity 3 — Cre­ate a ​‘Park for All’ by encour­aging people from all back­grounds to come and recre­ate, learn in or vis­it the Nation­al Park

Key Work Areas	Update
• Con­tin­ue to sup­port and pro­mote the John Muir Award and Juni­or Ranger programme	Some 3357 people com­pleted a John Muir Award in and around Cairngorms by Oct 2018. 66 young people trained as Juni­or Rangers in 2018. Juni­or Ranger pro­grammes will start again in June 2019.
• Work with Inclus­ive Cairngorms and partners	Inclus­ive Cairngorms is cur­rently work­ing as an ​‘on-line’ con­sulta­tion group.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

to reduce bar­ri­ers and encour­age participation.	Back­bone are being sup­por­ted to work with some 100 Syr­i­an refugees based in and around Inverness encour­aging them to vis­it and enjoy the Nation­al Park while learn­ing how to repeat and share these exper­i­ences with others.

Rur­al Development

Pri­or­ity I — Sup­port deliv­ery of hous­ing for loc­al needs through an effi­cient and effect­ive plan­ning service

Key Work Areas	Update
• Devel­op and imple­ment Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020	Con­sulta­tion on the pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan was com­pleted in April 2019 and response are now being com­piled into the ​‘Sched­ule 4’ doc­u­ments for exam­in­a­tion. Work is on tar­get with the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme and will be form­ally repor­ted to the Board in August 2019, pri­or to sub­mis­sion to the DPEA.
• Sup­port com­munity-led hous­ing in the Nation­al Park	5 com­munit­ies are now act­ively look­ing to devel­op com­munity led hous­ing pro­jects. Dul­nain Bridge – Devel­op­ment Trust now estab­lished (deliv­ery mech­an­ism). Work­ing Group have under­taken own hous­ing sur­vey and ana­lys­is. Site for poten­tial col­lab­or­a­tion iden­ti­fied (with the landown­er). Rur­al Hous­ing Fund (RHF) applic­a­tion for feas­ib­il­ity study in pro­gress. Brae­mar – Feas­ib­il­ity study for a hous­ing pro­ject near­ing com­ple­tion. Bal­later – Work­ing group estab­lished and look­ing to update hous­ing needs demands sur­vey whilst invest­ig­at­ing poten­tial sites and options avail­able. Boat of Garten – Steer­ing group has been estab­lished and explor­ing poten­tial hous­ing sites. Tomin­toul – Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Devel­op­ment Trust (TGDT) have secure feas­ib­il­ity fund­ing to review poten­tial to devel­op Old School site.

Pri­or­ity 2 — Sup­port com­munit­ies, spe­cific­ally focus­sing on the most fra­gile, to deliv­er their agen­das for change

Key Work Areas

Update

• Con­clude Tomintoul/​Glenlivet Land­scape Part­ner­ship, devel­op new focus area in Badenoch and help deliv­er Great Place Scheme

The hugely ambi­tious Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship is pro­gress­ing well. The Dis­cov­ery Centre and the bird hide, both in Tomin­toul are up and run­ning and attract­ing a lot of vis­it­ors.. Fant­ast­ic work has been achieved on farms to improve the water envir­on­ment includ­ing bank sta­bil­isa­tion with woody debris and live wil­low spil­ing and more recently remov­al of obstruc­tions to migrat­ing sal­mon. Sta­bil­isa­tion of Blairfindy Castle, first stages of devel­op­ing Scalan Mill and path build­ing on the Spey­side Way Spur have all star­ted. The Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et – Cairngorms Dark Sky Park (DSP) was launched in Decem­ber in Tomin­toul and this has led to extremely detailed applic­a­tion for fund­ing for a £1.3m obser­vat­ory facil­ity that will work extremely well with the DSP.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

• Sup­port com­munity organ­isa­tions to deliv­er pro­jects that help deliv­er NPPP	Badenoch Great Place Scheme is now estab­lished with Board and Team meet­ing reg­u­larly. Pro­ject Officer, employed by Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey star­ted in April. The first com­mis­sioned stud­ies are report­ing over sum­mer 2019. VABS is work­ing on Com­munity Action Plan reviews in Lag­gan and Blair Atholl. Key part­ner in the BGPP, sit­ting on Board, Team and employ­ing pro­ject officer. MAP – Sup­por­ted cre­ation of the Upper Don­side Busi­ness & Tour­ism Group, LEAD­ER Applic­a­tion for a com­munity trans­port ini­ti­at­ive in Upper Don­side and ongo­ing sup­port for the Brae­mar Care Ini­ti­at­ive. Inver­al­lan 2020 – sup­port with HLF and LEAD­ER applic­a­tions to devel­op a com­munity facil­ity and secure future of build­ing for pub­lic use. Grant­own YMCA – secured LEAD­ER fund­ing for devel­op­ment of com­munity cinema Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Devel­op­ment Trust — now has 254 mem­bers, 9 paid employ­ees and 20+ act­ive volun­teers. Reg­u­lar advice, guid­ance and sup­port to the Board and PO to deliv­er their 2018 – 22 Stra­tegic Plan. They now have two oper­a­tion assets, the newly ren­ov­ated Dis­cov­ery Centre (which recently cel­eb­rated 10,000th vis­it­or) and The Smug­glers Hostel. In addi­tion to grow­ing these assets, the Trust have delivered suc­cess­ful events (Skerry­vore and Go Wild) and are invest­ig­at­ing pos­sible new income gen­er­at­ing schemes. HIE have recently fun­ded a gov­ernance health check and a facil­it­a­tion pro­cess as some sens­it­iv­it­ies have aris­en with loc­al busi­nesses as the Trust pro­gresses towards fin­an­cial self-sus­tain­ab­il­ity. AOCC – Have sub­mit­ted a joint applic­a­tion with CBP to Brexit Stake­hold­er Engage­ment Fund to run 2 x work­shop on Brexit impact on rur­al com­munit­ies. Not heard back yet.
• Suc­cess­fully con­clude LEAD­ER pro­gramme and con­sider future fund­ing for Com­munity Led Loc­al Development	The Cairngorms Trust now has approved 32 pro­jects in the pro­gramme to date, with a total value of over £3.8 mil­lion. Twelve of these pro­jects cov­er Park-wide oper­a­tions; two cov­er all of the Aber­deen­shire area of the Cairngorms NP; with remain­ing applic­a­tions com­ing from 13 dif­fer­ent com­munit­ies with­in the Cairngorms. Almost £1.5 mil­lion of the pro­ject value sup­ports Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment and Farm Diver­si­fic­a­tion pro­jects. The Trust has now fully com­mit­ted all pro­ject fund­ing alloc­a­tions. There is some poten­tial that remain­ing unfun­ded ​“pipeline” pro­jects may be fun­ded through resid­ual alloc­a­tions recovered cent­rally by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. How­ever, this pos­i­tion is uncer­tain and pro­ject applic­ants are being made fully aware of the lim­ited funds cur­rently avail­able and there­fore of the risks in work­ing on pro­ject applic­a­tions at this time.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

Pri­or­ity 3 — Work closely with the busi­ness com­munity and part­ners to sup­port a sus­tain­able Park economy

Key Work Areas	Update
• Review and help deliv­er Eco­nom­ic Strategy for the Park with partners	The Eco­nom­ic Strategy has been reviewed with part­ners includ­ing HIE, loc­al author­it­ies and Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship and an Eco­nom­ic Action Plan will be con­sul­ted on from June 2019.
• Ensure impacts of A9 dualling are under­stood and addressed where appro­pri­ate by the Park Authority	CNPA has fed back on vari­ous sec­tion A9 dualling pro­ject. Objec­tion remains on sec­tion between Aviemore and Car­rbridge in rela­tion to lack of pro­vi­sion for non-motor­ised users.

Cor­por­ate Services

Pri­or­ity I — Imple­ment the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and embed the organ­isa­tion­al and cul­tur­al improve­ments to make the CNPA the best small pub­lic body in Scotland

