CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE BOARD MEETING

held by telephone/​video con­fer­ence on Fri­day 11^th June 2021 at 10am

PRESENT (By video con­fer­en­cing unless stated otherwise)

• Xan­der McDade (Con­vener)
• Car­o­lyn Cad­dick (Deputy Convener)
• Geva Black­ett
• Peter Argyle
• Deirdre Fal­con­er
• Pippa Had­ley
• Janet Hunter
• John Kirk
• John Lath­am

• Douglas McAdam

• Elean­or Mackintosh

• Wil­lie McKenna
• Ian McLar­en
• Dr Fiona McLean
• Wil­li­am Munro
• Anne Rae Macdonald
• Dr Gaen­er Rodger
• Derek Ross
• Judith Webb

In Attend­ance:

• Grant Moir, Chief Executive
• Andy Wells, Chair of Cairngorms Nature Steer­ing Group Item 3
• Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services
• Dr Peter May­hew, Dir­ect­or of Nature & Cli­mate Change
• Andy Ford, Head of Conservation
• Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Planning
• Helen Mason, Minute-taker

Apo­lo­gies: None.

Wel­come and Introduction

1. Xan­der McDade the Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meeting.
2. There were no apologies.

Minutes of Last Meet­ings held – for approval

1. The minutes of the meet­ing held on 12^th March 2021 were agreed with no amendments.

2. The minutes of the meet­ing held on 26^th March 2021 were agreed with no amendments.

Mat­ters Arising

1. The Con­vener provided an update on the Action Points from the pre­vi­ous minutes:

   • a) 12 March Minutes — Action Point at Para 14 (i) – Closed – CEO cir­cu­lated the inform­a­tion on the Sea­son­al Rangers.
   • b) 12 March Minutes — Action Point at Para 21 (i) – Closed – Fur­ther details on the oper­a­tion of the Ranger Ser­vice and how it would con­trib­ute to the Authority’s out­comes were to be brought to the Board.
   • c) 12 March Minutes — Action Point at Para 21 (ii) – in Hand – The end of sea­son review will include our part­ners that we work with, private, pub­lic and third sec­tor and that will include a wider more hol­ist­ic review of ranger ser­vices. If there are changes to be made we will have resources avail­able in next year’s budget to do that.
   • d) 26 March Minutes — Action Point at Para 10 (i) – Closed –. Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Mem­bers sup­plied with hard copy of the adop­ted Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan.

2. Action Points Arising: None

Declar­a­tions of Interest

1. The Con­vener invited Declar­a­tions of interest.

2. Geva Black­ett declared an Indir­ect interest in Paper 2.

   • Reas­on: she and her hus­band involved in the Brae­mar Hous­ing Pro­ject and her hus­band is Chair of Marr Area Hous­ing Project.

3. Doug McAdam declared an Indir­ect interest in Paper 3 item 8.

   • Reas­on: is a mem­ber of the Cairngorms Nature Strategy Group.

4. Pippa Had­ley declared an Indir­ect interest in Paper 2.

   • Reas­on: sits on Badenoch Great Place Pro­ject Board.

5. Judith Webb declared an indir­ect Interest in Paper 3 item 8.

   • Reas­on: is a mem­ber of the Cairngorms Nature Strategy Group.

CEO Report & Con­vener Update (Paper 1)

1. Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive, intro­duced Paper I which high­lights the main stra­tegic work streams that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. The CEO explained that these are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan pri­or­it­ies. He high­lighted the fol­low­ing areas:

   • a) Since last meet­ing the Park Author­ity have set up and are run­ning the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Ranger Ser­vice, there are 18 mem­bers includ­ing 4 kick­start rangers.
   • b) The Vis­it­or Man­age­ment Group are meet­ing on a fort­nightly basis with numer­ous part­ners across the Park.
   • c) There is a lot of infra­struc­ture work ongo­ing includ­ing the devel­op­ment of the stra­tegic infra­struc­ture plan as part of the Vis­it Scot­land Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund (RTIF).
   • d) There has been sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress with wood­land expan­sion tar­gets and there is a huge amount of interest in wood­land at present across the Park
   • e) The Cairngorms Nature BIG Week­end was held in May and was a great suc­cess with people on-line and with the resource packs that have been sent out to people. This should allow us to build on this work in future years.
   • f) Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan now adop­ted and being used to guide plan­ning applications
   • g) The work that the Plan­ning Team has been doing to pro­mote the Mine­craft work has res­ul­ted in sig­ni­fic­ant pub­li­city for the Park and for the innov­at­ive approach to engagement.
   • h) Then work with Grow­Biz Scot­land is get­ting good feed­back from people across the park.
   • i) A new page has been added to the web­site show­ing com­munity owned assets in the Park.. Really good resource
   • j) The Green Recov­ery Fund applic­a­tions have been assessed and, the applic­a­tions came in and the assess­ment was done, the pan­el has met, the offers are out. Pub­li­city around this next week Good work by the team for turn­ing this round so quickly
   • k) The Her­it­age Hori­zons bid will be con­sidered by the Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund (NHLF) Board on the 29^th June and the CNPA should find out after that wheth­er the bid has been successful.
   • l) Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan devel­op­ment work is ongoing.
   • m) On Com­mu­nic­a­tions the stats in the paper shows the grow­ing reach we have over all plat­forms with roughly a 25% increase on the pre­vi­ous year.
   • n) Cor­por­ate side — there was a huge amount of work going on the busi­ness con­tinu­ity with regard to the new ways of work­ing and the ​‘new nor­mal’ around IT, how people get back into the office and work around recruitment.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   • a) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 30 on page 7, could more inform­a­tion be giv­en about the Intern­al Engage­ment group? CEO said because of remote work­ing they have set up a num­ber intern­al cross cut­ting boards to make sure mix of people across dif­fer­ent parts of the organ­iz­a­tion. Cli­mate Change, Green Recov­ery, Cap­it­al and Engage­ment Groups have been estab­lished. Mem­ber noted it was an Intern­al Group with Nation­al Park staff.
   • b) Wood­land cre­ation & expan­sion in the medi­um and long term, have we pro­filed out suit­able land and pro­file against tar­gets and pace of expan­sion? CEO con­firmed this had been done in the Cairngorms Forestry Strategy 2019.
   • c) Caper­cal­lie pro­ject – unlock­ing hab­it­at is not the right ter­min­o­logy? CEO agreed to change the terminology
   • d) Praise for the good work being done. Com­ment made that it was good that the her­it­age lot­tery fund was being flex­ible and noted the impress­ive array of pro­jects. Peat­land res­tor­a­tion is men­tioned across reports and talk about con­tract­or capa­city and men­tion the prob­lem of reas­on­able access. Is this going to be a prob­lem across the Nation­al Park or not likely again? CEO explained that they are start­ing to have dis­cus­sions with vari­ous organ­isa­tions and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and com­pan­ies to try address con­tract­or capa­city, skills and machine short­age. It is a nation­al issue too. Also, the pro­ject not going ahead because of dif­fi­cult access this was just this indi­vidu­al estate and tim­ings being too short for this peat­land work.
   • e) With ref­er­ence to Para. 11 — Tread lightly in the Park: still some irre­spons­ible wild camp­ing which does not com­ply with the code. Con­cerns about 15 acres of wood­land des­troyed in Glen­more. Rangers dealt with about 200 fires over the year so far. Good mes­saging which is put out about the danger is not likely to be read by people light­ing the fires. Soon we will have to have dis­cus­sion to intro­duce bylaws about fires. Gen­er­ally, not in favour of legis­la­tion but wild fires will only get worse and we need to deal with it a bit more firmly. CEO explained that the Vis­it­or Man­age­ment Group had anoth­er meet­ing with the Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Eco­nomy and Fin­ance & key agen­cies and loc­al author­it­ies recently.. Mainly around traffic man­age­ment and fires. Agreed there was a lot being done behind the scenes to try and tar­get the right people with the right mes­sages? A wider dis­cus­sion about fires will be needed.
   • f) A mem­ber addressed the Con­vener about extern­al meet­ings and were there any out­comes to share? The Con­vener said the meet­ing with the pre­vi­ous Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary and Min­is­ter in May was more a reflec­tion across 5 years of work across the Envir­on­ment port­fo­lio. The oth­er meet­ing with rep­res­ent­at­ive of High­lands and Islands Enter­prise (HIE) dis­cussed a wide range of top­ics of work we are doing with HIE, poten­tial work with them includ­ing the Mas­ter­plan and hav­ing a meet­ing between the two boards at some point after restric­tions. Meet­ing with rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Cairngorm Busi­ness Part­ner­ship dis­cussed a wide range of top­ics mainly Cov­id related and the bounce back from Cov­id plus the strengthened links over the past year. A mem­ber would wel­come a focused dis­cus­sion on wild fires.
   • g) Also noted Her­it­age Hori­zons Bid and cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the reduc­tion of funds avail­able for the HH pro­gram. Are we pre­pared if there is a reduc­tion? The CEO explained the reduc­tion was in the over­all pot being applied for and not in the amount of fund­ing that the CNPA have bid for.
   • h) Was there a way of report­ing to pre­vent a lot of repe­ti­tion in the papers under dis­cus­sion today? The mem­ber found the papers repet­it­ive and wasn’t sure where to bring up ques­tions. The CEO explained it is the way papers have landed this time, some of the same top­ics are covered in cor­por­ate report­ing and the Green Recov­ery Fund paper. We are try­ing to be as com­pre­hens­ive as we can look at ways of stream­lin­ing in the future.
   • i) Mem­ber raised that they had been con­tac­ted by a res­id­ent about the num­ber of fires at Loch Mor­lich. Mem­ber also asked for cla­ri­fic­a­tion about tree plant­ing and wader num­bers. CEO agreed people are light­ing fires but that the rangers and the police and fire ser­vices are work­ing hard to pre­vent fires being lit and are put­ting out fires when they are found in inap­pro­pri­ate places. We have to get the mes­sage out that fires are not accept­able. There is, as has been said a need for wider conversation.

3. The Con­vener thanked the CEO for the report.

4. The Board noted the Paper.

5. Action Points Arising:

   • i. Ter­min­o­logy ​‘unblock­ing hab­it­ats’ to be changed (Caper­cail­lie).
   • ii. Board Busi­ness ses­sion to be sched­uled around redu­cing wild fires.

Stra­tegic Risk Man­age­ment & Mon­it­or­ing Cor­por­ate Per­form­ance (Paper 2)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced Paper 2 which presents an update on the Authority’s per­form­ance to date in work­ing towards deliv­ery of stra­tegic object­ives estab­lished in the 2018 to 2022 Cor­por­ate Plan. He made the fol­low­ing points:

   • a) The paper focuses on deliv­ery against the Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­ors adop­ted as meas­ures of per­form­ance in deliv­ery of our Cor­por­ate Plan, while high­light­ing by excep­tion any sig­ni­fic­ant con­straints, risks or short­com­ings on planned delivery.
   • b) The paper also presents the latest ver­sion of the Stra­tegic Risk Register, fol­low­ing ongo­ing review and mit­ig­a­tion action by the Man­age­ment Team and review by the Audit and Risk Committee.
   • c) Inform­a­tion is presen­ted on deliv­ery against the Cor­por­ate Plan only in this paper. Updates on deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan for 2017 to 2022 will be presen­ted at the Septem­ber Board meeting.

2. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices handed over to Pete May­hew, Dir­ect­or of Con­ser­va­tion and Vis­it­or Ser­vices. He noted that the three red items on the Con­ser­va­tion Land Man­age­ment Sec­tion which show we are not meet­ing these targets.

