200327 Paper 3 Annex 2 Business Continuity Standing Order Amendments

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Paper 3 Annex 2 27^th March 2020

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity: Review of Stand­ing Orders

Annex 2

Board and Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Decision Making

1. In the event of the Author­ity imple­ment­ing its Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan with regard to the oper­a­tion of the Board and Plan­ning Com­mit­tee gov­ernance and decision-mak­ing pro­cesses as a con­sequence of response to a pub­lic health incid­ent or pan­dem­ic, or wide­spread sus­pen­sion of travel arrange­ments, the fol­low­ing amend­ments to Stand­ing Orders shall apply. Numbered ref­er­ences in square brack­ets refer to the appro­pri­ate para­graph of the Board’s Stand­ing Orders approved in June 2019. Notes in ital­ics are presen­ted as explan­at­ory com­ments for clar­ity of oper­a­tion­al expect­a­tions should there be cause to imple­ment these Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Actions.

https://​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​/​1​4​0​6​2​0​1​9​/​1​9​0​6​1​4​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r​4​A​n​n​e​x​1​B​o​a​r​d​S​t​a​n​d​i​n​g​O​r​d​e​r​s.pdf

a. [15] shall be sus­pen­ded and meet­ings of the Author­ity and its Com­mit­tees deemed not open to the pub­lic for reas­ons of pub­lic health pro­tec­tion and the effi­cient con­duct of pub­lic business.

i. All papers includ­ing agen­das and approved minutes shall con­tin­ue to be pub­lished on the Authority’s web­site in the usu­al way for con­tinu­ation of trans­par­ency unless the nor­mal reas­ons of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity are sat­is­fied, in which case papers in ques­tion shall not be pub­lished. ii. Private meet­ings will allow for altern­ate meet­ing arrange­ments to be put in place, for example tele­phone or video con­fer­ence meetings.

b. Imple­ment­a­tion of the Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan meas­ures for Board gov­ernance and decision-mak­ing shall be deemed to sat­is­fy Stand­ing Orders [10] allow­ing attend­ance in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances by tele­phone or video con­fer­ence presence.

c. [9] shall be sus­pen­ded and quor­um for Board and Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ings shall be set at a min­im­um of 7 mem­bers present and able to be heard by all mem­bers and officers participating.

i. Reduc­tion in quor­um recog­nizes the poten­tial for a large num­ber of mem­bers to be unable to par­ti­cip­ate as a con­sequence of their own ill­ness and/​or care for depend­ents. ii. Reduc­tion in quor­um also recog­nizes the need to effect­ively man­age meet­ings com­pris­ing mem­bers and sup­port­ing officers.

d. [4] shall be sus­pen­ded in the event of any Board or Com­mit­tee Convener/​Chair or Deputy Convener/​Chair becom­ing vacant dur­ing a peri­od of imple­ment­a­tion of these Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity meas­ures and elec­tions shall be deferred until the first meet­ing of the Board under nor­mal operations.

i. This rein­forces pro­vi­sion in [10] that attend­ance must be in per­son for elec­tions of office bearers.

e. Arrange­ments in place through [21] shall con­tin­ue to be deployed to determ­ine the Convenor/​Chair of meet­ings held under these Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity arrangements.

f. [45] shall be sus­pen­ded for meet­ings of Fin­ance and Deliv­ery, Staff­ing and Recruit­ment and Audit and Risk Com­mit­tees. The quor­um for such meet­ings shall be set at a min­im­um of 3 mem­bers present.

g. [26] shall be sus­pen­ded on the imple­ment­a­tion of these Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity arrangements.

i. Imple­ment­a­tion of arrange­ments will effect­ively deem that it is not pos­sible to arrange a meet­ing for the dur­a­tion of the imple­ment­a­tion of busi­ness con­tinu­ity pro­cesses. There­fore, each decision point need not be agreed in advance by the Convener/​Deputy Con­vener – recog­niz­ing that both may not be avail­able at the same time dur­ing the peri­od of the imple­ment­a­tion of this response plan.

1. The fol­low­ing pro­ced­ure shall be used in imple­ment­ing these Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity arrangements:

a. At least two of the fol­low­ing Board office bear­ers shall identi­fy that cir­cum­stances require the imple­ment­a­tion of Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plans (BCP) for the con­tin­ued oper­a­tion of Board and Com­mit­tee meetings:

i. Board Con­vener; ii. Board Deputy Con­vener; iii. Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­ven­or; iv. Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Deputy Convenor;

b. The Board Con­vener and/​or Deputy Con­ven­or may agree imple­ment­a­tion of these BCP arrange­ments for all Board and Com­mit­tee meetings;

c. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­ven­or and/​or Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Deputy Con­ven­or may agree imple­ment­a­tion of these BCP arrange­ments as they impact on Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ings only;

d. The pro­pos­al to imple­ment BCP arrange­ments should spe­cify the pro­posed end­point of the arrange­ments being in place.

e. Agree­ment to imple­ment these BCP arrange­ments must be sup­por­ted by at least one of the fol­low­ing seni­or officers:

i. The Chief Exec­ut­ive; ii. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices; iii. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Development.

f. Fol­low­ing agree­ment being estab­lished between required mem­bers and seni­or officers, one of the three seni­or officers iden­ti­fied at 2^e shall coordin­ate an email to all mem­bers seek­ing their approv­al that agreed BCP plans for Board oper­a­tion are imple­men­ted. Quor­um require­ments at [10] remain in force for such approv­al and there­fore at least 10 mem­bers must respond to con­firm applic­a­tion of BCP arrange­ments. Of this num­ber, the Board mem­bers estab­lish­ing the approv­al to ini­ti­ate action are deemed to rep­res­ent approvals towards the required quorum.

g. Seni­or officers will con­firm the res­ult of the email decision-mak­ing pro­cess and wheth­er the BCP arrange­ments are there­fore now in force.

h. The peri­od of imple­ment­a­tion of BCP arrange­ments may be exten­ded as required and agreed by the Board. A decision to extend arrange­ments shall be taken with­in the arrange­ments estab­lished for busi­ness con­tinu­ity of Board and Com­mit­tee busi­ness set out at 1 and rely on quor­um arrange­ments estab­lished with­in the BCP arrangements.