CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 5 03/02/21

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY AUDIT & RISK COMMITTEE

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: GOV­ERNANCE: DEVEL­OP­ING A FRAME­WORK AGREE­MENT WITH SCOT­TISH GOVERNMENT

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Pur­pose

This paper presents an ini­tial update to the Com­mit­tee on the ini­ti­ation of a pro­cess to replace the Authority’s cur­rent Man­age­ment State­ment and Fin­an­cial Memor­andum with a Frame­work Document.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Note that work has been ini­ti­ated to devel­op a Frame­work Agree­ment to estab­lish updated arrange­ments cov­er­ing the gov­ernance rela­tion­ship between the Author­ity and Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. b) Agree any ini­tial points of feed­back on the tem­plate Frame­work Agreement.

Exec­ut­ive Summary

1. The Park Authority’s key gov­ernance rela­tion­ship with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is cur­rently set out in a Man­age­ment State­ment and Fin­an­cial Memor­andum doc­u­ment (MSFM). The MSFM was last updated in 2010.

2. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment has been rolling out a Frame­work Doc­u­ment with Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Bod­ies (NDPBs) over the last few years. The Author­ity has liaised reg­u­larly with our spon­sor team on this mat­ter and we have now been asked to begin a form­al pro­cess with our spon­sor team to devel­op and approve a Frame­work Doc­u­ment for the Authority.

3. Con­sid­er­a­tion of the Frame­work Doc­u­ment at this point appears to fit well with oth­er work cur­rently being taken for­ward in the sphere of gov­ernance, and with the recom­mend­a­tions drawn out of the intern­al audit review of gov­ernance con­sidered else­where on the agenda for the Committee’s cur­rent meeting.

4. The mod­el frame­work doc­u­ment drawn up by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is set out at Annex I to this paper.

5. Con­sid­er­a­tion of this mod­el doc­u­ment by the Audit Com­mit­tee at this meet­ing allows for early con­sid­er­a­tion of any key points of feed­back or themes to be covered in pro­gress­ing devel­op­ment work. Any ini­tial com­ment from Com­mit­tee mem­bers will be com­bined with feed­back from the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and oth­er seni­or officers in giv­ing ini­tial responses to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment officials.

6. In terms of wider gov­ernance action, the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices is in the pro­cess of draw­ing up a pro­ject over­view and timetable to struc­ture the vari­ous lines of work being under­taken on this theme. This will include work on the Frame­work Agree­ment. I plan to give the Com­mit­tee sight of this timetable and a pro­gress update at the next meet­ing in order to identi­fy the appro­pri­ate aspects of this work for con­sid­er­a­tion by the Committee.

Dav­id Cameron 26 Janu­ary 2021 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk