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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper | Annex I 28th May 2021

GOV­ERNANCE RESPONS­IB­IL­ITY STATEMENT

EXEC­UT­IVE SUMMARY

This Exec­ut­ive sum­mary sets out an over­view of the key prin­ciples of decision mak­ing with­in the Cairngorms NPA’s gov­ernance arrange­ments estab­lished by this doc­u­ment, with the intent that it cre­ates a single page ref­er­ence for users of this document.

Over­view Prin­ciples of Decision Mak­ing With Cairngorms NPA Governance

(Ref para 22) Where any of the fol­low­ing cri­ter­ia for Non-Exec­ut­ive respons­ib­il­ity is met, the sug­ges­tion is that decision mak­ing rests with a Board level process.

Non-Exec­ut­ive Board Respons­ib­il­ityExec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Responsibility
Estab­lish­ing or amend­ing a long-term object­ive, out­come or per­form­ance meas­ure of the organizationDesign­ing and imple­ment­ing actions and invest­ments to pur­sue exist­ing policy and achieve out­comes / per­form­ance measures
Determ­in­ing approaches which are unique or nov­el and may con­sequently bring the organ­iz­a­tions pro­file as a whole into the spotlight.Tak­ing oppor­tun­it­ies as they arise and on a risk man­aged basis to pro­gress estab­lished stra­tegic objectives
Decisions and invest­ment which have the poten­tial to sig­ni­fic­antly and adversely impact on the repu­ta­tion of the Cairngorms NPADecisions and invest­ment where risk man­age­ment indic­ates that repu­ta­tion­al risk con­sequences can and will be effect­ively mitigated
Decisions and invest­ment which have the poten­tial to cre­ate a sig­ni­fic­ant and / or a long-term liab­il­ity for the organ­iz­a­tion (long-term being hav­ing fin­an­cial impacts bey­ond the exist­ing Cor­por­ate Plan period)Decisions and invest­ment with­in exist­ing approved budget parameters
Decision and invest­ment which have the poten­tial to cre­ate a new stra­tegic risk for the organ­iz­a­tion or to escal­ate the sig­ni­fic­ance of an exist­ing stra­tegic riskDecisions and invest­ment which can be taken with­in the exist­ing stra­tegic risk and oppor­tun­ity man­age­ment and risk appet­ite frame­works of the Authority
Decision and invest­ment which have poten­tial to impact on the over­arch­ing gov­ernance of the organizationDecisions and invest­ment which can be taken without gov­ernance impacts

Areas Appro­pri­ate To Board Scru­tiny and Assurance

(Ref para 24)

Non-Exec­ut­ive Board Respons­ib­il­ityExec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Responsibility
Con­sid­er­a­tion and assur­ance about what is to be delivered / achieved: the end point of decision or investmentDeterm­in­a­tion of how actions and invest­ment is to be designed to best deliv­er agreed outcomes
Con­sid­er­a­tion of wheth­er a pro­ject is deliv­er­ing against agreed stra­tegic out­comes / agreed per­form­ance indicatorsCon­sid­er­a­tion, decision and review of how the pro­ject or activ­ity is being man­aged, designed and delivered.
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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper | Annex I 28th May 2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

GOV­ERNANCE RESPONS­IB­IL­ITY STATEMENT

Explan­at­ory Notes

Pur­pose of Paper
  1. Board, seni­or officers and intern­al audit have all iden­ti­fied a require­ment to set out a state­ment of the respect­ive respons­ib­il­it­ies for Exec­ut­ive Man­agers and Non-Exec­ut­ive Mem­bers in decision-mak­ing with­in Cairngorms NPA in order to estab­lish a clear under­stand­ing of this ele­ment of the Authority’s gov­ernance. This paper sets out a draft Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity State­ment for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity which aims to sup­port devel­op­ment of clar­ity and under­stand­ing of decision-mak­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies with­in the Cairngorms NPA.
Object­ives of Work
  1. The Chartered Insti­tute of Pub­lic Fin­ance and Account­ancy (CIPFA) defines gov­ernance as ​“the arrange­ments put in place to ensure that the inten­ded out­comes for stake­hold­ers are defined and achieved’”. The work around devel­op­ing a Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity State­ment seeks to identi­fy those who have a role to play in devel­op­ment and deliv­ery of good gov­ernance with­in the Cairngorms NPA and estab­lish a clar­ity around the respect­ive decision mak­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies of those involved in governance.
  2. As a Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Body (NDPB) the Cairngorms NPA has over-arch­ing gov­ernance arrange­ments unique to our sec­tor and with sig­ni­fic­ant vari­ations from com­mer­cial, loc­al author­ity and oth­er pub­lic sec­tor gov­ernance. The Frame­work Agree­ment between the Cairngorms NPA and Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is the key doc­u­ment in estab­lish­ing the gov­ernance of the organ­isa­tion. Cru­cially, in con­sid­er­ing decision mak­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies with­in the Cairngorms NPA, the Frame­work Agree­ment con­firms a dual­ity of account­ab­il­ity and respons­ib­il­ity for the decisions made by the organ­isa­tion between the Con­vener, on behalf of the Non-Exec­ut­ive Board and its mem­bers, and the Chief Exec­ut­ive on behalf of the Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team.
  3. The gov­ernance of the Cairngorms NPA is a col­lab­or­at­ive pro­cess, in which the work and lead­er­ship of Non-Exec­ut­ive Board mem­bers is com­ple­men­ted by the work and lead­er­ship of the Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment and wider staff group. The object­ives of estab­lish­ing a Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity State­ment is to estab­lish as much clar­ity as pos­sible around the respect­ive respons­ib­il­it­ies of those involved in gov­ernance and decision mak­ing in order to provide an effect­ive gov­ernance sys­tem, con­trib­ute to an effect­ive con­trol and assur­ance frame­work, and sup­port a bal­anced dynam­ic in work of the Board and Exec­ut­ive team of the Authority.

1 Inter­na­tion­al Frame­work: Good Gov­ernance in the Pub­lic Sec­tor; CIPFA; 2014

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  1. The nature of the Cairngorms NPA’s gov­ernance arrange­ments is such that it is impossible to elim­in­ate the need for judge­ment in estab­lish­ing the cor­rect level of decision mak­ing in a num­ber of aspects of our work. As such, it is not pos­sible to set out pre-spe­cified lines of del­eg­ated author­ity in all instances. This work on devel­op­ing a Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity State­ment there­fore also helps estab­lish those aspects of decision mak­ing where some judge­ment remains as to appro­pri­ate decision mak­ing processes.
  2. Through cla­ri­fy­ing spe­cif­ic areas of Non-Exec­ut­ive and Exec­ut­ive decision mak­ing respons­ib­il­ity and estab­lish­ing that judge­ment and over­lap of respons­ib­il­ity will con­tin­ue to some degree, this doc­u­ment aims to help estab­lish a sol­id found­a­tion for the gov­ernance of the Cairngorms NPA through clar­ity of under­stand­ing and mutu­al respect for rel­ev­ant roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies involved.
  3. Over­all, the aim of the work sup­por­ted by this doc­u­ment is estab­lish­ing gov­ernance arrange­ments appro­pri­ate to an NDPB which: a) Sup­port an effect­ive exec­ut­ive / non-exec­ut­ive work­ing rela­tion­ship and part­ner­ship; b) Provide clar­ity and under­stand­ing of respect­ive respons­ib­il­it­ies of key gov­ernance roles not­ably Con­vener, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer, Deputy Con­vener, [Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive], Board Mem­bers and mem­bers of the Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) par­tic­u­larly where those mem­bers of the SMT have spe­cif­ic, del­eg­ated decision mak­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies; c) Estab­lish a clear under­stand­ing over the decision mak­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies of those parties involved in gov­ernance. d) Recog­nize areas of over­lap between gov­ernance roles; identi­fy aspects of ongo­ing judge­ment which will be required in exer­cise of respons­ib­il­ity; and thus help devel­op and main­tain col­lab­or­at­ive, respect­ful team work­ing under­pinned by clear­er under­stand­ing of roles, respons­ib­il­it­ies and judge­ments; e) Help embed mutu­al respect and under­stand­ing between all involved in aspects of stra­tegic and organ­iz­a­tion­al man­age­ment; f) Com­ple­ment, sup­port and embed the oper­a­tion of oth­er key gov­ernance policies and pro­ced­ures (see sec­tion on key ref­er­ences) and not­ably the imple­ment­a­tion of the [Frame­work Agree­ment], Code of Con­duct, Scot­tish Pub­lic Fin­ance Manu­al (SPFM), Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan and effect­ive oper­a­tion of Board and its Com­mit­tee with­in their agreed remits. g) Pro­mote, sup­port and embed organ­iz­a­tion­al val­ues through­out all aspects of the Cairngorms NPA’s work through lead­er­ship from the most seni­or indi­vidu­als respons­ible for governance.
  4. The doc­u­ment is inten­ded to act as a ref­er­ence point for Board mem­bers and staff in con­sid­er­ing where decisions should be taken with­in the Authority’s gov­ernance pro­cesses. The doc­u­ment sup­ports train­ing of mem­bers on their role, adher­ing to the Cairngorms NPA Code of Con­duct, and con­duct­ing the busi­ness and gov­ernance of the organ­iz­a­tion as expec­ted in over­arch­ing gov­ernance doc­u­ments such as the Frame­work Agree­ment and Scot­tish Pub­lic Fin­ance Manu­al (SPFM).
  5. The doc­u­ment is expec­ted to sup­port embed­ding the cul­ture and val­ues of the Cairngorms NPA: an open, inclus­ive, innov­at­ive and pro­fes­sion­al organ­iz­a­tion that

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behaves with integ­rity. Good gov­ernance sup­por­ted by this doc­u­ment is inten­ded to sup­port innov­a­tion and tak­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and not inhib­it it. Innov­a­tion and flex­ibly, dynam­ic­ally tak­ing oppor­tun­it­ies should con­tin­ue to be a key ele­ment of the Cairngorms NPA’s deliv­ery eth­os which has helped the organ­iz­a­tion build a pos­it­ive repu­ta­tion. The Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity State­ment helps rein­force that such decisions to innov­ate and take oppor­tun­it­ies should con­tin­ue to be made and sets out the con­sid­er­a­tions to be taken into account when identi­fy­ing where with­in our gov­ernance struc­tures those decisions should be taken.

  1. The State­ment also sup­ports, and in no way over-rides, the wider require­ments of the Code of Con­duct. In par­tic­u­lar, this State­ment in no way coun­ters the require­ment for col­lect­ive respons­ib­il­ity fol­low­ing decisions of the Cairngorms NPA taken at any point with­in the gov­ernance frame­work. For example, points of ​“gov­ernance” can­not be used to reopen policy decisions already taken before those policy decisions are due under nor­mal busi­ness pro­cesses to be reviewed and all mem­bers and staff must con­tin­ue to sup­port the imple­ment­a­tion of agreed policy decisions.
  2. The doc­u­ment will also sup­port the format and con­tent of Board papers, help­ing identi­fy what inform­a­tion should be presen­ted to Board and Com­mit­tee meet­ings to sup­port decisions and recom­mend­a­tions which are pitched at the cor­rect level. Under­stand­ing the respect­ive gov­ernance roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies, and appro­pri­ate levels of decision mak­ing will also con­trib­ute to effect­ive Board and Com­mit­tee meet­ings, while the doc­u­ment will be an aid to mem­bers involved in Chair­ing and Con­ven­ing those meetings.
  3. Over­all there­fore the doc­u­ment is pro­duced to sup­port the effect­ive func­tion­ing of the Cairngorms NPA through sup­port­ing gov­ernance by expli­citly set­ting out roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies in gov­ernance and assurance.

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Form­al Board Paper | Annex I 28th May 2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

GOV­ERNANCE RESPONS­IB­IL­ITY STATEMENT

  1. The label of Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity has been adop­ted for use in this dis­cus­sion paper, as the CNPA is an NDPB with dif­fer­ing arrange­ments to oth­er areas of the pub­lic sector.

Gov­ernance Responsibilities

  1. The [Frame­work Agree­ment] is a key doc­u­ment set­ting out the gov­ernance respons­ib­il­it­ies of key indi­vidu­als, roles and groups with­in the Author­ity. Brief extracts of that doc­u­ment are set out here to give con­text of the key respons­ib­il­it­ies of those with gov­ernance respons­ib­il­it­ies which have a sig­ni­fic­ant bear­ing on decision mak­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies. The full nar­rat­ive on respons­ib­il­it­ies may be referred to with­in the [Frame­work Agree­ment] and sup­port­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion such as the Code of Con­duct and On Board guidance.
Scot­tish Ministers
  1. The Scot­tish Min­is­ters are ulti­mately account­able to the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment for the activ­it­ies of the NDPB and its use of resources.
Spon­sor­ship Unit
  1. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Spon­sor­ship Unit is the main point of con­tact for the Cairngorms NPA. The unit, under the dir­ec­tion of the Director/​Deputy Dir­ect­or, is the primary source of advice to the Scot­tish Min­is­ters on the dis­charge of their respons­ib­il­it­ies in respect of the NDPB.
  2. The Spon­sor­ship Unit under­takes pro­por­tion­ate mon­it­or­ing of the Cairngorms NPA activ­it­ies, typ­ic­ally through liais­on with the Exec­ut­ive Team and review of Board papers, on areas includ­ing per­form­ance, budget­ing, con­trol and risk man­age­ment. The Unit also sup­ports the appoint­ment of Board members.
  3. The Spon­sor­ship Unit informs the Cairngorms NPA of rel­ev­ant Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment policy in a timely man­ner while escal­at­ing any iden­ti­fied issues with­in the Cairngorms NPA with­in Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment offi­cials and to the appro­pri­ate Min­is­ter if required. The Unit also makes key com­mu­nic­a­tions link­ages into oth­er areas of the Scot­tish Government’s administration.
The Cairngorms NPA Board
  1. The role of the Board is to provide lead­er­ship, dir­ec­tion, sup­port and guid­ance to ensure the Author­ity deliv­ers and is com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing its func­tions effect­ively and effi­ciently and in accord­ance with the aims, policies and pri­or­it­ies of the Scot­tish Min­is­ters. Key ele­ments of these respons­ib­il­it­ies of rel­ev­ance to the devel­op­ment of this Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity State­ment are: a) tak­ing for­ward the stra­tegic aims and object­ives for the body agreed by the Scot­tish Ministers;

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b) determ­in­ing the steps needed to deal with changes which are likely to impact on the stra­tegic aims and object­ives of the NDPB or on the attain­ab­il­ity of its oper­a­tion­al tar­gets; c) pro­mot­ing the effi­cient, eco­nom­ic and effect­ive use of staff and oth­er resources by the NDPB con­sist­ent with the prin­ciples of Best Value; d) ensur­ing that effect­ive arrange­ments are in place to provide assur­ance on risk man­age­ment (includ­ing in respect of per­son­nel, phys­ic­al and cyber risks/​threats/​hazards), gov­ernance and intern­al con­trol; e) ensur­ing that the board receives and reviews reg­u­lar fin­an­cial inform­a­tion con­cern­ing the man­age­ment and per­form­ance of the NDPB and is informed in a timely man­ner about any con­cerns regard­ing the activ­it­ies of the NDPB.

  1. The Board must set up an audit com­mit­tee chaired by a non-exec­ut­ive mem­ber to provide inde­pend­ent advice and assur­ance on the effect­ive­ness of the intern­al con­trol and risk man­age­ment sys­tems with­in the Authority.
The Con­vener
  1. The Con­vener is account­able to the Scot­tish Min­is­ters and, in com­mon with any indi­vidu­al with respons­ib­il­ity for devolved func­tions, may also be held to account by the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment. Com­mu­nic­a­tions between the NDPB board and the Scot­tish Min­is­ters should nor­mally be through the Convener.
  2. The Con­vener is respons­ible for ensur­ing that the NDPB’s policies and actions sup­port the Scot­tish Min­is­ters’ wider stra­tegic policies and that its affairs are con­duc­ted with probity.
  3. The Con­vener has a role in liais­ing with Scot­tish Min­is­ters to identi­fy any poten­tial future changes in gov­ern­ment policy dir­ec­tion and identi­fy wheth­er any poten­tial changes in the Authority’s stra­tegic dir­ec­tion and / or risk man­age­ment may be required. In such cases the Con­vener will work with the Chief Exec­ut­ive to devel­op appro­pri­ate items of busi­ness for the Board in order to determ­ine the Authority’s future approach to dir­ec­tion of policy change.
  4. The Convener/​Depute Con­vener have a par­tic­u­lar lead­er­ship respons­ib­il­ity on the fol­low­ing mat­ters: a) for­mu­lat­ing the Board’s strategy; b) ensur­ing that the Board, in reach­ing decisions, takes prop­er account of guid­ance provided by the Scot­tish Min­is­ters; c) pro­mot­ing the effi­cient and effect­ive use of staff and oth­er resources; d) encour­aging high stand­ards of pro­pri­ety and reg­u­lar­ity; e) rep­res­ent­ing the views of the Board to the gen­er­al public.
Non-Exec­ut­ive Committees
  1. The Board may estab­lish Com­mit­tees with del­eg­ated respons­ib­il­it­ies to under­take aspects of Board decision mak­ing and assur­ance. Such Com­mit­tees are agreed by the full Board with expli­cit terms of ref­er­ence which set out their roles and areas of devolved respons­ib­il­ity. Com­mit­tees com­ple­ment the work of the full Board and

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indi­vidu­al mem­bers by ful­filling del­eg­ated roles and in so doing provide a full gov­ernance and assur­ance frame­work. Com­mit­tee Chairs and mem­ber­ship are agreed by the full Board and Com­mit­tees report annu­ally on their work to the full Board.

Non-Exec­ut­ive Board Members
  1. Indi­vidu­al board mem­bers should act in accord­ance with the respons­ib­il­it­ies of the board as a whole and com­ply at all times with the code of con­duct adop­ted by the NDPB and with the rules relat­ing to the use of pub­lic funds and to con­flicts of interest. In this con­text ​“pub­lic funds” means not only any funds provided to the NDPB by the Scot­tish Min­is­ters but also any oth­er funds fall­ing with­in the stew­ard­ship of the NDPB, includ­ing trad­ing and invest­ment income, gifts, bequests and donations.
Chief Exec­ut­ive and Account­able Officer
  1. The Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Account­able Officer (CEO) is the board’s prin­cip­al adviser on the dis­charge of its func­tions and is account­able to the board. The CEO’s role is to provide oper­a­tion­al lead­er­ship to the NDPB and ensure that the board’s aims and object­ives are met and the NDPB’s func­tions are delivered and tar­gets met through effect­ive and prop­erly con­trolled exec­ut­ive action. The CEO’s gen­er­al respons­ib­il­it­ies include the per­form­ance, man­age­ment and staff­ing of the NDPB.
  2. The Account­able Officer is per­son­ally respons­ible for pro­pri­ety and reg­u­lar­ity in respect of pub­lic funds and has a per­son­al duty to secure Best Value for the organization.
The Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team
  1. The Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team com­prises the CEO and Dir­ect­ors. The CEO’s respons­ib­il­it­ies will typ­ic­ally be sup­por­ted by a del­eg­a­tion of author­ity to a wider exec­ut­ive man­age­ment team. The CEO’s respons­ib­il­it­ies may be del­eg­ated to Dir­ect­ors through a mix of role state­ments, annu­al or multi-annu­al object­ives set and spe­cif­ic schemes of agreed del­eg­ated decision mak­ing author­ity. Dir­ect­ors take respons­ib­il­ity for the dis­charge of their spe­cif­ic areas of work, includ­ing man­age­ment of stra­tegic risks, dir­ect­ing inter­pret­a­tion and imple­ment­a­tion of stra­tegic policy and main­tain­ing over­sight of required deliv­ery of stra­tegic out­comes agreed by the Board, as set out in this blend of state­ments and del­eg­a­tions, while the CEO retains ulti­mate account­ab­il­ity for the oper­a­tions of the Cairngorms NPA.
  2. A key role for the CEO and their Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team is to liaise with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment offi­cials and policy col­leagues in oth­er key stake­hold­ers in order to identi­fy any poten­tial future changes in nation­al or stake­hold­er policy dir­ec­tion and identi­fy wheth­er any poten­tial changes in the Authority’s stra­tegic dir­ec­tion and / or risk man­age­ment may be required. In such cases, the Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team will work appro­pri­ately with the Board in com­mu­nic­at­ing these mat­ters and advising Board on stra­tegic policy changes that may need to be considered.
Heads of Service

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  1. The Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team of Dir­ect­ors are in turn sup­por­ted by Heads of Ser­vice. Heads of Ser­vice may them­selves has spe­cif­ic areas of del­eg­ated respons­ib­il­ity for decision mak­ing, for example the Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning will have del­eg­ated respons­ib­il­ity for dis­char­ging actions and con­di­tions agreed by the Plan­ning Committee.
  2. Heads of Ser­vice col­lect­ively com­prise the Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Group, with col­lect­ive respons­ib­il­ity for effect­ively and effi­ciently deliv­er­ing the Cairngorms NPA’s agreed annu­al oper­a­tion­al plan. The Group coordin­ates resource deploy­ment across teams and pro­jects to ensure the oper­a­tion­al plan is achieved as inten­ded and through that the annu­al work of the Cairngorms NPA makes the inten­ded annu­al con­tri­bu­tion to the organization’s stra­tegic outcomes.

Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity And Exer­cise Of Judgement

  1. While the Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity State­ment seeks to estab­lish as much clar­ity as pos­sible around determ­in­ing the respect­ive respons­ib­il­it­ies of those involved in gov­ernance, there are some areas where it is not pos­sible to draw up abso­lute lines of respons­ib­il­ity and which have some areas of over­lap. Judge­ment and sens­it­iv­ity to oth­ers’ involve­ment and respons­ib­il­it­ies will always be required in most areas of the Cairngorms NPA’s work and the gov­ernance of it. The Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity State­ment is there­fore developed to cla­ri­fy points of sub­jectiv­ity and the require­ment for judge­ment and decision mak­ing. It does not seek to remove the need for judge­ment and decision mak­ing on areas of poten­tial over­lap of responsibility.
  2. One means of estab­lish­ing great­er clar­ity around areas of judge­ment on where gov­ernance and man­age­ment respons­ib­il­ity lies on issues, and help­ing to cla­ri­fy the respect­ive roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies of Exec­ut­ive and Non-Exec­ut­ive is to estab­lish chal­lenge ques­tions or cri­ter­ia for assess­ment. For example, the fol­low­ing chal­lenge ques­tions / key prin­ciples may be used to assess when judging where decision mak­ing falls. a) Is a decision estab­lish­ing or amend­ing a long-term object­ive, out­come or per­form­ance meas­ure of the organ­isa­tion? b) Is a decision unique or nov­el and may con­sequently bring the organisation’s pro­file as a whole into the spot­light? c) Does a decision have the poten­tial to sig­ni­fic­antly and adversely impact on the repu­ta­tion of the Cairngorms NPA? d) Does an action have the poten­tial to cre­ate a sig­ni­fic­ant and / or a long-term liab­il­ity for the organ­isa­tion (long-term being hav­ing fin­an­cial impacts bey­ond the exist­ing Cor­por­ate Plan peri­od)? e) Does a decision or action have the poten­tial to cre­ate a new stra­tegic risk for the organ­isa­tion or to escal­ate the sig­ni­fic­ance of an exist­ing stra­tegic risk? f) Does a decision or action impact on the over­arch­ing gov­ernance of the organisation?
  3. Where these ques­tions are answered ​“yes”, the implic­a­tion is that such decisions are mat­ters of stra­tegic policy and gov­ernance and res­ol­u­tion should there­fore err toward a mat­ter for Board determ­in­a­tion through appro­pri­ate routes. Only one of these

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper | Annex I 28th May 2021

ques­tions need be answered as ​“yes” to sug­gest that the decision in ques­tion is a mat­ter for stra­tegic, Board determination.

  1. Equally, in dis­cus­sions over aspects of scru­tiny and decision mak­ing, there is judge­ment to be exer­cised in determ­in­ing wheth­er the aspect of decision mak­ing is a Non-Exec­ut­ive or Exec­ut­ive func­tion: a) Is the decision around what is to be achieved or how an out­come is to be delivered? b) Is the decision about wheth­er a pro­ject is deliv­er­ing against a stra­tegic out­come or how the pro­ject is being man­aged / designed / delivered?

  2. Where these ques­tions are answered on the basis of scru­tiny or assur­ance over out­comes or final achieve­ments, there is an appro­pri­ate area of Board scru­tiny and assur­ance. Where ques­tions are about how things are being done; how pro­jects or activ­it­ies are being designed, man­aged or imple­men­ted, then these mat­ters are stray­ing more into exec­ut­ive man­age­ment responsibilities.

Non-Exec­ut­ive Assurance

  1. In addi­tion to decision mak­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies on aspects related to gov­ernance and strategy, Non-Exec­ut­ive Board mem­bers also have a role to seek assur­ance over cer­tain key ele­ments of the Authority’s oper­a­tions. There is a key dis­tinc­tion here from decision mak­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies. As out­lined in 25, the role is one of ensur­ing there is appro­pri­ate report­ing and evid­ence avail­able to allow board mem­bers to take con­fid­ence that stra­tegic object­ives are being met. Where there are issues, Board Mem­bers should also have assur­ance that these have been escal­ated to stra­tegic Board levels, with appro­pri­ate resolution
  2. The key areas of assur­ance work for board mem­bers are: a) Pro­mot­ing the effi­cient, eco­nom­ic and effect­ive use of staff and oth­er resources by the NDPB con­sist­ent with the prin­ciples of Best Value; b) Per­form­ance in attain­ment of agreed cor­por­ate plan stra­tegic out­comes; c) Per­form­ance in attain­ment of agreed key per­form­ance meas­ures; d) Mit­ig­a­tion of agreed stra­tegic risks; e) Design and deploy­ment of appro­pri­ate and effect­ive intern­al controls.
  3. As set out in this doc­u­ment, alloc­a­tion of respons­ib­il­ity for action in areas of gov­ernance with­in an NDPB can­not always be assigned solely to the board or the Exec­ut­ive. There is an essen­tial require­ment for an effect­ive team dynam­ic between those charged with gov­ernance respons­ib­il­it­ies in deliv­er­ing an effect­ive and per­form­ing sys­tem of gov­ernance. An illus­tra­tion of this situ­ation over the key aspects of gov­ernance with­in CNPA is set out in the fol­low­ing ​“Map of Gov­ernance Responsibility”.
  4. Doc­u­ment to be imple­men­ted with effect from 31 May 2021; Review effect­ive­ness by pro­posed Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee with poten­tial onward refer­ral to Board by 30 June 2022.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper | Annex I 28th May 2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

GOV­ERNANCE RESPONS­IB­IL­ITY STATEMENT

DIS­CUS­SION PAPER

Map­ping Gov­ernance Responsibility
Activ­ityBoard Respons­ib­il­ityExec­ut­ive Responsibility
Cor­por­ate Strategy e.g. NPPP and Cor­por­ate Plan – set­ting the strategyDeterm­ine strategy; determ­ine stra­tegic object­ives; determ­ine per­form­ance meas­ures / meas­ures of suc­cess; determ­ine any spe­cif­ic key mile­stones / indic­at­ors of suc­cess; determ­ine all vari­ations to these aspects. Ensure strategy is under­pin­ning appro­pri­ate nation­al strategies put in place by Scot­tish Government.Sup­port mem­ber train­ing ses­sions around key sub­ject areas; Sup­port inform­al dis­cus­sion ses­sions around sub­ject areas to assist in devel­op­ing a col­lect­ive sense of stra­tegic dir­ec­tion; Draft stra­tegic policy doc­u­ments for review and determ­in­a­tion by Board Research / col­lect / ana­lyse / col­late data to sup­port decision-making.
Cor­por­ate Strategy – deliv­er­ing outcomesScru­tin­ise deliv­ery updates; Review per­form­ance against per­form­ance indic­at­ors and mile­stones; Assur­ance over deliv­ery of agreed stra­tegic out­comes. Resources Com­mit­tee Assur­ance RoleDeterm­ine how to deploy avail­able resources to achieve agreed out­comes and per­form­ance meas­ures; Tac­tic­al decisions on how to achieve agreed out­comes, includ­ing design, imple­ment­a­tion and deliv­ery of pro­grammes of work and spe­cif­ic pro­jects / activities.
Cor­por­ate Strategy — risk managementDeterm­ine risk man­age­ment strategy and policy; Decide and agree risk appet­ite; Determ­ine stra­tegic risks and mit­ig­a­tion; Assur­ance on risk man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion: Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Assur­ance Role, includ­ing review reports and ​“deep dives” on risk areas and risk management.Advise on devel­op­ment of strategy policy, draft­ing for review and appr Advise on risk appet­ite, stra­tegic ri and mit­ig­a­tion approaches; Determ­ine how to imple­ment mit­ig­a­tion actions and decide on deploy­ing resources to best achieve mit­ig­a­tion aims.
Cor­por­ate Strategy. oppor­tun­ity managementDeterm­ine responses to stra­tegic oppor­tun­it­ies where implic­a­tions are likely to impose change to stra­tegic dir­ec­tion and / or pri­or­it­isa­tion of resource deploy­ment and / or stra­tegic outcomes.Determ­ine responses to oppor­tuni which pro­gress achieve­ment of exis agreed stra­tegic out­comes and per­form­ance objectives.
Stra­tegic Policy DevelopmentDeterm­ine Policy and tar­geted policy out­comes. Agree policy and strategy, includ­ing where devel­op­ment takes place throughAdvise on policy devel­op­ment inclu sup­port­ing devel­op­ment­al dis­cus­sic and train­ing events where required lead up to policy development.

