190614CNPABdPaper7AANPUKJointWorking

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 7 14^th June 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: JOINT WORK­ING WITH UK NATION­AL PARKS

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Pur­pose

This paper presents an update on joint work­ing activ­it­ies under­taken between the 15 Nation­al Park Author­it­ies in the UK. Key areas of joint work over recent years have been around devel­op­ment of Nation­al Park Part­ner­ships Lim­ited Liab­il­ity Part­ner­ship, and sub­sequently the devel­op­ment and regis­tra­tion of the UK Nation­al Parks Char­ity Found­a­tion as a Char­it­able Incor­por­ated Organ­isa­tion registered with the Char­it­ies Com­mis­sion for Eng­land and Wales. The Author­ity has also been an act­ive par­ti­cipant and Steer­ing Group mem­ber of the ​“Work­ing Togeth­er” ini­ti­at­ive and a core mem­ber of the Nation­al Parks’ Com­mu­nic­a­tions Group.

This paper out­lines the pro­gress of these vari­ous ini­ti­at­ives and high­lights, where known, planned future activity.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is reques­ted to:

i. Note the pro­gress of the Authority’s joint work with the oth­er 14 UK Nation­al Park Author­it­ies and the value of the emer­ging out­puts and impacts of that work;

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 7 14^th June 2019

Stra­tegic Context

1. Our involve­ment in col­lect­ive activ­ity with the oth­er Nation­al Parks across the UK con­trib­utes to our deliv­ery of our cor­por­ate pri­or­ity to deliv­er ongo­ing ser­vice improve­ment includ­ing appro­pri­ate shared ser­vice devel­op­ment. This work also fits with our stra­tegic fin­an­cial plan­ning on sup­port­ing grant-in-aid from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment with oth­er income sources while deliv­er­ing ongo­ing effi­ciency sav­ings in our operations.

2. The Cor­por­ate Plan focuses our com­mu­nic­a­tions work on rais­ing the pro­file of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and to raise a con­nec­tion to it and com­mit­ment to care for it. The work with UK Nation­al Parks has sought to help this com­mu­nic­a­tions object­ive by cre­at­ing a stronger voice for Nation­al Parks as a whole through col­lect­ive effort and mul­tiple, wide­spread com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels through which we devel­op stronger indi­vidu­al pro­files in addi­tion to deliv­er­ing com­mon mes­sages, par­tic­u­larly with UK and Inter­na­tion­al audiences.

Stra­tegic Policy Considerations

1. Our work to date in col­lect­ive action with the oth­er Nation­al Park Author­it­ies in the UK has involved a rel­at­ively small amount of resource – typ­ic­ally time of seni­or staff with a small amount of fin­an­cial resources. The main fin­an­cial invest­ment has been an annu­al con­tri­bu­tion of £12,000 to sup­port the devel­op­ment and work of Nation­al Park Partnerships.

2. The aim is to achieve res­ults from col­lect­ive action around income diver­si­fic­a­tion, cor­por­ate spon­sor­ship and com­mu­nic­a­tions and influ­en­cing that will out­weigh any res­ults that can be achieved through the NPAs work­ing indi­vidu­ally or in smal­ler groups, and hence achieve res­ults that are more impact­ful than could be achieved work­ing in more isol­ated ways. In this regard, we seek through col­lect­ive action to address com­mu­nic­a­tions issues that are nation­al and inter­na­tion­al in scale through a col­lect­ive Nation­al Parks’ mes­sage, while seek­ing spon­sor­ship and income sup­port from nation­al and glob­al com­mer­cial entit­ies that are unlikely to wish to engage with indi­vidu­al or small groups of NPAs or loc­al char­it­ies. Such impacts are already being seen in the cor­por­ate spon­sor­ships we have seen through Nation­al Park Part­ner­ships, includ­ing those with Columbia, Forest Hol­i­days, Sykes Hol­i­day Cot­tages, Dicky Bag and, most recently, Clif Bar. Joint pro­cure­ment activ­it­ies have also real­ised some small sav­ings and / or effi­ciently sup­por­ted pro­cure­ment of key ser­vices, for example for stat­utory insur­ances. The poten­tial bene­fits of the oth­er strands of col­lect­ive action around estab­lish­ment of a UK char­ity and devel­op­ment of a cent­ral­ised com­mu­nic­a­tions resource remain to be established.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 7 14^th June 2019

1. At present the level of resource input is believed by Man­age­ment to be appro­pri­ate for the poten­tial scale of return that has been and may be real­ised through these activities.

Stra­tegic Risk Management

1. The col­lect­ive work with Nation­al Parks across the UK con­trib­utes to mit­ig­a­tion of the fol­low­ing stra­tegic risks:

2. Al: Resources – pub­lic sec­tor fin­ances con­strain capa­city to alloc­ate suf­fi­cient resources to deliv­er cor­por­ate plan. Our work with col­leagues in oth­er NPAs in estab­lish­ment of Nation­al Parks Part­ner­ships Lim­ited Liab­il­ity Part­ner­ship (NPP LLP) is focused on the devel­op­ment of cor­por­ate spon­sor­ship oppor­tun­it­ies to help fin­ance the pro­jects and activ­it­ies in the Cairngorms in deliv­ery of the risk mit­ig­a­tion action to ​“focus resource on diver­si­fic­a­tion of income streams to altern­ate, non-pub­lic income generation”.

3. A14: Repu­ta­tion — the Authority’s repu­ta­tion is impacted by a small num­ber of voci­fer­ous social media opin­ion lead­ers. The Authority’s col­lect­ive com­mu­nic­a­tions work is inten­ded to con­trib­ute to the mit­ig­a­tion action of using our com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­ity to sup­port organ­isa­tion­al aims and in repu­ta­tion man­age­ment. The inclu­sion of the Cairngorms as a pos­it­ive exem­plar with­in wider UK-wide com­mu­nic­a­tions aims to bol­ster the pro­file of the Cairngorms NP while rein­for­cing a pos­it­ive per­cep­tion and reputation.

4. A15: Repu­ta­tion: high pro­file incid­ents or one off stor­ies, such as those asso­ci­ated with wild­life crime, moun­tain hares, afford­able hous­ing can have an undue influ­ence on the Authority’s wider repu­ta­tion. Our mit­ig­a­tion action in this case seeks to estab­lish, among oth­er actions, close part­ner­ship work­ing to seek to bal­ance incid­ent report­ing and appro­pri­ately reflect Authority’s pos­i­tion and work – hence pro­tect­ing our repu­ta­tion from dam­age cre­ated by one-off stories.

5. The wider risk to the work itself is focused on the extent of com­mit­ment to this joint work by all NPAs in the UK.

Implic­a­tions

1. The implic­a­tions of con­tinu­ation of this work focus in the main on con­tin­ued input of seni­or staff time. The Chief Exec­ut­ive will con­tin­ue to invest time in attend­ing Chief Officer meet­ings, while the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices leads on the final stages of regis­ter­ing the nation­al char­ity in Scot­land, as the final step in the pro­cess of it being

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 7 14^th June 2019

enabled to oper­ate across Eng­land, Wales and Scot­land. The Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions will also alloc­ate some time toward the col­lect­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion activ­it­ies across all 15 UK Nation­al Parks.

1. The annu­al con­tri­bu­tion to sup­port the work of NPP is likely to con­tin­ue for a peri­od of time. Addi­tion­ally, a joint com­mu­nic­a­tions unit is planned which will require annu­al sup­port of between £5,000 and £6,000 from each NPA over the next three years. Both these costs have been provided for in the Authority’s Oper­a­tion­al Plan budget for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀.

Suc­cess Measures

1. Income and equi­val­ent value of spon­sor­ships gen­er­ated through the col­lect­ive action of the NPAs across the UK will rep­res­ent one meas­ure of suc­cess for these ini­ti­at­ives. The pro­file of Nation­al Parks and their mes­sages across nation­al media and in the pub­lic per­cep­tion will rep­res­ent a fur­ther meas­ure of suc­cess arising from the col­lect­ive com­mu­nic­a­tions work.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 7 14^th June 2019

Sup­port­ing Information

1. The primary areas of col­lect­ive work between the 15 Nation­al Park Author­it­ies (NPAs) across Scot­land, Wales and Eng­land have been on the devel­op­ment of cor­por­ate and com­mer­cial spon­sor­ships through Nation­al Park Part­ner­ships (NPP) a Lim­ited Liab­il­ity Part­ner­ship estab­lished jointly by all NPAs; the devel­op­ment of a char­ity organ­isa­tion to sup­port the work of NPP and allow access to fund­ing avail­able through cor­por­ate dona­tions to char­ity; col­lect­ive work on shared ser­vices; and joint com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­it­ies. An update on each of these areas of work is presen­ted below.

Nation­al Park Part­ner­ships (NPP)

1. Three years of work by NPP has res­ul­ted in a sig­ni­fic­ant part­ner­ship with Columbia to provide a wide range of staff cloth­ing and equip­ment, allow­ing con­sid­er­able sav­ings to be made in costs of Per­son­al Pro­tect­ive Equip­ment and also enhan­cing cor­por­ate image. Part­ner­ships are also now in place with a range of cor­por­ate spon­sors who provide a range of fund­ing sup­port to the NPAs through NPP. The cur­rent list of cor­por­ate fun­ders and spon­sors of NPAs and their work can be found at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​c​a​r​i​n​g​-​f​u​t​u​r​e​/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​w​i​t​h​-​p​a​r​t​n​e​r​s​/​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​-​p​arks/

2. For the ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ fin­an­cial year, NPP expect the pos­i­tion for each NPA to be at worst cash-neut­ral in terms of com­par­is­on of each Authority’s annu­al con­tri­bu­tion when com­pared with the cash return from cor­por­ate spon­sors and fun­ders. The value of cloth­ing from Columbia is addi­tion­al to this, with new cloth­ing sup­plies in 2019 alone expec­ted to be around £400,000 in value. As such, momentum built by NPP in its work with the cor­por­ate and com­mer­cial sec­tor is expec­ted to have reached an in- year break-even point as a min­im­um in the com­ing year.

UK Nation­al Parks Char­ity Found­a­tion (Char­ity Num­ber 1182566)

1. The devel­op­ment of the UK Nation­al Parks Char­ity Found­a­tion, a Char­it­able Incor­por­ated Organ­isa­tion registered in Eng­land and Wales, com­ple­ments the work of NPP with the cor­por­ate sec­tor in estab­lish­ing a char­it­able entity able to take char­it­able dona­tions from firms and dis­trib­ute these funds toward sup­port­ing activ­it­ies in Nation­al Parks across Scot­land, Wales and Eng­land. The design and regis­tra­tion of this char­ity has been led by the Cairngorms NPA’s Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, with the regis­tra­tion of the char­ity with the Office of the Scot­tish Char­it­ies Reg­u­lat­or (OSCR) the final out­stand­ing stage of this devel­op­ment work. Once registered in Scot­land, the char­ity will be fully oper­a­tion­al and able to dis­trib­ute any charity

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 7 14^th June 2019

dona­tions from entit­ies and their char­it­able found­a­tions toward sup­port­ing work in Nation­al Parks across the UK.

Nation­al Parks Com­mu­nic­a­tions Unit

1. After exten­ded dis­cus­sions, all 15 NPAs togeth­er with NPP have agreed the mer­its of form­ing a Nation­al Parks Com­mu­nic­a­tions Unit to work on behalf of the col­lect­ive group in devel­op­ing a clear brand iden­tity for UK’s Nation­al Parks; and devel­op and deliv­er clear and con­sist­ent mes­sages on agreed sub­jects on behalf of all NPAs. The main object­ive is to raise the pro­file of the fif­teen UK Nation­al Parks as part of a glob­al fam­ily of Nation­al Parks and to pro­mote the col­lect­ive value they make to deliv­er pub­lic bene­fits. The com­mu­nic­a­tions unit will not engage in com­mu­nic­a­tions about policy devel­op­ment or its imple­ment­a­tion, which is recog­nised can vary from area to area, and will oper­ate on the basis of a Ser­vice Level Agree­ment (SLA) estab­lished with all mem­bers and set­ting out gov­ernance arrange­ments and the respect­ive roles of the Com­mu­nic­a­tions Unit and each NPA. Recruit­ment for the Unit is cur­rently under­way and will cost between £5,000 and £6,000 in each of the next three years.

Work­ing Together

1. The Work­ing Togeth­er ini­ti­at­ive has invited Nation­al Parks to work col­lect­ively in the areas of Inform­a­tion Tech­no­logy, Leg­al and Pro­cure­ment, Fin­an­cial Man­age­ment, Human Resource Man­age­ment and know­ledge shar­ing on work­ing through vol­un­tary and char­ity sec­tor bod­ies. The ini­ti­at­ive sup­por­ted joint pro­cure­ment of insur­ance ser­vices and video con­fer­en­cing facil­it­ies and has giv­en impetus to a num­ber of joint pro­jects being pro­gressed by sub-sets of NPAS.

Dav­id Camer­on June 2019 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk