20240517ResourcesCtteePaper1andAnnex1_2024-25BudgetMonitoring

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 1 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 17 May 2024 Page 1 of 4

For dis­cus­sion Title: Budget mon­it­or­ing Pre­pared by: Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Operations

Pur­pose This paper sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of April — month 1 of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Resources Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

Over­view

1. Annex 1 provides a sum­mary of expendit­ure against the pro­filed budget. The budget has been pro­filed using the pri­or year’s spend­ing pat­terns as a mod­el. It is early in the year yet, and mean­ing­ful trends in expendit­ure have not been estab­lished. How­ever, actu­al spend is 5% lower (£24k) than anti­cip­ated against the phased budget for this first month of the year.

Budget changes

1. To date there have been no changes to the budget presen­ted to the Board in March 2024.

Staff and Board

1. The budgeted invest­ment in staff over the year is a key ele­ment of the budget, at £5.625 mil­lion equi­val­ent to 43.3% of the total expendit­ure budget resourced by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fund­ing. The pos­i­tion against this budget fig­ure of the first month’s payroll there­fore rep­res­ents a key test of the robust­ness of this sig­ni­fic­ant budget figure.

2. Expec­ted budget for payroll in April after allow­ing for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ pay awards not yet hav­ing been imple­men­ted, is £420k includ­ing employ­ers’ nation­al insur­ance and

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 1 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 17 May 2024 Page 2 of 4

pen­sion con­tri­bu­tions. Actu­al value of payroll and asso­ci­ated costs for April is £409k: a favour­able vari­ance of £11k against budget (2.6% under budget).

1. The budget allows for per­form­ance related incre­ments, and an award designed to increase pay by 10% over the two years from April 2023. Provid­ing the final award remains at this level, the budget would appear to be realistic.

2. As is always the case, the fin­ance team and Seni­or Man­age­ment Team will play close atten­tion to this budget pos­i­tion over the early months of the year to determ­ine wheth­er any budget real­loc­a­tions are needed.

Pro­gramme management

1. Pro­ject costs relate to the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme. The com­mit­tee will recall that an annu­al con­tri­bu­tion to the pro­gramme of £450k is to be made to the pro­gramme by the Park Author­ity and has been included in the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ budget.

2. The first claim against this pro­ject has been sub­mit­ted and we await feed­back and remit­tance of funds by the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF). At this stage we do not anti­cip­ate that there will be any impacts from the pro­gramme on the cent­ral budget for the Park Authority.

Over­heads

1. Cur­rently, run­ning costs are mar­gin­ally below budget: an under­spend of £8k against the phased budget.

Oper­a­tion­al plan

1. Sim­il­arly, oper­a­tion­al plan expendit­ure shows an under­spend of £6k against the phased budget.

2. There has been no expendit­ure to date against the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ peat­land res­tor­a­tion budget. This is in line with expect­a­tions. In this ini­tial quarter of the year, it is anti­cip­ated that most of the sig­ni­fic­ant expendit­ure will con­trib­ute to the final­isa­tion of pro­jects con­trac­ted in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 1 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 17 May 2024 Page 3 of 4

1. The budget towards our ​‘People’ aims shows an over­spend of £12k against the phased budget. Much of this expendit­ure relates to the early pur­chase of stocks of uni­form and equip­ment for our ranger teams (sea­son­al and voluntary).

Sum­mary

1. The key points arising from the review of the fin­an­cial pos­i­tion at the end of April 2024 are: a) The budget has been pro­filed using the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ res­ults as a mod­el. b) Ini­tial indic­a­tions are that the payroll budget provided for the year will be suf­fi­cient, provid­ing the annu­al award is made at the budgeted level. c) Expendit­ure on the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme has com­menced. The first claim has been sub­mit­ted. d) Run­ning costs are with­in the phased budget. e) Oper­a­tion­al plan expendit­ure is with­in the phased budget. f) There has been no expendit­ure to date against the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ peat­land res­tor­a­tion budget. Most of the ini­tial expendit­ure on peat­land res­tor­a­tion is expec­ted to con­trib­ute to the final­isa­tion of pro­jects con­trac­ted in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

Louise Allen Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 1 Annex 1 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Annex 1 Sum­mary of expendit­ure against the pro­filed budget YEAR END­ING 31 MARCH 2025 17 May 2024 CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee: Paper 1, Annex 1. 19 May 2024 ACTU­AL v BUDGET 30 APRIL 2024 Phased budget Annu­al Budget budget adjust­ments Out­turn fore­cast to Actu­al at % of (Under)/over Out­turn 30 April 24 30 April 24 phased budget fore­cast Board fees 191,990 191,990 14,324 15,197 874 8% Staff costs 5,625,667 5,625,667 419,711 409,120 (10,591) 7% 5,817,657 0 5,817,657 434,035 424,317 (9,717)

Pro­ject costs Pro­ject costs 2,520,000 2,520,000 93,500 60,657 (32,843) 2% Pro­ject costs recov­er­able (2,520,000) (2,520,000) (93,500) (60,657) 32,843 2% 0 0 0 0 0 0

Run­ning costs Oth­er staff and board costs 263,119 263,119 13,617 14,933 1,316 6% Facil­it­ies costs 373,140 373,140 28,623 23,737 (4,886) 6% IT and pro­fes­sion­al costs 345,510 345,510 16,332 12,345 (3,987) 4% 981,769 0 981,769 58,572 51,015 (7,557)

Oper­a­tion­al plan (net) Peat­land res­tor­a­tion 3,050,000 3,050,000 483 0 (483) 0% Nature & cli­mate 811,000 811,000 16,060 10,084 (5,976) 1% People 290,000 290,000 4,507 16,170 11,663 6% Place 860,000 860,000 4,802 2,982 (1,820) 0% Cor­por­ate 1,064,500 1,064,500 9,214 1,216 (7,998) 0% Com­mu­nic­a­tions 225,500 225,500 10,107 8,360 (1,747) 4% Con­tri­bu­tion to Cairngorms 2030 450,000 450,000 0 0 0 0% 6,751,000 0 6,751,000 45,174 38,813 (6,361)

Total expendit­ure 13,550,426 0 13,550,426 537,780 514.145 (23,635) 4%

Oth­er income (250,000) (250,000) (1,065) (973) 92 0%

Cash expendit­ure 13,300,426 0 13,300,426 536,715 513,172 (23,543) 4%

Grant-in-aid drawn down (13,301,000) (13,301,000) (1,000,000) (1,000,000) 0 8%

Net cash expenditure/​(income) (574) 0 (574) (463,285) (486,828) (23,543)