CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Paper | 27/11/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY AUDIT & RISK COMMITTEE

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: RISK MANAGEMENT

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Pur­pose

This paper presents an update of the Authority’s stra­tegic risk register. The paper also sets out a spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion of the stra­tegic risks around repu­ta­tion­al man­age­ment, fol­low­ing the Board’s con­sid­er­a­tion of these mat­ters in Septem­ber, with a view to update and ration­al­ise the risks included in the risk register.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) review the updated stra­tegic risk register and com­ment on any ele­ment of the Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment pos­i­tion; b) con­sider wheth­er there are any stra­tegic risks poten­tially impact­ing on deliv­ery of the Authority’s stra­tegic object­ives not covered by cur­rent risk man­age­ment approaches; c) agree pro­posed amend­ments to the stra­tegic risks on repu­ta­tion­al man­age­ment as set out in para­graph 7; d) agree that oth­er risks flagged for dele­tion in Annex I are removed from the risk register.

Exec­ut­ive Summary

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has a well-estab­lished and embed­ded approach to stra­tegic risk man­age­ment. Our cur­rent stra­tegic risk register is repro­duced at Annex I to this paper. The more oper­a­tion­al risk man­age­ment of the Authority’s COV­ID-19 and Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity responses is con­sidered else­where on the agenda for the cur­rent meeting.

2. The Board con­sidered the Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment pos­i­tion as part of its review of the update on the 2018 – 2022 Cor­por­ate Plan deliv­ery at its meet­ing in Septem­ber. The risk register has been reviewed by seni­or man­agers to update risk trends, mit­ig­a­tion actions and com­ment­ary on risk man­age­ment since that Board meeting.

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee is invited to review the updated stra­tegic risk register and com­ment on any ele­ment of the Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment pos­i­tion. The Com­mit­tee is also invited to con­sider wheth­er there are any stra­tegic risks poten­tially impact­ing on deliv­ery of the Authority’s stra­tegic object­ives not covered by cur­rent risk man­age­ment approaches.

Repu­ta­tion­al Management

1. The Board con­sidered a num­ber of stra­tegic risks around the Authority’s repu­ta­tion­al man­age­ment risks at its Septem­ber meeting:

a) the Authority’s repu­ta­tion is impacted by a small num­ber of voci­fer­ous social media opin­ion lead­ers b) high pro­file incid­ents or one-off stor­ies, such as those asso­ci­ated with wild­life crime, moun­tain hares, afford­able hous­ing can have an undue influ­ence on the Authority’s wider repu­ta­tion c) the Author­ity is not per­ceived to be appro­pri­ately address­ing the poten­tial for con­flict between 4 stat­utory aims

1. The risks at 4a (risk A14 in the risk register) and 4b (risk A15) have both been on a down­ward risk trend for some time and were high­lighted for remov­al from the risk register. The risk at 4c (risk A21) has remained level since its intro­duc­tion to the stra­tegic register by the Com­mit­tee in March 2019 fol­low­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of an intern­al audit report. The Board dis­cussed wheth­er some form of ration­al­isa­tion of these risks may be mer­ited, rather than remov­ing risks A14 and A15 com­pletely as had been suggested.

2. The risk around address­ing con­flict between the Nation­al Park’s 4 stat­utory aims involves a sig­ni­fic­ant aspect of policy eval­u­ation and expli­cit decision-mak­ing rationale and there­fore goes bey­ond repu­ta­tion­al man­age­ment. This risk is also still eval­u­ated as a val­id risk to remain under con­sid­er­a­tion and man­age­ment. There­fore, it is pro­posed that the risk remains in its cur­rent form in the stra­tegic risk register.

3. I sug­gest that risks A14 and A15 could be ration­al­ised into a single stra­tegic risk: One-off, high pro­file incid­ents and/​or voci­fer­ous social media cor­res­pond­ents have an undue influ­ence on the Authority’s pos­it­ive repu­ta­tion. This leaves a spe­cif­ic repu­ta­tion­al man­age­ment stra­tegic risk in the register on which to focus our mit­ig­a­tion activ­ity around com­mu­nic­a­tions, repu­ta­tion and pro­file man­age­ment. The Com­mit­tee is invited to con­sider this pro­pos­al and determ­ine wheth­er and how the Stra­tegic Risk Register should be adapted.

Dav­id Cameron 19 Novem­ber 2020 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk