201113FinCtteePaper2AAGreenRecoveryFund

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Fin­ance & Deliv­ery Com­mit­tee Paper 2 13/11/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY FIN­ANCE & DELIV­ERY COMMITTEE

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: GREEN RECOV­ERY FUND

Pre­pared by: MUR­RAY FER­GUSON, DIR­ECT­OR OF PLAN­NING AND RUR­AL DEVEL­OP­MENT NANCY CHAM­BERS, CAIRNGORMS TRUST MANAGER

Pur­pose This paper provides an update on the pro­gress with deliv­ery of the Green Recov­ery Fund.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Fin­ance & Deliv­ery Com­mit­tee is reques­ted to note the deploy­ment of the Fund.

Green Recov­ery Plan and the Green Recov­ery Fund

1. The CNPA Board approved a Green Recov­ery Plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park in June 2020, includ­ing the cre­ation of a Green Recov­ery Fund to be run as a grant scheme with a fund­ing pot of £130k. The Fund com­prised £100k from CNPA and 30k from The Cairngorms Trust. The Board agreed four guid­ing prin­ciples for the Fund Green solu­tions, Well­being and eco­nom­ic growth, Employ­ment and the Long-term aims of Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

2. The assess­ment of pro­ject applic­a­tions was over­seen by a Pan­el chaired by CNPA Board mem­ber, Wil­lie Mun­ro, with rep­res­ent­at­ives from the Cairngorms Trust, Marr Area Part­ner­ship, Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch & Strath­spey, Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, Cairngorms Nature Steer­ing Group and Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership

3. The Fund was pro­moted widely dur­ing Septem­ber 2020 and res­ul­ted in 27 applic­a­tions being received for a total level of sup­port of £263k. With­in five days of the clos­ing date, all of the applic­a­tions had been assessed against the agreed eval­u­ation cri­ter­ia at https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​0​/​0​8​/​1​4​0​8​2​0​-​G​r​e​e​n​-​R​e​c​o​v​e​r​y​-​Fund- Cri­ter­ia-Annex‑1 – 2.pdf. Recom­mend­a­tions were provided to the Panel.

Suc­cess­ful projects

1. Thir­teen pro­jects were chosen by the Pan­el to receive fund­ing from the Green Recov­ery Fund (see Annex I). There was a good geo­graph­ic spread pro­jects around

2. The Cairngorms Trust staff over­saw the admin­is­tra­tion of grants to all pro­jects. Emails with noti­fic­a­tion and form­al offer let­ters were sent to suc­cess­ful pro­jects with­in 48 hours of the Pan­el meet­ing. A lead officer from Cairngorms Trust or CNPA was appoin­ted for each pro­ject to handle any tech­nic­al advice quer­ies and to ensure smooth deliv­ery and com­ple­tion of the pro­jects by 31^st March 2021.

3. Grants were offered either full amount on com­ple­tion of the pro­ject, or 40% at the start, 40% mid-pro­ject and 20% on com­ple­tion of pro­ject. Two organ­isa­tions opted to receive the full amount on com­ple­tion and the remainder have reques­ted 40% upfront. All ini­tial pay­ments are have now been made and all of the pro­jects are now mak­ing good pro­gress with their deliv­ery plans.

4. All unsuc­cess­ful applic­ants were con­tac­ted and giv­en feed­back on why their applic­a­tion was not suc­cess­ful. Some applic­ants received offers for less fund­ing than had been applied for – but all of them con­firmed that their pro­jects were still viable with this level of con­tri­bu­tion. Two applic­ants were informed that their pro­jects did fit the cri­ter­ia and, should fur­ther fund­ing become avail­able before the end of the year, then it may be pos­sible to assist their pro­ject. Con­tact is being main­tained with these applicants.

Next steps

1. As the pro­jects devel­op, a range of stor­ies will be developed and web­site con­tent gen­er­ated, in part­ner­ship with the applic­ants to illus­trate the green recov­ery activ­ity ongo­ing across the Park.

2. Dur­ing Decem­ber a short, staff-led review of the les­sons learned with the Fund will be under­taken to devel­op recom­mend­a­tions for future programmes.

3. A full update of the Green Recov­ery Plan deliv­ery will be presen­ted to the CNPA Board in late November.

Mur­ray Fer­guson and Nancy Cham­bers Murrayferguson@​cairngorms.​co.​uk nancychalmers@​cairngorms.​co.​uk 5 Novem­ber 2020