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Activ­ityBoard Respons­ib­il­ityExec­ut­ive Responsibility
Budget­ing and Resource Deploy­ment – Annu­al Budget SettingDeterm­ine pri­or­it­ies for resource alloc­a­tions to achieve agreed stra­tegic policies and out­comes on basis of advice from seni­or man­age­ment team; Estab­lish annu­al budget alloc­a­tions which are com­men­sur­ate with achieve­ment of estab­lished stra­tegic objectives.Devel­op budget pro­pos­als recog­nis avail­able income and expendit­ure pres­sures and which show the pro­posed deploy­ment of resources achieve agreed stra­tegic object­ives. Inform budget pro­pos­als through oper­a­tion­al and tac­tic­al know­ledge under­stand­ing of com­mit­ments and ongo­ing deliv­ery pro­grammes established
Budget­ing and Resource Deploy­ment — com­mit­ting resourcesAssur­ance that resource deploy­ment con­tin­ues to achieve agreed long term stra­tegic objectives.Resources Com­mit­tee Assur­ance RoleDeterm­ine and approve all expend with­in budgets agreed by Board; Man­age all staff recruit­ment, man­age­ment, object­ive set­ting, per­form­ance appraisal.
Approve pro­ject initiation
Budget­ing and Resource Deploy­ment – final accountsReview Account­ing policies, sig­ni­fic­ant estim­ates and assump­tions taken in draw­ing togeth­er accounts; Con­sider reports on accounts from extern­al aud­it­or and determ­ine any action.Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Assur­ance RolePro­fes­sion­al account­ancy advice in draw­ing up final accounts in accord with Fin­an­cial Report­ing Manu­al (FF and Account­ing Stand­ards; Draft Annu­al report and accounts; Advise on account­ing mat­ters and extern­al audit mat­ters arising.
Board arrange­ments for approv­al of accounts while it remains the Accounta Officers per­son­al respons­ib­il­ity to sign the accounts and who is ulti­mately per­son­ally respons­ible to the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment for the stew­ard­ship and man­age­ment of the organ­isa­tions finances.
> 2 For example Cairngorms Nature and Cairngorms Nature Action Plan
>3 For example LEAD­ER deliv­ery led by Loc­al Action Group / Cairngorms Trust, Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject led by Caper­cail­lie Pro­gramme Board
>4 Recent examples of over­lap in respons­ib­il­ity for determ­in­ing pro­ced­ur­al require­ments to achieve policy out­comes and need to use the decision cri­ter­ia set out in the Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity Statement:
> i) Board agree­ment of Green Recov­ery Fund cri­ter­ia sought as a con­sequence of nov­el aspect of policy, poten­tial for impact on repu­ta­tion, poten­tial for wider risk management;
> ii) Sea­son­al Ranger Ser­vice: imple­ment­a­tion entirely at Exec­ut­ive Level once over­all alloc­a­tion of resources agreed reflect­ing min­im­al assessed impact on repu­ta­tion, lack of stra­tegic risks or long term liab­il­ity. Ongo­ing Board assur­ance from activ­ity report­ing and report­ing on suc­cess measures.
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Activ­ityBoard Respons­ib­il­ityExec­ut­ive Responsibility
Board and Sub Com­mit­tee ManagementAgree out­line work pro­grammes for appro­pri­ate advance peri­ods, recog­nising flex­ib­il­ity and adapt­a­tion to evolving cir­cum­stances. Agree out­line agen­das in advance of meet­ings. Review draft papers in terms of clar­ity of present­a­tion and cov­er­age of agreed agenda items pri­or to issue. Review papers in advance of meet­ings and seek any detailed addi­tion­al inform­a­tion require­ments in advance of meet­ing. Con­sider papers and present­a­tions on their mer­its. Inter­act with staff in accord­ance with expec­ted val­ues and beha­viours. Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Assur­ance RoleCoordin­ate appro­pri­ate mat­ters of busi­ness and provide advice on age items of busi­ness. Man­age draft­ing and final­isa­tion of a papers. Ensure responses are made to any detailed ques­tions pri­or to meet­ing Trans­par­ent, clear, open inform­at­ic pro­vi­sion to all mem­bers. Inter­act with mem­bers in accordan with expec­ted val­ues and behaviour
Oper­a­tion­al and Pro­gramme DeliveryAssur­ance over achieve­ment of deliv­ery out­comes and wider stra­tegic implic­a­tions through Board and Com­mit­tee per­form­ance report­ing. Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Assur­ance RoleDecision mak­ing on activ­it­ies and resource deploy­ment to ensure agr stra­tegic out­comes and pro­gramme object­ives are achieved.
Com­mu­nic­a­tionsDeterm­ine com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment plan; Lead role with­in com­mu­nic­a­tions on stra­tegic policy mat­ters Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Assur­ance Role;Advise on devel­op­ment of com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment p Lead role with­in com­mu­nic­a­tions o oper­a­tion­al deliv­ery and policy deli matters
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