CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Annu­al Report and Accounts ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀

AITH­ISG BHLIADH­NAIL AGUS CUN­NTAS­AN ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀

…An out­stand­ing nation­al park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive together…

…Sàr phàirc nàiseanta, a tha a’ còrdadh ris a h‑uile duine agus air a bheil iad uile a’ cur luach, agus far a bheil nàdar agus daoine a’ soirbheachadh…

Con­tents

• Key Per­son­nel and Spon­sor­ing Body 2
• Part 1 – Per­form­ance Report 3
  • Over­view 4
  • For­ward 4
  • The Park Author­ity 6
  • Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ and bey­ond 8
  • Key Issues and Risks 10
  • Per­form­ance Ana­lys­is 11
    • Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Sum­mary 11
    • Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary 15
• Part 2 – Account­ab­il­ity Report 26
  • Cor­por­ate gov­ernance report 27
    • Dir­ect­ors’ Report 27
    • State­ment of Nation­al Park Authority’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 29
    • State­ment of Board’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 30
    • State­ment of the Account­able Officer’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 30
    • Gov­ernance State­ment 31
  • Remu­ner­a­tion and staff report 37
    • Remu­ner­a­tion report and key inform­a­tion on staff 37
  • Account­ab­il­ity Report 46
    • Dis­clos­ures to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment 46
  • Inde­pend­ent Auditor’s report 47
• Part 3 – Fin­an­cial State­ments 51
  • State­ment of Com­pre­hens­ive Net Expendit­ure 52
  • State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion 53
  • State­ment of Cash Flows 54
  • State­ment of Changes in Tax­pay­ers’ Equity 55
  • Notes to the Fin­an­cial State­ments 56
• Appen­dices
  • Accounts Dir­ec­tion 68
  • Staff Uni­on Time 69

Key Per­son­nel and Spon­sor­ing Body

Board Mem­bers

• Peter Argyle
• Geva Black­ett – Deputy Con­vener (resigned as Deputy Con­ven­or 29^th July 2020)
• Car­o­lyn Caddick
• Deirdrie Fal­con­er
• Pippa Had­ley
• Janet Hunter
• John Kirk
• John Lath­am
• Douglas McAdam
• Dr Fiona McLean
• Anne Rae MacDonald
• Elean­or Mack­in­tosh – Chair Plan­ning Committee
• Ian Maclar­en
• Xan­der McDade – Convener
• Wil­lie McKenna
• Wil­li­am Mun­ro – Chair Fin­ance and Deliv­ery Committee
• Dr Gaen­er Rodger
• Derek Ross
• Judith Webb – Chair Audit and Risk Committee

Board mem­ber pro­files can be found at http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​b​oard/

Chief Exec­ut­ive and Account­able Officer

• Grant Moir

Dir­ect­ors

• Dav­id Camer­on – Cor­por­ate Services
• Mur­ray Fer­guson – Plan­ning & Rur­al Development
• Dr Peter May­hew – Con­ser­va­tion & Vis­it­or Experience

Spon­sor­ing Body

Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Government

Part 1 – Per­form­ance Report

Over­view

For­ward

I have pleas­ure in present­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s (the Park Author­ity) Annu­al Report and Accounts cov­er­ing its six­teenth year of oper­a­tion, from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020.

The Park Author­ity has worked this year to pro­gress pri­or­ity object­ives set out in our Cor­por­ate Plan span­ning 2018 to 2022, our second year of deliv­ery against this stra­tegic deliv­ery plan approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters. Our Cor­por­ate Plan sets out how we will alloc­ate our resources and explains how our use of these resources will help to deliv­er the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan along with our wide range of part­ners, and through this con­trib­ute to achiev­ing the Scot­tish Government’s Stra­tegic Objectives.

Like every cit­izen and organ­isa­tion in Scot­land, we were impacted by the pub­lic safety meas­ures put in place over March 2020 to respond to the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic, and before that had to risk man­age our work in the con­text of polit­ic­al reac­tions to the UK’s exit from the European Uni­on. Des­pite these peri­ods of unrest in our stra­tegic oper­at­ing envir­on­ment, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has had anoth­er suc­cess­ful year in deliv­er­ing against our pri­or­it­ies and in man­aging a bal­anced budget pos­i­tion while doing so.

The Park Author­ity is respons­ible for deliv­er­ing across con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and rur­al devel­op­ment. This involves us in provid­ing effect­ive and effi­cient pub­lic ser­vices cov­er­ing our stat­utory func­tions of plan­ning and access, and also in our wider roles work­ing with a wide range of part­ners across the full spec­trum of con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or ser­vices and rur­al devel­op­ment to deliv­er pro­jects on the ground that deliv­er on our out­comes. This has been achieved through lever­ing in sig­ni­fic­ant addi­tion­al fund­ing into the Nation­al Park on con­ser­va­tion pro­jects, rur­al regen­er­a­tion pro­jects, access pro­jects and much more besides.

It has been a busy year and some of the key high­lights of our work in the Nation­al Park are in this Annu­al Report and Accounts, with more detailed inform­a­tion avail­able in our Annu­al Review of ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀. https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​a​b​o​u​t​/​a​n​n​u​a​l​-​r​e​p​orts/

Par­tic­u­lar high­lights in the year include the devel­op­ment of a Youth Action Team to fol­low up on the huge suc­cess of the 2018 Euro­parc Fed­er­a­tion con­fer­ence hos­ted by the Cairngorms NPA, which forms the first steps in real engage­ment of and with young people to inform the future devel­op­ment and con­ser­va­tion of their Nation­al Park. We also hos­ted the Net Zero with Nature Con­fer­ence in March 2020 which cemen­ted our long term com­mit­ment to find­ing fully sus­tain­able ways to live in, work in and vis­it the Cairngorms and which will con­tin­ue to be a key focus for us even as we work hard in the short­er term to sup­port the Cairngorms in its recov­ery from impacts of Cov­id-19. We remain com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that ​“our pub­lic ser­vices are high qual­ity, con­tinu­ally improv­ing, effi­cient and respons­ive to loc­al peoples’ needs.” We aim to deliv­er high stand­ards of ser­vice with­in our agreed budget alloc­a­tion while achiev­ing a break even fin­an­cial outturn.

Fun­da­ment­ally we are determ­ined to set an ambi­tious, fully sus­tain­able long term vis­ion for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and to work with people and con­tin­ue to deliv­er the pro­jects that make a sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ence to all those that are involved in this Nation­al Park. That is what pub­lic ser­vice is all about.

Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive and Account­able Officer Septem­ber, 2020

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the largest Nation­al Park in the United King­dom and cov­ers 4,525 square kilo­metres, twice the size of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and 40% lar­ger than the Lake District.

The Park Author­ity is a Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Body sponsored by the Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, estab­lished under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 with the pur­pose of being a mod­el of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment work­ing towards achiev­ing four stat­utory aims:

• To con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area;
• To pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area;
• To pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the pub­lic; and
• To pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s communities.

Strategy and Busi­ness Model

The Park Author­ity has a key role in lead­ing the deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. The Plan sets the con­text for close cooper­a­tion and part­ner­ship across pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions in the Park towards an agreed set of shared pri­or­ity object­ives. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan sets out three long term out­comes for the Park, which have also been used as the basis for devel­op­ing the Cor­por­ate Plan. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 (CNPPP), which was approved by Min­is­ters, provides the over­all guide for stra­tegic align­ment between pub­lic agen­cies with­in the Park, and also with private and com­munity organ­isa­tions who are sig­nat­or­ies to and part­ners in deliv­ery of the CNPPP.

The Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan was approved by the Board and Scot­tish Min­is­ters in Spring 2018 to cov­er our work up to the end of the cur­rent CNPPP and the devel­op­ment of the fol­low­ing Park Part­ner­ship Plan which will be put in place to com­mence from April 2022. In the wider Scot­tish con­text, the Park Author­ity will also work on ensur­ing great­er stra­tegic align­ment to ensure deliv­ery of key nation­al strategies, such as cur­rent and future Pro­grammes for Gov­ern­ment, 2020 Chal­lenge for Scotland’s Biod­iversity, Scot­tish Cli­mate Change Act, the Land Use Strategy for Scot­land, Scotland’s Eco­nom­ic Strategy, Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work, the Com­munity Empower­ment Act, the nation­al Tour­ism Strategy 2020, the Nation­al Walk­ing Strategy and the Cyc­ling Action Plan for Scotland.

Our stra­tegic work includes being an act­ive mem­ber of the Envir­on­ment and Eco­nomy Lead­ers’ Group, togeth­er with input to a range of nation­al lead­er­ship and stake­hold­er groups.

Our Com­mit­ment

Fol­low­ing engage­ment with staff and our Board in 2016 we adop­ted a vis­ion, mis­sion state­ment and a set of val­ues, as part of our cor­por­ate plan­ning pro­cesses, which are cent­ral to our pur­pose and stra­tegic context:

• Our vis­ion – an out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive together;
• Our mis­sion – to lead the way in deliv­er­ing for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park by bring­ing people togeth­er towards a com­mon pur­pose; enhan­cing the Park for every­one and inspir­ing new gen­er­a­tions to be Park Champions;
• Our val­ues – the CNPA is an open, inclus­ive, innov­at­ive and pro­fes­sion­al organ­isa­tion that behaves with integ­rity. The CNPA will also oper­ate in an envir­on­ment­ally friendly way that provides lead­er­ship in this area.
• Our cul­ture – …to be the best small pub­lic body in Scotland.

We aspire to be the best small pub­lic body in Scot­land. Our staff sur­vey res­ults, under­taken every 2 years through ​“The Best Com­pan­ies Sur­vey” has shown that we are a people ori­ented organ­isa­tion per­form­ing well. We were delighted to once again be lis­ted in the Top 100 Not For Profit Organ­isa­tions in the UK wide sur­vey in Autumn 2019. We will con­tin­ue to build on our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy to imbed a high per­form­ance, high achiev­ing and high qual­ity cul­ture. The Park Author­ity will be innov­at­ive, quick to act and empower staff to deliv­er the strategies put in place by our Board.

New Ways of Working

The Park Author­ity will con­tin­ue to look at new ways to oper­ate to deliv­er our com­mit­ments in the cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. This will include con­tinu­ing our suc­cess in look­ing for altern­at­ive fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, includ­ing applic­a­tions to funds, such as the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund, spon­sor­ship oppor­tun­it­ies and mer­chand­ising. It also includes work­ing col­lab­or­at­ively with part­ners to deliv­er improved ser­vices. We also con­tin­ue to strive for more effi­cient, and sus­tain­able work­ing prac­tices intern­ally through deliv­er­ing against the third phase of our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy.

Per­form­ance Monitoring

Per­form­ance indic­at­ors have been set for each of our key themes against which we will meas­ure and mon­it­or per­form­ance. By the nature of the Park Authority’s role, in seek­ing to lead col­lab­or­at­ive effort in tack­ling the big issues for the Cairngorms, these per­form­ance meas­ures are rarely entirely con­trol­lable by the Park Author­ity. Rather, they require col­lab­or­a­tion and engage­ment with our part­ners and are meas­ures of the effect­ive­ness of our lead­er­ship and influ­en­cing, com­bined with our dir­ect invest­ment of fin­ance and staff resources, in address­ing our pri­or­it­ies. We com­pile per­form­ance mon­it­or­ing reports twice each year to the Authority’s Board, with all of these reports avail­able on our web­site. The most recent report, togeth­er with detail of per­form­ance against each meas­ure, is avail­able at: 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​/​0​6​1​2​2​0​1​9​/​1​9​1​2​0​6​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r5AAC

Fur­ther detail on our most recent per­form­ance against our key per­form­ance meas­ures is avail­able at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​s​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​/​b​o​a​r​d​-2019 – 12-06/

Stra­tegic Aims and Priorities

We con­trib­ute to deliv­ery of the long term out­comes in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, through work­ing to achieve our agreed Cor­por­ate Plan stra­tegic object­ives. Our stra­tegic aims and pri­or­it­ies are set out across three Themes of Con­ser­va­tion, Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence and Rur­al Devel­op­ment. Each of these three themes set out a num­ber of pri­or­ity object­ives. Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Com­mu­nic­a­tions sup­port the main themes and their outcomes.

Con­ser­va­tion – to be a spe­cial place for people and nature with nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age enhanced

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the premi­er area in the UK for nature con­ser­va­tion, with 50% of the area recog­nised as import­ant on a European scale through Natura 2000 des­ig­na­tion. Home to some of the most extens­ive and inter­na­tion­ally import­ant mont­ane, wood­land, river and wet­land hab­it­ats, our role is to bring part­ners togeth­er to deliv­er con­ser­va­tion at a land­scape scale and engage the pub­lic in this endeavour.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• Sup­port land­scape-scale con­ser­va­tion, espe­cially the expan­sion of nat­ive and mont­ane wood­land, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, nat­ur­al flood man­age­ment and caper­cail­lie management;
• Ensure deer man­age­ment is focused on deliv­er­ing pub­lic interest pri­or­it­ies spe­cific­ally the expan­sion of nat­ive wood­lands and peat­land restoration;
• Sup­port sus­tain­able moor­land man­age­ment to deliv­er great­er hab­it­at diversity and good man­age­ment practice.

Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence – people enjoy­ing the Park through out­stand­ing vis­it­or and learn­ing experiences

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is an inter­na­tion­ally renowned vis­it­or des­tin­a­tion with an out­stand­ing range of out­door recre­ation oppor­tun­it­ies. Our role is to ensure the qual­ity of vis­it­or exper­i­ence matches the qual­ity of envir­on­ment by coordin­at­ing invest­ment in the core infra­struc­ture, car­ry­ing out our role as an Access Author­ity, pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism and ensur­ing people of all ages, back­grounds and abil­it­ies are able to exper­i­ence and enjoy the Nation­al Park.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• Con­tin­ue to ensure vis­it­or infra­struc­ture meets the expect­a­tions of vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park and help deliv­er a sus­tain­able tour­ism economy;
• Increase phys­ic­al activ­ity in both res­id­ents and vis­it­ors and sup­port deliv­ery of Scot­land Nat­ur­al Health Service;
• Cre­ate a ​‘Park for All’ by encour­aging people from all back­grounds to come and recre­ate, learn in or vis­it the Nation­al Park.

Rur­al Devel­op­ment – a sus­tain­able eco­nomy sup­port­ing thriv­ing busi­nesses and communities

Deliv­ery of our pri­or­it­ies with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park can only come through close joint work­ing with the people who live and work in the com­munit­ies of the Park. Our role is to pro­mote invest­ment in a diver­si­fied eco­nomy, help com­munit­ies plan and achieve their own vis­ions and deliv­er a Plan­ning Ser­vice to guide the right devel­op­ment to the right place.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• Sup­port deliv­ery of hous­ing for loc­al needs through an effi­cient and effect­ive plan­ning service;
• Sup­port com­munit­ies, spe­cific­ally focus­sing on the most fra­gile, to deliv­er their agen­das for change;
• Work closely with the busi­ness com­munity and part­ners to sup­port a sus­tain­able Park economy.

Sup­port Themes

The deliv­ery of the themes and pri­or­it­ies is sup­por­ted by Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Cor­por­ate Ser­vices teams. Our Com­mu­nic­a­tions team works with vis­it­ors, com­munit­ies and stake­hold­ers to raise the pro­file of the Park and cre­ate a con­nec­tion and com­mit­ment to care for it. Our Cor­por­ate Ser­vices team ensure the deliv­ery of effect­ive, effi­cient and sus­tain­able ser­vices in addi­tion to pro­mot­ing the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance, both with­in the Park Author­ity itself and also in work­ing with com­munity and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions involved in deliv­ery of NPPP priorities.

Cor­por­ate Services

Deliv­er­ing effect­ive, effi­cient and sus­tain­able ser­vices and pro­mot­ing the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance, to sup­port deliv­ery of the Cor­por­ate Plan and Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan by the Park Author­ity and our com­munity and char­ity part­ners. We will also play an act­ive role in the Envir­on­ment and Eco­nomy Lead­ers’ Group.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• Imple­ment the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and embed the organ­isa­tion­al and cul­tur­al improve­ments to make the Park author­ity the best small pub­lic body in Scotland;
• Ensure that the office exten­sion, exist­ing accom­mod­a­tion and ICT facil­it­ies are ​‘fit for pur­pose’ and help to deliv­er the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy;
• Deliv­er ongo­ing ser­vice improve­ment, includ­ing appro­pri­ate shared ser­vices devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion, to the Park Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support;
• Pro­mote and sup­port the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance and man­age­ment, includ­ing equal­it­ies actions, with­in the Park Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement

Com­mu­nic­at­ing with vis­it­ors, com­munit­ies and stake­hold­ers is vital for the work of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. It sup­ports the work being under­taken across the organ­isa­tion to deliv­er on con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and rur­al devel­op­ment. Our role is to raise the pro­file of the Park and cre­ate a con­nec­tion and com­mit­ment to care for it with iden­ti­fied audi­ences so they act­ively sup­port the Park and bene­fit from doing so.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• Deliv­er the Com­mu­nic­a­tion and Engage­ment Strategy and increase aware­ness, engage­ment and involve­ment with the Park;
• Ensure high qual­ity intern­al com­mu­nic­a­tions that help deliv­er the key pri­or­it­ies of the Cor­por­ate Plan.

Key Issues and Risks

Risk man­age­ment and con­sid­er­a­tion of issues arising that may impact on the deliv­ery of our stra­tegic cor­por­ate pri­or­it­ies are cent­ral to our man­age­ment activ­it­ies with­in the Park Author­ity. The Man­age­ment Team reviews stra­tegic risks at least quarterly, and we have developed and embed­ded stra­tegic and oper­a­tion­al risk man­age­ment prac­tices, togeth­er with pro­ject man­age­ment pro­cesses, to take full cog­nis­ance of these core aspects of effect­ive organ­isa­tion­al and stra­tegic con­trol arrangements.

The Park Author­ity has developed a Stra­tegic Risk Man­age­ment Strategy and asso­ci­ated Stra­tegic Risk Register, which, in tan­dem with our cor­por­ate per­form­ance and mon­it­or­ing sys­tem, details the key issues and risks around deliv­ery of our Cor­por­ate Plan togeth­er with the stra­tegic object­ives and key per­form­ance indic­at­ors set out in that plan. The Board receives detailed reports and com­ments on key issues and risks twice annu­ally, with the Board’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee review­ing stra­tegic risk man­age­ment between these Board meet­ings. The most recent review of key issues and risks con­sidered by the Board’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee in March 2020 can be found at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​s​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g​-2020 – 02-21/

Sig­ni­fic­ant pro­jects will also have their own embed­ded risk registers and risk mit­ig­a­tion plans. More inform­a­tion on risk and intern­al con­trols can be found in the Gov­ernance State­ment with­in this doc­u­ment and in our Risk Man­age­ment Strategy avail­able at: 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​/​1​5​0​6​2​0​1​9​/​1​8​0​6​1​5​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r​4​Annex

Per­form­ance Analysis

Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Summary

The main sources of the Park Authority’s fund­ing for the year were the resource budgets and grant-in-aid fund­ing from the spon­sor­ing body the Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, of the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The Author­ity also acts as Account­able Body for the Cairngorm LEAD­ER pro­gramme and The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) and part­ner fun­ded pro­jects, the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape part­ner­ship, Great Place Badenoch and the Caper­cail­lie Framework.

Our income and fund­ing — total income for the year was £8.436m, an increase of £1.434m over ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉.

Grant-in-aid received in the year was £4.967m, made up of Resource grants £4.727m (2019: £4.565m) was received against oper­a­tion­al activ­it­ies, togeth­er with Cap­it­al grants of £0.240m (2019: £0.240m). Dur­ing the year the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment made addi­tion­al grant-in-aid avail­able to cov­er increased Civil Ser­vice pen­sion costs (£0.117m) and for peat­land recov­ery work (£.045m). Part­ner con­tri­bu­tions to pro­jects totalled £3.199m (2019: £1.585m) with income and grants from all oth­er sources com­ing to £0.270m (2019: £0.672m).

Grant-in-aid rep­res­ents 59% of the fund­ing of the Park Authority’s work, mean­ing that for every £1 of dir­ect Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fund­ing and addi­tion­al 40p comes from oth­er pub­lic bod­ies, both UK and European, and third parties.

All the pro­jects, LEAD­ER and the Her­it­age Fund pro­jects, are enter­ing the final phases of deliv­ery and so expendit­ure and fund­ing will reduce in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁. It is expec­ted, but not yet con­firmed, that the pro­jects may be exten­ded to allow for the back­log of work to be com­pleted due to the impact on nor­mal oper­a­tions of the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic arrangements.

Our expendit­ure — total expendit­ure for the year on oper­a­tion­al costs was £8.444m, an increase of £1.503m over ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉:

Pro­ject income and expendit­ure levels for the year have again increased on 2019 levels as a res­ult of the increase in activ­ity in both the LEAD­ER pro­gram and on NLHF sup­por­ted projects.

As a per­cent­age of grant in aid received only, staff costs, includ­ing Board fees, account for 70% of the spend

Our expendit­ure on main themes

The Park Authority’s expendit­ure is also broken down over key themes and pri­or­it­ies of oper­a­tion­al activ­ity in note 3 (seg­ment­al report­ing) to the Fin­an­cial State­ments. The sum­mar­ies below shows our invest­ment in the main oper­a­tion­al themes before the alloc­a­tion of any oth­er income or part­ner­ship fund­ing. (Depre­ci­ation on tan­gible and intan­gible assets is not attrib­uted to any theme or pri­or­ity in our reporting.)

Our out­turn

We are trans­fer­ring (£0.079m) for the year (2019: £0.61m) to Tax­pay­ers’ equity (Table 1). After account­ing for cap­it­al invest­ment cre­at­ing £0.065m in new tan­gible and intan­gible assets, and cap­it­al grants of £0.165m, the planned break­even out­turn for the year was not achieved with an under­spend on resource spend­ing of £.005m. How­ever, we con­sider this a more an accept­able out­turn giv­en the many chal­lenges to our oper­a­tions, and those of our many part­ners because of the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic which severely impacted oper­a­tion in the run up to the end of the fin­an­cial year.

Net incom­ing resources

The net incom­ing resources for the year to 31 March 2020 com­prises income received from part­ners reim­burs­ing costs incurred, includ­ing reim­burse­ment of grant out­lays and admin­is­tra­tion costs incurred on the Cairngorms LEAD­ER pro­gramme 2014 – 20, and the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund pro­jects — Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship, Great Place Badenoch and the Caper­cail­lie Frame­work. Fees are also received from called-in plan­ning applic­a­tions sub­mit­ted in the first instance to the five loc­al author­it­ies with­in the Nation­al Park’s boundaries.

Changes in non-cur­rent assets

Move­ments in non-cur­rent assets are shown in note 8.

Char­it­able donations

There were no char­it­able dona­tions made in the year or pre­vi­ous year.

Rela­tion­ship with sup­pli­ers and partners

Our sup­pli­er pay­ment policy com­plies with the terms of the Bet­ter Pay­ment Prac­tice Code. Dur­ing the year to 31 March 2020, the time taken to pay cred­it­ors achieved an aver­age of 9.1 days (2019: 7.4 days) against a tar­get of 10 days (2019: 10 days), with 71.0% (2019: 89.6%) of pay­ments being made by the tar­get date.

Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Summary

²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ Activ­ity Highlights

Our achieve­ments and key areas of work in the second year of our four year Cor­por­ate Plan included the vari­ous high­lights set out in the fol­low­ing sec­tions. We also high­light here the cur­rent status of deliv­ery against our adop­ted Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­ors (KPIs). As this report is writ­ten while we con­tin­ue to vary our oper­a­tions in response to the Cov­id-19 emer­gency, for­ward look­ing com­ments on deliv­ery expect­a­tions are giv­en in terms of our cur­rent plans while liable to ongo­ing change as we con­tin­ue to modi­fy and adapt our oper­a­tion­al plans to suit cur­rent cir­cum­stances. We provide reg­u­lar updates on our activ­it­ies on our web­site and through quarterly reports by our Chief Exec­ut­ive to our Board. The most recent such report is avail­able at: 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​r1AAC

Con­ser­va­tion

• Wood­land Expan­sion Tar­gets work com­mis­sioned from the James Hut­ton Insti­tute to determ­ine the area of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park suit­able for wood­land expan­sion and able to con­trib­ute toward deliv­ery of the nation­al tar­get of 12,000 ha (hec­tares) per year has con­firmed our ori­gin­al annu­al tar­get of 5,000 ha per year as an appro­pri­ate object­ive. At this rate, only 20% of the Cairngorms would be wood­land by 2045: high­light­ing an aspir­a­tion­al while achiev­able object­ive to con­trib­ute to nation­al cli­mate con­trol object­ives, while mak­ing only min­im­al impacts on open hab­it­ats. This import­ant piece of research was repor­ted at the Cairngorms Cli­mate Con­fer­ence in March 2020.
• Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship is now into the final year of the pro­ject deliv­ery. As well as host­ing an event in Perth with oth­er Nation­al Lot­tery fun­ded pro­jects the emphas­is has been on com­plet­ing pro­jects and on devel­op­ing appro­pri­ate mech­an­isms to ensure the leg­acy of the pro­ject. The major pro­jects are now com­plete includ­ing the sta­bil­isa­tion work at Blairfindy Castle, the Spey­side Way spur, res­tor­a­tion of the Scalan Mills, the hid­den sem­in­ary, with the Dis­cov­ery Centre now estab­lished as a focal point for vis­it­ors fol­low­ing the Snow Road. Remain­ing major work focuses on inter­pret­a­tion and com­plet­ing water-envir­on­ment pro­jects and ripari­an wood­land. The pro­gramme is due to com­plete by Septem­ber 2020, although the Pro­ject Board has agreed to seek a three month exten­sion to this dead­line in order to deal with inter­rup­tions to deliv­ery as a res­ult of Cov­id-19 response measures.
• Peat­land Action 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 many chal­lenges. Des­pite this, our team are cur­rently over­see­ing over 600 hec­tares of res­tor­a­tion work with anoth­er 965 hec­tares at the feas­ib­il­ity study stage.
• East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship (ECMP), fun­ded and sup­por­ted by 6 Estates and the Park Author­ity, our part­ners in the ECMP have pre­pared a work pro­gramme includ­ing 9 poten­tial pro­jects, includ­ing action on wader mon­it­or­ing, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, muir­burn plans and rap­tor studies.
• Deer man­age­ment and Moor­land man­age­ment work has included the ini­ti­ation of a key piece of work to be com­pleted in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁: a Cairngorms Nation­al Park-wide deer count will take place, to include heli­copter counts over open areas and extra­pol­a­tion of num­bers into wood­land areas. This will rep­res­ent a key step toward achiev­ing our cor­por­ate pri­or­ity of sup­port­ing deer pop­u­la­tion mod­el­ling and herb­i­vore impact assessments.
• Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Frame­work, sup­por­ted by The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund and LEAD­ER, com­pleted its devel­op­ment phase to answer the ques­tion ​“How can people who live, work and play in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park help secure the long-term future of Caper­cail­lie” in March 2020 and was fol­lowed by the Deliv­ery Phase applic­a­tion. The extremely pos­it­ive res­ults from the com­munity listen­ing work car­ried out by Dr Alistair Bath in Car­rbridge has giv­en the com­munity group a great boost and strong man­date to go ahead with draw­ing up a com­munity-led action plan. Learn­ing and out­comes from this devel­op­ment phase on how to sup­port fur­ther com­munit­ies of place and interest through a sim­il­ar pro­cess estab­lishes the basis of the next phase applic­a­tion for the pro­ject, along with pro­pos­als for rais­ing aware­ness and under­stand­ing, hab­it­at expan­sion and enhance­ment, pred­at­or man­age­ment and genet­ic analysis.
• Cairngorms Nature Action Plan Deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan’s three pri­or­it­ies of ​‘land­scape-scale con­ser­va­tion’, ​‘action for pri­or­ity spe­cies’ and ​‘involving people’ con­tin­ues to be on-track with no sig­ni­fic­ant risks or bar­ri­ers iden­ti­fied at this early stage. Fund­ing via the Biod­iversity Chal­lenge Fund is deliv­er­ing nature-friendly farm­ing, fresh­wa­ter res­tor­a­tion and spe­cies con­ser­va­tion pro­jects across the Park.

Vis­it­or Experience

• Volun­teer­ing and Health Walks in the Cairngorms: the Park Author­ity, with sup­port from Paths for All and NHS High­land, obtained a three year LEAD­ER fund­ing pack­age to sup­port the devel­op­ment of volun­teer­ing and organ­ised walks to sup­port phys­ic­al and men­tal health, with the second year of the pro­ject suc­cess­fully delivered over ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀.
• Long Dis­tance Routes (1) Spey­side way after 16 years since an ini­tial study on the Long Dis­tance Route, it is now com­plete and offi­cially open. We are now devel­op­ing new maps and inter­pret­a­tion boards to be installed at key sites along the route and work­ing with New­ton­more Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation to devel­op a start/​finish sculp­ture in the vil­lage. (2) Deeside Way The route from Aber­deen to Bal­later is also pro­moted as NCN195 by Sus­trans. We con­tin­ue to work with part­ners to find fund­ing to improve the route and extend it to Brae­mar, and also work to rein­vig­or­ate efforts to find fund­ing for seg­ments of the route which already have plan­ning consent.
• The Moun­tains and People Pro­ject sup­por­ted by the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund cov­ers invest­ment in the moun­tain path net­work, accred­ited train­ing, volun­teer­ing and inter­pret­a­tion work in both Loch Lomond & the Trossachs Nation­al Park and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park is due to com­plete in 2020. 82% of the paths iden­ti­fied in the Cairngorms were com­pleted by Octo­ber 2019 includ­ing the Beinn a Ghlo path in High­land Perth­shire which was opened by John Swin­ney in Septem­ber 2019. This pro­ject along with its pre­de­cessor, the Cairngorms Moun­tain Her­it­age Pro­ject, have upgraded 144km of key moun­tain paths. We are now refin­ing our part­ner­ship with Out­door Access Trust for Scot­land to ensure that paths improved in Cairngorms over the last 15 years are maintained.
• Act­ive Travel: we con­tin­ue to work on a wide range of pro­ject devel­op­ments pro­mot­ing and sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of more act­ive travel in the Cairngorms. This includes our work as a part­ner in the Cairngorms Trust’s Trans­port in Cairngorms and Kilkenny (TICK) Sus­tain­able Trans­port pro­ject, seek­ing to sup­port beha­viour change toward more act­ive travel as part of a more sus­tain­able, healthy life­style, and sup­port­ing pro­jects with com­munit­ies in Glen­more, Lag­gan, Dul­nain Bridge and Kingussie.
• Volun­teer Rangers now have 26 fully trained volun­teers and will be joined by 12 oth­ers cur­rently under­go­ing train­ing to con­tin­ue to sup­port the work of our ten part­ner ranger services;
• Cairngorms Youth Action Team was launched in Octo­ber 2019 by Mari Gougeon, Min­is­ter for Rur­al Affairs and the Nat­ur­al Envir­on­ment and has recruited 15 young people up to 25 years old to devel­op on the work star­ted in 2019 fully enga­ging young people in the work of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.
• Inform­a­tion and inter­pret­a­tion: ten loc­al inform­a­tion centre part­ner­ships are now in place with staff tak­ing part in the ​‘Make it Yours’ train­ing. All centres are branded, have vis­it­or leaf­lets and are pro­moted on our web­site and maps of the Nation­al Park;

Rur­al Development

• Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020: the pre­par­a­tion of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2020 (LDP 2020) con­tin­ued through­out ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀. Con­sulta­tion on the pro­posed LDP 2020 ended on 5 April 2019 and responses were ana­lysed over the sum­mer. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan was sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Min­is­ters on Septem­ber 20^th, 2019. The exam­in­a­tion of unre­solved rep­res­ent­a­tions by Report­ers from the Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals Divi­sion (DPEA) is now under way. We have been advised by Report­ers that oral ses­sions will not be required and that work should be com­pleted by the end of May 2020. Pro­gress can be mon­itored on the DEPA’s web­site: http://​www​.dpea​.scot​land​.gov​.uk/​C​a​s​e​D​e​t​a​i​l​s​.​a​s​p​x​?​I​D​=​1​20658
• Eco­nom­ic Action Plan: we con­sul­ted on, and approved, an Eco­nom­ic Action Plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park dur­ing the year. An Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group, chaired by Board mem­ber Deirdre Fal­con­er, has been estab­lished to advise on and mon­it­or deliv­ery of the Eco­nom­ic Action Plan.
• Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund (RTIF): The Author­ity sponsored two suc­cess­ful bids to this fund over the course of ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀. The Muir of Din­net pro­ject (car-park exten­sion, new sewage dis­pos­al and motor-home pro­vi­sion), owned by Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age, was com­pleted. The approved pro­ject in Glen­more man­aged by Forestry and Land Scot­land to provide new pave­ment / path from Beach Car Park to Hay­field is yet to start and is due for com­ple­tion by July 2020. The RTIF scheme has been exten­ded into ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ and an Expres­sion of Interest for a small motor home park­ing facil­ity in Strath­don has been sub­mit­ted with a grant awar­ded to sup­port the pro­pos­al to be more fully developed.
• A9 Dualling: the Park Author­ity objec­ted to the Dalraddy to Slo­chd sec­tion of the A9 dualling pro­ject on the basis that the pro­vi­sion for non-motor­ised users between Aviemore and Car­rbridge is insuf­fi­cient. The Author­ity pro­gressed this mat­ter through­out the year, and staff assisted Trans­port Scot­land with a study to identi­fy a suit­able off-road walk­ing and cyc­ling route between Aviemore and Car­rbridge. We have now reached agree­ment with Trans­port Scot­land who have com­mit­ted to provide an appro­pri­ate off road route for cyc­lists and walk­ers and con­sequently we have with­drawn our objection.
• Com­munity-led Hous­ing Deliv­ery: the com­munit­ies of Dul­nain Bridge, Boat of Garten, Tomin­toul, Brae­mar and Bal­later con­tin­ue to pur­sue com­munity hous­ing pro­jects, with sup­port provided by the Authority.
• Badenoch Great Place Pro­ject is now well estab­lished and 2 years into the 3 year pro­ject. Mul­tiple pro­jects are pro­gress­ing, includ­ing the inter­pret­a­tion and Mar­ket­ing Strategy and scop­ing an Altern­at­ive Tour­ist Route for Badenoch. While there has been an inter­rup­tion in pro­ject man­age­ment with the resig­na­tion of the pro­ject officer, impacts have been mit­ig­ated through pro­vi­sion of sup­port to the pro­ject by a num­ber of the Authority’s staff.
• Plan­ning Case­work: in addi­tion to pro­gress­ing our case­work in an effi­cient and timely man­ner, we con­tin­ue to closely mon­it­or the devel­op­ment in the Cairngorms against plan­ning approvals and reg­u­la­tion. Over the course of ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀, the Report­er from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Dir­ect­or­ate for Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals has upheld the CNPA’s enforce­ment notice requir­ing an unau­thor­ised track to be removed fol­low­ing an appeal against the enforce­ment notice.

Com­mu­nic­a­tion and Engagement

• Make it Yours Cam­paign: we con­tin­ue to sup­port train­ing and adop­tion of the ​“Make it Yours Cam­paign” for people involved in the Cairngorms, wheth­er in busi­ness or com­munity groups, to own their rela­tion­ship with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and pro­mote the Park as an integ­ral ele­ment of their work and activ­it­ies. Attendees at train­ing course sup­port­ing the cam­paign are now near­ing 400 since the com­mence­ment of the cor­por­ate plan­ning peri­od – almost 2% of the total pop­u­la­tion of the Nation­al Park. The train­ing has been updated to reflect the new pro­ject ini­ti­at­ives of the Great Place Badenoch and Dark Skies (Tomin­toul and Glenlivet).
• Cairngorms Nature Cam­paign: The Cairngorms Nature BIG Week­end took place between 10 – 13 May 2019, with over 100 events across the Park. Over 3,000 people across the Park got out into our amaz­ing land­scapes and nature; over 400 school chil­dren were involved in the art com­pet­i­tion and the rur­al skills day; 6 private estates, 2 farms, 10 ranger ser­vices, 17 private busi­nesses and 18 organ­isa­tions and pro­jects were involved. The next Cairngorms Nature BIG Week­end was sched­uled to take place 15 – 17 May 2020, build­ing on the pre­vi­ous year’s suc­cess. How­ever, this has been can­celled as a con­sequence of the Cov­id-19 emer­gency and instead plans are in place to run a Cairngorms Nature Vir­tu­al Week bring­ing the fant­ast­ic nature of the Cairngorms to people as they observe travel restrictions.
• Act­ive Cairngorms: the third Wee Walks Week was pro­moted across the Nation­al Park 9 – 15^th Septem­ber encour­aging us all to take a short walk for health and enjoy­ment. It also pro­moted the great loc­al path net­work shared on 17 com­munity path leaf­lets, and cel­eb­rated loc­al health walks. Pro­mo­tion of respons­ible access con­tin­ues to be a major focus of the cam­paign and work is under­way to get a more col­lab­or­at­ive approach in place across Scot­land led by SNH and sup­por­ted by both Nation­al Park Author­it­ies and the Forestry & Land Scotland.
• Cor­por­ate Com­mu­nic­a­tions: the Annu­al Review ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ is pub­lished on our web­site along with the Annu­al Accounts and can be accessed here (link). To pro­gress our Gael­ic Lan­guage Action Plan we recruited our second Gael­ic Lan­guage internee to help pro­mote Gael­ic Exper­i­ences in the Park through our digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions. The online ​‘Gael­ic as an Asset’ Toolkit was pub­lished in July and a joint Gael­ic Edu­ca­tion pro­ject with Loch Lomond & the Trossachs Nation­al Park Author­ity was pro­moted with loc­al schools in August.
• Net Zero with Nature Con­fer­ence: ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