190614CNPABdPaper5AALEADERInfoPaper

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 14^th June 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: CAIRNGORMS LEAD­ER PRO­GRAMME UPDATE

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Pur­pose

This paper presents an update on the deliv­ery of the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme, fol­low­ing the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group’s full com­mit­ment of the LEAD­ER grant fund­ing alloc­a­tion made avail­able to it by Scot­tish Government.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is reques­ted to: i. Note the con­tri­bu­tion made by the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme to the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan; and ii. Note the suc­cess­ful man­age­ment of the pro­gramme to date, and full com­mit­ment of LEAD­ER fund­ing alloc­a­tions, achieved by the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group.

Stra­tegic Context

1. LEAD­ER is a bot­tom-up meth­od of deliv­er­ing sup­port to com­munit­ies to sup­port rur­al devel­op­ment. Grants are awar­ded by Loc­al Action Groups to pro­jects that sup­port deliv­ery of a Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy. The aim of LEAD­ER is to increase sup­port to loc­al rur­al com­munity and busi­ness net­works to build know­ledge and skills, and encour­age innov­a­tion and cooper­a­tion in order to tackle loc­al devel­op­ment object­ives. The Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme has been awar­ded an alloc­a­tion of just under £3 mil­lion in LEAD­ER fund­ing sourced from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and the European Uni­on for the 2014 – 2020 Pro­gramme period.

2. The Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme is led by the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group (CLAG). The CLAG now oper­ates as the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group Trust (“the Cairngorms Trust”, a registered char­ity, numberSC046495). The Pro­gramme is

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 14^th June 2019

sup­por­ted by the Author­ity as the Account­able Body. As the Account­able Body, we have signed a Ser­vice Level Agree­ment with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to sup­port the anim­a­tion and admin­is­tra­tion of the LEAD­ER Pro­gramme, take respons­ib­il­ity for the issue of LEAD­ER grants as instruc­ted by the CLAG, and make claims for reim­burse­ment of these grants from Scot­tish Government.

1. The estab­lish­ment and deliv­ery of the Pro­gramme has spanned and con­trib­uted to deliv­ery of two Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plans and two CNPA Cor­por­ate Plans.

2. Estab­lish­ment of the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme 2014 to 2020 and con­sequent deliv­ery of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy over that peri­od con­trib­uted toward the 2012 to 2017 Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) Stra­tegic Out­come I – A sus­tain­able eco­nomy sup­port­ing thriv­ing busi­nesses and com­munit­ies, and the NPPP 5 year out­come that com­munit­ies will become more empowered and able to devel­op their own mod­els of sustainability.

3. This work also com­pleted the pre­vi­ous NPPP work pro­gramme 4c – estab­lish a Cairngorms LEAD­ER fund from 2013 as part of the next LEAD­ER programme.

4. The Cairngorms LEAD­ER Loc­al Action Group (CLAG) was also recog­nised as one of the key part­ners in deliv­ery of Rur­al Devel­op­ment Pri­or­ity 4 ​“Sup­port com­munit­ies through capa­city-build­ing spe­cific­ally focus on the most fra­gile com­munit­ies to deliv­er trans­form­a­tion­al change” set out in the Cor­por­ate Plan 2015 to 2018.

5. LEAD­ER invest­ment in each LAG area is dir­ec­ted by a Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy (LDS). The Cairngorms LDS remains a core stra­tegic doc­u­ment under­pin­ning the cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan for 2017 – 2022. The LDS sets out the pri­or­it­ies for pro­mot­ing com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment to sup­port a sus­tain­able rur­al eco­nomy in the nation­al park. The Cairngorms LAG and its invest­ment, dir­ec­ted by the LDS, is high­lighted in the Rur­al Devel­op­ment sec­tion of the cur­rent NPPP as a key deliv­ery part­ner­ship, par­tic­u­larly for the rur­al devel­op­ment pri­or­ity of enhan­cing com­munity capa­city and empower­ment. More inform­a­tion on the Cairngorms LDS can be found at: https://​cairngorm​strust​.org​.uk/​i​n​d​e​x​.​p​h​p​?​o​p​t​i​o​n​=​c​o​m​_​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​&​v​i​e​w​=​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​&​i​d​=​5​1​&​I​t​e​m​i​d=109

6. The Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan for 2018 to 2022 sets out Rur­al Devel­op­ment pri­or­ity 2: to sup­port com­munit­ies, spe­cific­ally focus­sing on the most fra­gile, to deliv­er their agen­das for change. A spe­cif­ic work area with­in this pri­or­ity is to suc­cess­fully con­clude the cur­rent LEAD­ER pro­gramme and con­sider future fund­ing for com­munity led loc­al development.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 14^th June 2019

Stra­tegic Policy Considerations

1. The Board has pre­vi­ously endorsed the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and busi­ness case for deliv­ery of the Cairngorms LEAD­ER pro­gramme pre­pared by the CLAG, and agreed to act as the Account­able Body for Cairngorms LEAD­ER with pro­vi­sion of £70,000 annu­al sup­port toward the man­age­ment of the pro­gramme. The Board has also pre­vi­ously agreed that the CLAG is best placed to take for­ward ideas pre­vi­ously dis­cussed around the form­a­tion of a Char­it­able Trust to trans­par­ently receive and dis­burse any dona­tions made by third party indi­vidu­als and organ­isa­tions toward deliv­ery of the NPPP.

2. The CLAG, sup­por­ted by the Author­ity, has now suc­cess­fully estab­lished and is oper­at­ing as the pro­posed Char­it­able Trust — the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group Trust (trad­ing as ​“the Cairngorms Trust”), https://​cairngorm​strust​.org​.uk/ . The work under­taken in devel­op­ing and deliv­er­ing these wider char­it­able out­comes bey­ond LEAD­ER will be covered in a future update to the Board.

3. The CLAG has now fully com­mit­ted the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme Grant alloc­a­tion in sup­port of com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment ini­ti­at­ives. The grant alloc­a­tion of £2.969 mil­lion has sup­por­ted LEAD­ER fund­ing into pro­jects of £2.241 mil­lion with a total pro­ject value cur­rently estim­ated at £3.773 mil­lion. Of this total pro­ject value, some £1.471 mil­lion relates to invest­ment in eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, enter­prise and farm diver­si­fic­a­tion projects.

4. The Pro­gramme cur­rently involves 32 approved pro­jects from 40 pro­jects sub­mit­ted to the CLAG. Sub­mit­ted pro­ject applic­a­tions them­selves stem from 114 form­al expres­sions of interest, developed from the LEAD­ER team work­ing with 247 enquiries.

5. The Pro­gramme cov­ers pro­jects in 13 dif­fer­ent com­munit­ies, with two pro­jects cov­er­ing all of the Aber­deen­shire area of the Nation­al Park and 12 pro­jects oper­at­ing park-wide.

6. These stat­ist­ics sup­port the CLAG’s over­all approach for the cur­rent LEAD­ER pro­gramme: to focus on a rel­at­ively small num­ber of rel­at­ively high value pro­jects that make a step-change con­tri­bu­tion to their loc­al com­munit­ies. This approach also takes account of the rel­at­ively high levels of admin­is­tra­tion required by applic­ants and the LEAD­ER Team to sup­port the process.

7. A fuller out­line of the cur­rent pos­i­tion of the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme is presen­ted at Annex I to this paper, which is an extract of the most recent quarterly LEAD­ER report to the Cairngorms Trust.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 14^th June 2019

Stra­tegic Risk Management

1. The Authority’s stra­tegic risk register, con­sidered as part of the Cor­por­ate Plan deliv­ery update to this Board meet­ing, includes a risk around the Authority’s role as the Account­able Body (AB) for the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme (risk A11). This risk high­lights the under­ly­ing pos­sib­il­ity of sig­ni­fic­ant fin­an­cial claw­backs being imposed on the Author­ity should expendit­ure sup­por­ted by LEAD­ER grant awards prove to be ineligible. This risk area had been escal­at­ing over 2017 and 2018 while the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, as lead Dir­ect­or for deliv­er­ing the Ser­vice Level Agree­ment with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment sup­port­ing Cairngorms LEAD­ER, engaged in con­sid­er­able dia­logue with cent­ral team on cla­ri­fy­ing points of eli­gib­il­ity and assess­ment pro­cesses. This pro­cess has con­cluded suc­cess­fully with all grant claims assessed as eli­gible and now paid to the Author­ity, and the risk has accord­ingly now been assessed as stable.

2. The Author­ity also car­ries the employ­ment respons­ib­il­it­ies for the LEAD­ER staff team sup­port­ing the pro­gramme. Man­age­ment action on this risk is covered by risk A19: ​“Resources / Staff­ing — fail­ure to effect­ively man­age staff­ing num­bers with a view to the long term busi­ness need will reduce the capa­city for the Author­ity to deploy adequate fin­an­cial invest­ment toward pri­or­ity pro­jects in the Nation­al Park”. The Authority’s Work­force Man­age­ment Strategy is now in place with under­pin­ning plans to man­age deploy­ment of staff over the long-term as fun­ded pro­jects come to a con­clu­sion under­pin­ning employ­ment require­ments evolve.

3. The UK’s exit from the EU remains a risk for the Authority’s role as Account­able Body for LEAD­ER, with care required to man­age con­tracts and pro­ject amend­ments with­in strict eli­gib­il­ity cri­ter­ia estab­lished by the UK Treas­ury (stra­tegic risk A12.1). Cur­rently, all LEAD­ER con­tracts estab­lished by end of Decem­ber 2019 will be hon­oured. How­ever, there is a risk that pro­jects will not be able to make vari­ations to their plans from Janu­ary 2020 onwards. Under cur­rent under­stand­ing, live pro­jects will be able to deliv­er against approved con­tracts and budgets. How­ever, the poten­tial to move funds between budget lines and mile­stone dates will be lost if cur­rent arrange­ments remain into 2020. This will make the later stages of pro­ject and pro­gramme man­age­ment increas­ingly complex.

4. The Board’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee has received reg­u­lar reports on the risk pos­i­tion of the Author­ity as a con­sequence of its role as Account­able Body for the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Programme.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 14^th June 2019

Implic­a­tions

1. The Authority’s sup­port for LEAD­ER invest­ment in the Cairngorms brings a sig­ni­fic­ant level of invest­ment to deliv­er com­munit­ies’ devel­op­ment pri­or­it­ies at a loc­al level and through doing so sup­port the object­ives of the NPP and the Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan. The pro­gramme has been instru­ment­al in sup­port­ing a wide range of loc­ally led ini­ti­at­ives achieve pri­or­ity out­comes for com­munit­ies with­in the Cairngorms, while also sup­port­ing a num­ber of pro­jects oper­at­ing through­out the Nation­al Park. Some of these Park-wide ini­ti­at­ives have been led by the Author­ity as the main applic­ant and LEAD­ER grant fund­ing has sup­por­ted some high pro­file suc­cesses for the Author­ity, such as the Youth Mani­festo launched at the Euro­parc Con­fer­ence in Septem­ber 2018 and the Cairngorms Volun­teer Ranger Service.

2. Secur­ing a LEAD­ER grant pro­gramme to oper­ate spe­cific­ally with­in the bound­ary of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park is a rel­at­ively unique situ­ation in Scot­land, with oth­er Loc­al Action Group areas typ­ic­ally based with­in single loc­al author­ity bound­ar­ies and sup­por­ted by loc­al author­it­ies as Account­able Bod­ies. Secur­ing the unique arrange­ments for the Cairngorms has helped integ­rate the work of LEAD­ER with the deliv­ery of the NPPP.

3. A fur­ther dis­tinct fea­ture of the Cairngorms Trust’s deliv­ery of LEAD­ER in the Cairngorms has been the com­munity bene­fit offered by busi­ness and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment bene­fi­ciar­ies. For example, com­mer­cial facil­it­ies developed have been offered for reg­u­lar use by youth and com­munity groups free of charge, while accom­mod­a­tion devel­op­ments have been made avail­able to char­it­ies and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions for their use. This approach by the CLAG, incor­por­ated as Cairngorms Trust, fits with both the over­all LEAD­ER eth­os of devel­op­ing part­ner­ships between and with­in com­munit­ies, and the Trust’s char­it­able object­ive of provid­ing wider pub­lic bene­fit in its work – which it has applied equally to its lead­er­ship of the LEAD­ER Programme.

Suc­cess Measures

1. The deliv­ery of the LEAD­ER Pro­gramme is mon­itored by the Cairngorms Trust Board on the basis of the Mon­it­or­ing and Eval­u­ation data included with­in Annex I to this paper. The pos­i­tion set out in the Annex remains open, with fur­ther data to be added as open pro­jects achieve fur­ther deliv­ery and report­ing milestones.

2. The Authority’s sup­port for the LEAD­ER Pro­gramme as the Account­able Body will be assessed in terms of the suc­cess of pro­gramme deliv­ery in max­im­ising invest­ment of avail­able funds and min­im­ising the liab­il­ity arising from any tech­nic­al errors or payment

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 14^th June 2019

of ineligible pro­ject costs. Cur­rently, the Author­ity has sup­por­ted the full com­mit­ment of avail­able pro­ject funds and is sup­port­ing the CLAG in bids for addi­tion­al alloc­a­tions from cent­ral resources recovered from LEAD­ER areas which have not achieved tar­get com­mit­ment levels. Over the course of the pro­gramme to date, tech­nic­al and eli­gib­il­ity issues have been very low, with action taken to mit­ig­ate eli­gib­il­ity risk on expendit­ure totalling around £8,500 (0.23% of pro­gramme value). At present, the expos­ure to such tech­nic­al issues is com­men­sur­ate with the pre­vi­ous six year LEAD­ER pro­gramme to 2013, where the Author­ity met between £15,000 and £20,000 of pro­gramme expendit­ure to mit­ig­ate wider audit risks. This level of poten­tial cost expos­ure was con­sidered at the point of agree­ing to sup­port the bid for a fur­ther Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme as Account­able Body in order to secure the poten­tial scale of inward invest­ment brought by the grant fund­ing allocation.

1. The LEAD­ER Pro­gramme has suc­cess­fully delivered one of the cur­rent Cor­por­ate Plan Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­ors (KPI) – the num­ber of indi­vidu­als par­ti­cip­at­ing in com­munity pro­jects for the first time. This KPI has already been exceeded, as is repor­ted sep­ar­ately to the Board in the paper deal­ing with Cor­por­ate Plan Performance.

Dav­id Camer­on, 30 May 2019 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk