CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 Annex 1 6^th Decem­ber 2019

COR­POR­ATE PLAN REPORTING

Con­ser­va­tion and Land Management

Pri­or­ity 1 – 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 in the Nation­al Park was awar­ded fund­ing in 2018⁄19 for ten pro­jects cov­er­ing 1052 hec­tares. Scot­tish gov­ern­ment recently gave Peat­land Action across Scot­land a major fund­ing boost. We have made use of this oppor­tun­ity to employ an intern to map and pri­or­it­ise fur­ther areas for peat­land work and to employ con­tract­ors to carry out peat depth and hab­it­at sur­veys in key loc­a­tions. Achiev­ing peat­land res­tor­a­tion on the ground in remote and chal­len­ging high alti­tude ter­rain, along­side a short­age of avail­able skilled con­tract­ors and a lengthy fund­ing approv­al pro­cess brings a lot of chal­lenges. Des­pite this, Steph­en and Emma are cur­rently over­see­ing over 600 hec­tares of res­tor­a­tion work with anoth­er 965 hec­tares at the feas­ib­il­ity study stage. Scot­tish gov­ern­ment recently gave Peat­land Action across Scot­land a major fund­ing boost. We have made use of this oppor­tun­ity to employ an intern to map and pri­or­it­ise fur­ther areas for peat­land work and to employ con­tract­ors to carry out peat depth and hab­it­at sur­veys in key loc­a­tions. Since 2017 2,948.43 ha of wood­land has been cre­ated through the Scot­tish forestry Grant Scheme. Wood­land expan­sion is pro­gress­ing in key areas through deer man­age­ment e.g. on Mar Lodge Estate and the ​‘Cairngorms Con­nect’ Estates (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 amount­ing to >1000ha. In the six East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship estates we are dis­cuss­ing wood­land expan­sion pro­pos­als. Across the Nation­al Park as a whole we now have in place a ​“wood­land chal­lenge fund” to sup­port the pre­par­a­tion of applic­a­tions to the Forestry Grant Scheme – uptake on the chal­lenge fund is slow but we are work­ing with a num­ber of estates who have shown an interest.
* 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 2019. The 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.

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	Com­pre­hens­ive HIA imple­men­ted for Dwarf Shrub Heath hab­it­ats across CNP. Ini­ti­ated improved cov­er of HIA for Blanket Bog hab­it­ats across all Deer Man­age­ment groups (DMGs) with­in CNP, lead­ing to com­pre­hens­ive cov­er­age by Spring 2020. Data will also advise pri­or­it­ies for Peat­land Action pro­jects. 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. Upper Deeside and Don­side DMG ini­ti­at­ing annu­al counts to advise ongo­ing pop­u­la­tion mod­el­ling. South Grampi­an DMG focused on pop­u­la­tion man­age­ment to address issues on Caen­lochan SAC in part­ner­ship with SNH. Facil­it­at­ing ongo­ing review and dis­cus­sion of cull­ing regimes to meet dif­fer­ent land use policies between Wild­land, Atholl, Dal­nac­ar­doch. Ini­ti­ated ​‘CNP wide deer count’ over 2020/2021 includ­ing part­ner­ing with SNH for heli­copter counts over open range and extra­pol­a­tion of wood­land pop­u­la­tions based on Strath Caulaidh Ltd exper­i­ence in assess­ing pop­u­la­tions in Nation­al Forest Estate.
* Work closely with Deer Man­age­ment Groups to deliv­er pub­lic interest priorities	SNH report on per­form­ance of DMGs in deliv­er­ing pub­lic interest as defined in deer man­age­ment plans sub­mit­ted to Scot Govt. Await­ing response from SG. Gen­er­al feel­ing is that private sec­tor has respon­ded well. Await­ing report of SG com­mis­sioned Deer Work­ing Group and response from SG. Work­ing with SNH, South Deeside North Angus DMG and South 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 2020 on Glenavon, Glen­liv­et, Mar Lodge. # Recent wood­land expan­sion and poten­tial quan­ti­fied. Dis­cus­sion still ongo­ing on poten­tial wood­land expan­sion schemes. # 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. # 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.
* Estab­lish a Cairngorms Upland Advis­ory Group	Cairngorms Uplands Advis­ory group met for the first time in March 2019 and again in the begin­ning of Octo­ber. Both meet­ings were well atten­ded and already have stim­u­lated some use­ful sug­ges­tions for CNPA play­ing a lead role in devel­op­ing policies of Nation­al interest. The draft Best Prac­tice Guid­ance for ATV use dis­cussed in Octo­ber has attrac­ted a lot of interest from Nation­al Bod­ies inter­ested in pro­mot­ing best prac­tice management.
* Elim­in­ate rap­tor per­se­cu­tion and devel­op wild­life tour­ism pro­ject around raptors	The wild­life crime rap­tor track­er (being developed with BTO and SNH) will be deployed in 2020. We under­stand that the Wer­ritty ​‘grouse man­age­ment review’ is final­ised but has not yet been made pub­lic. The new Bal­later inter­pret­a­tion centre will include ele­ments of rap­tor conservation.

Vis­it­or Experience

Pri­or­ity 1 — 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 Decem­ber 2019 with an offi­cial open­ing sched­uled for Spring 2020. Spey­side Way Spur to Tomin­toul has been upgraded as part of Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et Part­ner­ship Pro­ject. 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 — 84% of the 54km of moun­tain path improve­ments com­plete with the 5yr pro­ject sched­uled for com­ple­tion in July 2020
* 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 Muir of Din­net sched­uled for com­ple­tion in 2019 and Glen­more Spring 2020.
* 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. A new inter­pret­a­tion centre at Coire Cas was opened in sum­mer 2019. Funicu­lar is closed for 2019 and 2020 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. Stage 2 detailed design is cur­rently in abey­ance until the part­ners can secure 50% of the cap­it­al. 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 Moun­tains and People project	26 Volun­teer Rangers have now been trained and are sup­port­ing the work of part­ners cross CNP 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 2477 people com­pleted a John Muir Award in and around Cairngorms by Oct 2019. This is on tar­get but some 880 few­er than the same excep­tion­al peri­od last year. 80 young people trained as Juni­or Rangers in 2019 which is 14 more young people than 2018. Eight Juni­or Rangers atten­ded a winter exchange in Bav­aria, 15 atten­ded a sum­mer camp on Bal­mor­al Estate, and 15 went to a UK Nation­al Parks gath­er­ing in Peak District.
* Work with Inclus­ive Cairngorms and part­ners to reduce bar­ri­ers and encour­age participation	CNPA is cur­rently review­ing the most effect­ive way to sup­port and engage with an Inclus­ive Cairngorms group 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 1 — Sup­port deliv­ery of hous­ing for loc­al needs through an effi­cient and effect­ive plan­ning service

Key Work Areas	Update
* Devel­op and imple­ment Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan	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 act­ively look­ing to devel­op com­munity led hous­ing pro­jects. Dul­nain Bridge – Have secured fund­ing through High­land Coun­cil to assess the feas­ib­il­ity of pro­ject and devel­op asso­ci­ated busi­ness plan. Con­sultancy work to be under­taken by High­lands Small Com­munit­ies Hous­ing Trust (HSCHT) Brae­mar – Feas­ib­il­ity study com­plete, con­firm­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant need for afford­able hous­ing to rent in the vil­lage. It con­cludes there is viable poten­tial for 15 afford­able homes on the iden­ti­fied site. BCL now look­ing at site acquis­i­tion, devel­op­ing the pro­pos­al fur­ther and mak­ing an applic­a­tion to the Rur­al Hous­ing fund. Bal­later – Work­ing group estab­lished and look­ing to update hous­ing needs demands sur­vey whilst invest­ig­at­ing poten­tial sites and options avail­able. Boat of Garten – have iden­ti­fied a site for 2×2 bed bun­ga­lows and now apply­ing for fund­ing for a feas­ib­il­ity study. Tomin­toul – Feas­ib­il­ity study to devel­op the Old School site was com­pleted in Aug. Aspir­a­tion is to build 12 mixed ten­ure houses on the site. Applic­a­tions now being made to Scot­tish Land Fund and Rur­al Hous­ing Fund for land acquis­i­tion and site devel­op­ment costs respectively.

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. Badenoch Great Place Scheme. 2 major stud­ies have now been com­pleted (Cul­tur­al Her­it­age and Mar­ket­ing Strategy and Her­it­age High­way Route) which will now guide the devel­op­ment of oth­er strands of the pro­ject includ­ing the devel­op­ment of the ​“Badenoch the Story­lands” brand. The Gael­ic lan­guage of the area has been researched and is being used in new inter­pret­a­tion for the area. A web­site is being developed which will launch in Dec. The inaug­ur­al Badenoch Her­it­age Fest­iv­al took place in Sep, offer­ing over 40 events over 2 weeks. This was hugely suc­cess­ful, cel­eb­rat­ing the cul­ture of the area and also rais­ing the pro­file of the project.
* Sup­port com­munity organ­isa­tions to deliv­er pro­jects that help deliv­er NPPP	VABS has recently under­taken Com­munity Action Plan reviews in Lag­gan and Boat of Garten. Key part­ner in the BGPP, sit­ting on Board, Team and employ­ing pro­ject officer. MAP – Con­tin­ues to sup­port com­munity devel­op­ment of Deeside. Has under­gone key per­son­nel changes over last 3 months. Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Devel­op­ment Trust – Con­tin­ue to work to deliv­er their 2018 – 22 Stra­tegic Plan. They have just com­pleted their 2nd sea­son of oper­at­ing the Dis­cov­ery Centre (where vis­it­or num­bers were sim­il­ar to the open­ing sea­son). The Smug­glers Hostel con­tin­ues to be the main source of gen­er­ated income. In addi­tion to grow­ing these assets, the Trust have con­tin­ued to deliv­er a suc­cess­ful events pro­gramme, tak­ing on Tea in the Park for 2019. TGDT is lead­ing the Old School afford­able hous­ing pro­ject and are also try­ing to devel­op a camp­site aspir­a­tion for the area. Strength­en­ing Com­munit­ies Con­fer­ence. CPNA hos­ted 2 fringe events for loc­al com­munity del­eg­ates around the main HIE organ­ised con­fer­ence. The Youth focused event was par­tic­u­larly well received. Town Centre Fund – we have provided sup­port to all 4 com­munit­ies (Grant­own, Aviemore, Kin­gussie, New­ton­more) that were eli­gible to bid into this fund, such that all were ulti­mately suc­cess­ful in their applic­a­tions. These pro­jects which have to be delivered by Mar 20 are worth £325,000, even though the area’s ini­tial alloc­a­tion was £295,000.
* Suc­cess­fully con­clude LEAD­ER pro­gramme and con­sider future fund­ing for Com­munity Led Loc­al Development	The Cairngorms Trust now has approved 39 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, with £67,000 addi­tion­al fund­ing alloc­a­tion secured through com­pet­it­ive bids into resid­ual alloc­a­tions recovered cent­rally by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment from oth­er LAG areas across Scotland.

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 con­sulta­tion on the Eco­nom­ic Action Plan took place between July and Septem­ber 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 Cairn bridge in rela­tion to lack of pro­vi­sion for non-motor­ised users.

Cor­por­ate Services

Pri­or­ity 1 — 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.	Fol­low­ing com­pre­hens­ive con­sulta­tion and engage­ment with staff, the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy (ODS3) has now been draf­ted and approved, and the 5 themes of the ODS3 are: — Lead­er­ship; Work­ing Envir­on­ment; Cul­ture and Beha­viour; Effi­cient and Agile Work­force; Informed and Engaged Staff. Work­ing groups have been estab­lished to identi­fy action plans for the deliv­ery of the strategy over the next 18 – 24 months.The Best Com­pan­ies sur­vey has just been com­pleted and the res­ults will feed in to the evolving ODS3. Work toward the object­ive of the Best Small Pub­lic Body in Scot­land­was 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 Men­tal Health First Aid Policy; well as engage­ment with staff around: — the ODS3; the roll out of Insights Dis­cov­ery; IT updates, Acco­mod­a­tion updates; Fair Work update.

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

Key Work Areas	Update
* Com­plete exten­sion project	Exten­sion com­pleted in August 2018, and staff have now settled well in the build­ing. 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.

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. 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 and facil­it­ies sup­port to NPPP deliv­ery partners	Grant­own Archive Pro­ject using Grant­own office tem­por­ar­ily for archiv­ing work. The Grant­own office has also been 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
* 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 , as well as being short­l­is­ted for the High­land Busi­ness Award Young Appren­tice of the Year. 3 Intern­ships 2019 (Hill Tracks; Gael­ic and Digit­al Map­ping Intern­ships) on 3‑month con­tracts; one pro­ject Scot­land Volun­teer place­ment sup­por­ted in sum­mer 2019; two work shad­ow­ing oppor­tun­it­ies sup­por­ted in part­ner­ship with UHI, and one young per­son from the loc­al sec­ond­ary school sup­por­ted on a work exper­i­ence placement.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions

Pri­or­ity 1 — 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	Cairngorms Nature: The LEAD­ER fun­ded Cairngorms Nature BIG Week­end took place 10 – 13 May with over 100 events across the Park. 3,273 people (61% Park res­id­ents) took part across the Park get­ting out into our amaz­ing land­scapes and nature includ­ing 400 school chil­dren involved in the art com­pet­i­tion and the rur­al skills day. Six private estates, two farms, 10 ranger ser­vices, 17 private busi­nesses and 18 organ­isa­tions and pro­jects were involved and the feed­back sur­vey res­ults con­firm 81% of par­ti­cipants said the CNBW was excel­lent or very good, 97% would attend again and 94% would recom­mend it to oth­ers. In addi­tion, 82% said they would get out into nature more often and 76% said they learnt some­thing new. To date Cairngorms Nature has over 19.9K social media fol­low­ers. Act­ive Cairngorms: Wee Walks Week took place 5 – 19 Septem­ber and focused on encour­aging less act­ive res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to ​‘get out’ for a short walk for both func­tion and enjoy­ment, and encour­aging school involve­ment. It also cel­eb­rated and pro­moted 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 Wee Walks Week, Volun­teer Cairngorms and our social media activ­ity. To date Act­ive Cairngorms has 3,759 social media followers.
* Deliv­er stake­hold­er engage­ment & events	‘Make it Yours’: Some 360 vis­it­or facing staff across the Nation­al Park have par­ti­cip­ated in this train­ing pro­gramme that shares why the Cairngorms is des­ig­nated a Nation­al Park, its spe­cial qual­it­ies and looks at the exper­i­ences and inform­a­tion people are likely to want. The Gael­ic as an Asset online toolkit has been launched to encour­age busi­nesses and com­munity groups to offer Gael­ic exper­i­ences in 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 star­ted 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 have also raised the pro­file of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park across the UK. 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 & issues man­age­ment, Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan | The con­sulta­tion on the pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan ended in early April and a final plan was sub­mit­ted to Min­is­ters in Septem­ber 2019. CNPA’s Annu­al Report ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ was sub­mit­ted to Min­is­ters and pub­lished on our web­site in autumn 2019 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 is com­plete and a final plan has been pre­pared for Board approv­al. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan Annu­al Review was pub­lished in an e‑storybook format in June.

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

Fol­low­ing com­pre­hens­ive con­sulta­tion and engage­ment with staff, the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy (ODS3) has now been draf­ted and approved, and the 5 themes of the ODS3 are: — Lead­er­ship; Work­ing Envir­on­ment; Cul­ture and Beha­viour; Effi­cient and Agile Work­force; Informed and Engaged Staff. Work­ing groups have been estab­lished to identi­fy action plans for the deliv­ery of the strategy over the next 18 – 24 months.