CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper | 28/08/2020

Title: BOARD STAND­ING ORDERS: ELECTIONS

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Pur­pose

This paper presents, at the request of the Con­vener, pro­posed revi­sions to cur­rent Stand­ing Orders and Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity arrange­ments in place amend­ing Stand­ing Orders, in order to put in place arrange­ments to sup­port elec­tions of Con­vener / Deputy Convener.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is reques­ted to:

a) Agree that the cur­rent busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments in place for Board oper­a­tions and gov­ernance of the Author­ity should be amended at this time to allow for the elec­tion of Con­vener / Deputy Con­vener; b) Approve, sub­ject to any agreed amend­ments, the elec­tions pro­cess set out in para­graphs 7 to 13; c) Review the illus­trat­ive timetable at para­graph 15 and con­sider any changes to the timetable and / or planned time allow­ances for each stage of the pro­cess; d) Note the pro­pos­als, should they be agreed, rep­res­ent amend­ments to busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments only and in due course Board oper­a­tions will revert to agreed Stand­ing Orders.

Con­text

1. The Board agreed busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments involving amend­ments to its Stand­ing Orders at its meet­ing of 27 March 2020. These arrange­ments remain in force since that date.

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​/​2​7​0​3​2​0​2​0​/​2​0​0​3​2​7​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r​3​A​A​B​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​C​o​n​t​i​n​u​i​t​y.pdf

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​/​2​7​0​3​2​0​2​0​/​2​0​0​3​2​7​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r​3​A​n​n​e​x​2​B​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​C​o​n​t​i​n​u​i​t​y​S​t​a​n​d​i​n​g​O​r​d​e​r​A​m​e​n​d​m​e​n​t​s.pdf

1. One of the pro­vi­sions of the busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments to stand­ing orders is a sus­pen­sion of elec­tions to roles of Con­vener or Deputy Con­vener – a sus­pen­sion of para­graph 4 of the stand­ing orders.

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​I​B​o​a​r​d​S​t​a​n​d​i​n​g​O​r​d​e​r​s.pdf

1. Geva Black­ett resigned as Deputy Con­vener of the Author­ity on 29 July 2020.

2. In fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion of the roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies to be covered by a Deputy Con­vener on behalf of the Author­ity, the Con­vener has reflec­ted that there is a need to replace the Deputy Con­vener as soon as prac­tic­able. In light of the COVID19 restric­tions around hold­ing face to face meet­ings which are expec­ted to remain in force for some months for pub­lic organ­isa­tions such as the Author­ity, the Con­vener has asked that a paper is brought for­ward to allow the Board to con­sider amend­ments to busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments and stand­ing orders which would allow elec­tions to roles of Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener to take place.

Decision Point 1

1. The first decision required by the Board is wheth­er the cur­rent busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments in place for Board oper­a­tions and gov­ernance of the Author­ity should be amended at this time to allow for the elec­tion of Con­vener / Deputy Convener.

2. As a point of clar­ity, only an elec­tion of Deputy Con­vener is pro­posed at this spe­cif­ic time. How­ever, stand­ing orders provide for the elec­tion of Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener in the same way (as they do also for Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee) and there­fore any amend­ments to stand­ing orders and busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments will apply to all roles elec­ted by the Board unless the Board spe­cific­ally resolves that the pro­cess shall apply to a single elec­tion only.

Pro­posed Elec­tion Process

1. The fol­low­ing elec­tion pro­cess is pro­posed to be deployed, should mem­bers agree. Ref­er­ences in square brack­ets are to the rel­ev­ant para­graphs of the approved stand­ing orders linked at point 2 of this paper. Pro­vi­sions estab­lished in exist­ing, approved stand­ing orders have been util­ised in order to provide as broad a base for these pro­pos­als on exist­ing, agreed process.

2. In line with [4a], mem­bers will be giv­en 15 work­ing days from the date of the approved elec­tion pro­cess to sub­mit val­id nom­in­a­tions to the Prop­er Officer.

3. Val­id nom­in­a­tions con­sist of the fol­low­ing, each of which may be sub­mit­ted sep­ar­ately and all of which must be sub­mit­ted by the clos­ing date 15 work­ing days from com­mence­ment of the pro­cess, in any per­man­ent form such as email, attach­ment to an email, let­ter, or recor­ded oral message:

a) Pro­pos­al of a mem­ber to stand for elec­tion from a second Board mem­ber; b) Second­er of the pro­pos­al from a third Board mem­ber; c) Con­firm­a­tion from the mem­ber pro­posed and seconded that they are will­ing to stand for the role in ques­tion; d) A writ­ten state­ment from the mem­ber in ques­tion to sup­port their can­did­ature for the elec­tion for cir­cu­la­tion to all Board mem­bers [4b].

1. Fol­low­ing clos­ure of the nom­in­a­tion peri­od, the Prop­er Officer will val­id­ate nom­in­a­tions and pre­pare a bal­lot paper to include all val­id nom­in­a­tions. Nom­in­a­tions shall be lis­ted in chro­no­lo­gic­al order of the time at which all nom­in­a­tion require­ments were com­pleted [4b].

2. Should there be only a single, val­id nom­in­a­tion then that can­did­ate shall be declared as elec­ted [4 d vii]. If there are mul­tiple val­id nom­in­a­tions then an elec­tion shall take place.

3. Bal­lot papers will be sent by post to all mem­bers, with a stamped envel­ope for return of the bal­lot paper to the Prop­er Officer at the Authority’s to enable a con­fid­en­tial postal bal­lot return. The bal­lot shall be issued no later than 5 work­ing days fol­low­ing the clos­ure of the nom­in­a­tion process.

4. Elec­tions will be by abso­lute major­ity, using a single, trans­fer­rable vote sys­tem [4^d] as follows:

a) The bal­lot paper will list all can­did­ates; b) Mem­bers will be asked to state clearly on their vot­ing paper their pre­ferred can­did­ate in their order of pref­er­ence, with their top pref­er­ence marked clearly with a ​“1”, their second pref­er­ence marked clearly with a ​“2”, their third pref­er­ence marked clearly with a ​“3” and so on; c) There is no require­ment to rank all can­did­ates, how­ever at least a first pref­er­ence must be marked in order to rep­res­ent a val­id vote; d) Should the count of first pref­er­ences give rise to an abso­lute major­ity, i.e. 10 or more votes for a single can­did­ate, the can­did­ate with the major­ity of votes shall be declared the win­ner of the elec­tion [4 d iii]; e) Where the count of first pref­er­ences does not provide for a major­ity of votes to a single can­did­ate, the can­did­ate receiv­ing few­est votes shall be excluded and their votes real­loc­ated to remain­ing can­did­ates on basis of any second pref­er­ences stated [4 d iii]; f) The pro­cess of exclud­ing the can­did­ate with few­est votes and redis­trib­ut­ing those votes to remain­ing can­did­ates on the basis of the next pref­er­ence stated on the bal­lot paper will con­tin­ue in this way until a single can­did­ate has an abso­lute major­ity [4 d iv]; g) Where there is a tie at any stage between two can­did­ates, the tie shall be resolved accord­ing to the pro­cess for res­ol­u­tion of a tie set out in Annex 2 to the Stand­ing Orders [Annex 2 para­graph 2]. h) Where there is a tie between three or more can­did­ates, it is not pos­sible to con­duct a tie break through cut­ting a deck of cards as required by cur­rent stand­ing orders [Annex 2 para­graph 3]. Instead, the Prop­er Officer will ran­domly select an appro­pri­ate num­ber of play­ing cards and num­ber them from one to the num­ber required. Can­did­ates with a tied num­ber of votes will be asked to select a card by num­ber, again using the order in which can­did­ates appear on the bal­lot paper with the tie break resolved by the rank of the card as set out in Annex 2 of the Stand­ing Orders [amends Annex 2 para­graph 3]. i) The res­ol­u­tion of any tie will require can­did­ates to be avail­able on a con­fer­ence or video call and may there­fore res­ult in some delay to final­isa­tion of the count pro­cess; j) All acts of count­ing and tie break pro­cesses will be con­duc­ted by the Prop­er Officer and wit­nessed by anoth­er mem­ber of staff; k) Bal­lot papers will be retained for inspec­tion by any mem­ber of the Board or the Chief Exec­ut­ive for a peri­od of sev­en days [4 d viii].

Decision Point 2

1. The Board is reques­ted to review and approve, sub­ject to any agreed amend­ments, the elec­tions pro­cess set out in para­graphs 7 to 13.

Illus­trat­ive Timetable

1. Should the Board agree to amend busi­ness con­tinu­ity and stand­ing order pro­cesses as set out in this paper, the fol­low­ing rep­res­ents an illus­trat­ive timetable for con­duct of the elec­tion of the Deputy Convener:

a) 28 August: Board con­firms pro­cess for elec­tion. b) 18 Septem­ber 17:00: final date and time for receipt of val­id nom­in­a­tions and asso­ci­ated papers. This provides the 15 work­ing days allowed for in the approved Stand­ing Orders. c) In week com­men­cing 21 Septem­ber: Issue bal­lot papers and can­did­ates state­ment fol­low­ing val­id­a­tion of nom­in­a­tions, devel­op­ment of bal­lot papers and com­pil­a­tion of mater­i­als includ­ing can­did­ate state­ments. Tar­get issue of these papers by Wed­nes­day 23 Septem­ber. d) Wed­nes­day 7 Octo­ber 17:00: tar­get final date and time for receipt of bal­lots. (The peri­od for return of bal­lots seeks to resolve the bal­lot pro­cess pri­or to the Octo­ber hol­i­day peri­od for both Board mem­bers and staff, while allow­ing two weeks for com­ple­tion and return of bal­lots.) e) Fri­day 9 Octo­ber: tar­get count of bal­lot and announce­ment of res­ult, sub­ject to avail­ab­il­ity of mem­bers in the event of any tie break.

Decision Point 3

1. The Board is reques­ted to review the illus­trat­ive timetable at para­graph 15 and con­sider any changes to the timetable and / or planned time allow­ances for each stage of the process.

Next Steps

1. The pro­pos­als, should they be agreed, rep­res­ent amend­ments to busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments only and in due course Board oper­a­tions will revert to agreed Stand­ing Orders. We will con­tin­ue to mon­it­or COVID19 oper­a­tion­al restric­tions and make ongo­ing changes to busi­ness con­tinu­ity man­age­ment pro­cesses which are appro­pri­ate to circumstances.

Dav­id Camer­on, davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk 20 August 2020