Key Work Areas	Update
• Imple­ment, review and refresh Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy as part of con­tinu­al improve­ment work.	Most of the actions of ODS2 have been com­pleted and we are com­men­cing the pro­cess of draft­ing the next phase of the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy (ODS3). An all staff away day took place at Glen­more Lodge which included an improve­ment work­shop to help identi­fy poten­tial improve­ment pro­jects to be taken for­ward as part of the ODS3. Oth­er inter­ven­tions that will inform the ODS3 include action plan­ning from the seni­or man­age­ment ​“Insights” train­ing event; pro­pos­als around pos­it­ive men­tal health that have emerged through the intro­duc­tion of Men­tal Health First Aid­er train­ing and policy devel­op­ment; the Best Com­pan­ies Staff Sur­vey which will take place in September/​October. Work toward the object­ive of the ​“Best Small Pub­lic Body in Scot­land” was marked by the Author­ity being awar­ded an ​“Above and Bey­ond” award by Fam­ily Friendly Work­ing Scot­land for going far bey­ond the levels that may be expec­ted of an organ­isa­tion our size in our range of policies to sup­port work-life bal­ance and flex­ible working.
• Sup­port effect­ive staff con­sulta­tion processes	SCF con­tin­ues to work effect­ively, with sup­port of 2 board mem­bers and good engage­ment with the trade uni­on. Policies con­sul­ted with staff and adop­ted in the last 6 months include the new Per­form­ance Man­age­ment Policy, Sup­port­ing Staff Through Men­o­pause Policy, and the Unreas­on­ably Demand­ing Cor­res­pond­ence Policy.

Pri­or­ity 2 — Ensure that the office exten­sion, exist­ing accom­mod­a­tion and ICT facil­it­ies are ​‘fit for pur­pose’ and help to deliv­er the ODS

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

Key Work Areas	Update
• Com­plete exten­sion project	Exten­sion com­pleted in August, and staff moved in to the build­ing. Oper­a­tion of the exten­sion to date has been very suc­cess­ful, with the form­al open­ing held on 16 Novem­ber. The final account for the devel­op­ment is now draf­ted and sub­ject to final veri­fic­a­tion. The fig­ures indic­ate that the devel­op­ment remained on budget and rent­al for the exten­sion has now com­menced on basis of expec­ted values.
• Imple­ment GIS Strategy	The imple­ment­a­tion of GIS Strategy and ser­vice pro­vi­sion con­tin­ues to make slower than planned pro­gress dur­ing the cur­rent year, with a num­ber of inter­rup­tions caused by capa­city restraints with­in the Author­ity while oth­er key pro­jects are pro­gressed, and also some inter­rup­tion in com­mu­nic­a­tions with con­sult­ants. We are not as far for­ward with this work as hoped by the end of 2018⁄19 and this will need added impetus in 2019⁄20.
Imple­ment cyber secur­ity frame­work and wider IT development	Cyber Secur­ity Plus Accred­it­a­tion has now been achieved fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of work on 3 medi­um and 3 low recom­mend­a­tions, many of which cor­rel­ate with actions high­lighted from a recent intern­al audit report. Pro­cure­ment for imple­ment­a­tion of Cus­tom­er Rela­tion­ship Man­age­ment (CRM) and enhanced Doc­u­ment and Records Man­age­ment Sys­tem (DRMS) was com­pleted in this report­ing peri­od with final con­tract­or inter­views being held in Devel­op­ment and imple­ment­a­tion of phase I, the CRM star­ted in Janu­ary 2019 and we aim to roll-out the sys­tem over the sum­mer of 2019. Staff changes and work pri­or­it­isa­tion have led to a short delay in our ori­gin­al roll-out plans of May/​June 2019. How­ever, this delay has not sig­ni­fic­antly impacted pro­ject objectives.

Pri­or­ity 3 — Deliv­er ongo­ing ser­vice improve­ment, includ­ing appro­pri­ate shared ser­vice devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion, to the Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support

Key Work Areas	Update
• Deliv­er cor­por­ate sup­port to Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion, and char­it­able and com­munity organisations.	HR sup­port (policy devel­op­ment, case­load and payroll) for SLC com­menced in Janu­ary 2018, and is ongo­ing. CNPA provide payroll ser­vice to Out­door Access Trust for Scot­land. Ad hoc HR sup­port provided as required to loc­al char­it­able trusts. The Author­ity con­tin­ues to act as the account­able body for Cairngorms LEAD­ER and sup­port the admin­is­tra­tion of the LEAD­ER Pro­gramme. The Author­ity provides sup­port to the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group Trust (“Cairngorms Trust”) as the char­ity devel­ops and rolls out its approach to devel­op­ing vol­un­tary dona­tions mech­an­isms, through sup­port­ing the costs of the Trust Man­ager post and provid­ing a small admin­is­tra­tion budget. The Authority’s sup­port means that cur­rently 100% of all dona­tions raised by the Trust go towards pro­ject invest­ments in the Nation­al Park.
• Provide accommodation	Grant­own Archive Pro­ject using Grant­own office tem­por­ar­ily for archiv­ing work. The Grant­own office has also been

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

and facil­it­ies sup­port to NPPP deliv­ery partners	used for occa­sion­al hot-desk­ing by part­ner staff. The Bal­later office hub con­tin­ues to accom­mod­ate a range of part­ners, with Vis­itScot­land now seek­ing to accom­mod­ate a mem­ber of staff with­in the hub on a part time basis.

Pri­or­ity 4 — Pro­mote and sup­port the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance and man­age­ment, includ­ing equal­it­ies actions, with­in the Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support

Key Work Areas	Update
• Design and imple­ment effect­ive and effi­cient man­age­ment and con­trol systems.	Our intern­al and extern­al audit review pro­cesses con­tin­ue to con­firm the effect­ive­ness and effi­ciency of our man­age­ment and con­trol sys­tems. Fur­ther inform­a­tion on the work of audit over the course of the year can be found in the Audit and Risk Committee’s annu­al report. Over­all, there is pos­it­ive feed­back on design and imple­ment­a­tion of our man­age­ment and con­trol sys­tems. http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​2​3​1​1​2​0​1​8​/​1​8​1​1​2​3​A​u​C​t​t​e​e​P​a​p​e​r​5​A​A​1​7​1​8​A​u​d​i​t​C​t​t​e​e​A​n​n​u​a​l​R​e​p​o​r​t.pdf Our extern­al audit is due to com­mence in June and draft accounts high­light the Author­ity has achieved very close to the tar­geted break-even pos­i­tion for 2018⁄19.
• Imple­ment Green­ing Strategy and deliv­er Youth Devel­op­ment Strategy	Green­ing Policy adop­ted dur­ing Cli­mate change week in Octo­ber 2018. Youth Devel­op­ment Strategy adop­ted winter 2017, and imple­men­ted on an on-going basis: — IT appren­tice joined in August 2018, and pro­gress­ing extremely well with pos­it­ive pub­li­city on the Devel­op­ing Young Work­force blog — https://​dywich​.co​.uk/​b​l​o​g​/​r​e​e​c​e​-​m​u​s​g​r​a​v​e​-​a​p​p​r​e​n​t​i​c​e​-​i​t​-​t​e​c​h​n​i​c​i​a​n​-​c​a​i​r​n​g​o​r​m​s​-​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​-​p​a​r​k​?​p​l​a​t​f​o​r​m​=​h​o​o​t​suite Hill Tracks Intern appoin­ted in May 2019 on a 3‑month con­tract; two work shad­ow­ing oppor­tun­it­ies sup­por­ted in part­ner­ship with UHI.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions

Pri­or­ity I — Deliv­er the Com­mu­nic­a­tion and Engage­ment Strategy and increase aware­ness, engage­ment and involve­ment with the Park

Key Work Areas	Update
• Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions & Social Media	A Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions strategy has been pre­pared and is being imple­men­ted. 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 with a com­bined reach of our social media con­tent at almost 4 mil­lion. An over­view of our digit­al per­form­ance dur­ing 2018 was presen­ted to the CNPA Board in March 2019.
• Cam­paigns: Cairngorms Nature, Active	Cairngorms Nature: Fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan 2019 – 2024 was launched along­side the Forest Strategy with deliv­ery part­ners and inter­ested parties on I March. To raise the pro­file with MSPs and key

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

Cairngorms & ​‘Make it Yours’	stake­hold­ers an exhib­i­tion and lunch­time event sponsored by Graeme Dey MSP took place at Holyrood in Feb­ru­ary to show­case the Cairngorms Nature Part­ner­ship and dis­cuss the ambi­tions, oppor­tun­it­ies and chal­lenges over the next five years. In addi­tion, Cairngorms Nature is pro­moted via the Cairngorms Nature Big Week­end, Volun­teer­ing Cairngorms and the Caper­cail­lie Frame­work pro­ject. To date Cairngorms Nature has over 19.9K social media fol­low­ers. Act­ive Cairngorms: Wee Walks Week will take place 5 – 19 Septem­ber and will focus on encour­aging less act­ive res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to ​‘get out’ for a short walk for both func­tion and enjoy­ment, and encour­aging school involve­ment. It will also cel­eb­rate and pro­mote the 16 health walks groups in the Park. In order to encour­age great­er path use we are cre­at­ing a mobile phone app to allow the 17 com­munity path leaf­lets to be accessed in this way. Act­ive Cairngorms is pro­moted via the Cairngorms Nature Big Week­end, Volun­teer Cairngorms and our social media activ­ity. To date Act­ive Cairngorms has 3,759 social media fol­low­ers. ​‘Make it Yours’: MIY is presen­ted to over 100 vis­it­or facing staff each year and part­ner­ship agree­ments are in place with		Loc­al Inform­a­tion Centres across the Park. Branded Mer­chand­ise con­tin­ues to sup­port the Cairngorms Trust fun­drais­ing efforts and the Trust has launched a new approach to col­lect vol­un­tary dona­tions from busi­nesses, res­id­ents and vis­it­ors for com­munity-led con­ser­va­tion and out­door recre­ation pro­jects in the Park. The 5‑yearly vis­it­or sur­vey starts in May with 2,500 people being inter­viewed across the Park through­out the year. The full res­ults will be avail­able in sum­mer 2020 and will dir­ect our vis­it­or ser­vices work. Facing a chal­len­ging winter with a closed funicu­lar rail­way this year’s mar­ket­ing budget has been used to pro­mote the vis­it­or exper­i­ence on the west­ern side of the Nation­al Park with CBP lead­ing this work. The BBC Winter Watch, Spring Watch and Autumn Watch pro­grammes will also raise the pro­file of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park across the UK.
• Deliv­er stake­hold­er engage­ment & events	A Com­mu­nic­a­tions Grid has been pre­pared to help coordin­ate our com­mu­nic­a­tion activ­it­ies across the organ­isa­tion to deliv­er stronger and more con­sist­ent mes­sages about the work of the Park and role of the Park Author­ity. The Com­mu­nic­a­tions Grid iden­ti­fies a core theme and key mes­sages for each month of the year along­side the com­mu­nic­a­tion activ­it­ies: digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions, tra­di­tion­al media, stake­hold­er com­mu­nic­a­tions & events. This new approach will be man­aged by the Man­age­ment Team and Organ­isa­tion­al Man­age­ment Group and will be reviewed on a quarterly basis.
• Cor­por­ate Com­mu­nic­a­tions: pub­lic­a­tions, con­sulta­tions, media &	The con­sulta­tion on the pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan ended in early April and a final plan will be sub­mit­ted to Min­is­ters in Septem­ber 2019. CNPA’s Annu­al Report 2017⁄18 was sub­mit­ted to Min­is­ters and pub­lished on our web­site in autumn 2018 and Bòrd na Gàidh­lig approved the second iter­a­tion of the CNPA’s Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan which has been pub­lished on our web­site in both Gael­ic and Eng­lish. The Eco­nom­ic Action Plan will go out for con­sulta­tion in June. The

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper3 Annex | 14^th June 2019

issues man­age­ment, Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan	EURO­PARC con­fer­ence report has been pub­lished on the EURO­PARC Fed­er­a­tion web­site and the Youth Mani­festo launched at the con­fer­ence has led to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity devel­op­ing a Youth pro­ject to take for­ward the recom­mend­a­tions presen­ted in the EURO­PARC Youth Manifesto.

Pri­or­ity 2 — Ensure high qual­ity intern­al com­mu­nic­a­tions that help to deliv­er the key pri­or­it­ies of the Cor­por­ate Plan

Key Work Areas

Update

• Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy

An all staff away day took place at Glen­more Lodge which included an improve­ment work­shop to help identi­fy poten­tial improve­ment pro­jects to be taken for­ward as part of the next Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy. CNPA was also highly com­men­ded in the Fam­ily Friendly Awards in March and the new build­ing exten­sion has been short­l­is­ted for the Roy­al Incor­por­a­tion of Archi­tects in Scot­land (RIAS) design award as one of 19 short­l­is­ted build­ings from over 80 entries.