   • a) 1^st Red Item – Peat­land. Tar­get is 1000HA per annum last year only130HA because of Cov­id reas­ons. This year at 550HA. Good news we are build­ing up a new team with dir­ect fund­ing from Scot­Gov and we are very con­fid­ent we will get there in the com­ing years and will do bet­ter and the 3 – 4‑year tar­get is for 1500HA per annum
   • b) 2^nd Red Item The num­ber of Caper­cal­lie the tar­get is 1200 from the last form­al count ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ which estim­ated 1100 Caper in the park. Hoped to expand tar­get. Next count will be next winter tran­sect count com­pleted 2021/ 2022. Recent lek counts are an indic­at­or that it is likely there has been a decline.. Reas­ons for decline are many things; hab­it­at, unmarked fences, dis­turb­ance, pred­at­ors etc. Lots going on over the years, the Cairngorms Caper­cal­lie Pro­ject is the last of a series of pro­jects over 30 years. Caper­cail­lie extinc­tion in Scot­land was pre­dicted for 2010. The reas­on we still have caper­cail­lies is due to a lot of work which has been going on. They are declin­ing again quite severely. The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie pro­ject is hit­ting its tar­gets and meet­ing agreed out­comes, but the scope of the pro­ject does not cov­er all areas and all issues affect­ing decline. CNPA is coordin­at­ing high level dis­cus­sions about how we take for­wards the aspects of caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion not included in the project..
   • c) 3^rd Red Item: Rap­tors. The tar­get is no incid­ence of wild­life crime in the park but this is clearly not the case. Work­ing with Police Scot­land and NatureScot, but bring­ing pro­sec­u­tions to court is very dif­fi­cult. There will be rap­tor tag­ging this year to help pin­point illeg­al activ­ity more pre­cisely Scot­Gov com­mit­ment to grouse licens­ing will be import­ant. Finally con­ser­va­tion team is examin­ing how we can work more broadly on rap­tors in the Park e.g. how do we shift to a more pos­it­ive cul­ture around rap­tors in the Park by work­ing with tour­ism and schools.

3. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   • a) Clar­ity sought on what impact cli­mate has on declin­ing num­bers of caper­cail­lie The Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change said it has a sig­ni­fic­ant effect. It is a cold adap­ted bird which does bet­ter fur­ther north, it is more dif­fi­cult for it in a warm­er Scot­land. There is evid­ence sug­gest­ing that wet­ter Junes and a change in April warm­ing may be affect­ing caper­cail­lie pro­ductiv­ity. How­ever, this bird can still sur­vive an a warm­er Scot­land if oth­er factors are man­aged to be favourable.
   • b) A ques­tion from a mem­ber the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices on report page 7 Sec­tion 20 Rur­al Devel­op­ment- Excep­tion Report­ing says no excep­tions to report as regard to the con­struc­tion industry – and the increase in costs which will affect the avail­ab­il­ity of afford­able prop­er­ties? He replied that there is a risk in the con­struc­tion industry and sup­ply issues. But in terms of the sig­ni­fic­ant impact on KPIs and Cor­por­ate object­ives we are not see­ing at the moment to flag that at the moment but we need to mon­it­or this. The CEO advised in terms of afford­able hous­ing we will be pick­ing that up on Nation­al Park Plan and bring­ing it back to the Board at the Septem­ber meeting
   • c) In terms of a wider, more pos­it­ive dis­cus­sion re rap­tors in the Park when could the Board expect to get an idea of what these dis­cus­sions look like? The Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change advised that dis­cus­sions are being held to look at rap­tor work going for­ward and will be part of the NPPP dis­cus­sions this autumn.
   • d) Risk register — when would the whole Board have a chance to look at the risk register? Query raised around some of the risks more oper­a­tion­al and stra­tegic and would like to have an oppor­tun­ity to com­ment. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained regard­ing the Stra­tegic Risk Register is brought to the Board twice a year. He advised he was happy to talk to mem­bers sep­ar­ately. He will call the mem­ber sep­ar­ately to cov­er points, or if any­one has spe­cif­ic points can take them in the meet­ing today.
   • e) Glen­more Strategy wondered on the times­cale of actions in that area? The CEO explained that there was a lot of new work going on poten­tially new pub­lic toi­lets, new foot­bridge. It was hoped that traffic man­age­ment infra­struc­ture would have been done but due to con­tract­or capa­city the work has been delayed. . He went on to advise that work was going on speed lim­it changes etc.
   • f) Marr Area Part­ner­ship wondered about the impact of with­draw­al of Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil fund­ing withdrawal?
   • g) With ref­er­ence to the ECMP what the impact might be of the with­draw­al of Inver­cauld Estate on Peat res­tor­a­tion and hab­it­at monitoring.
   • h) With ref­er­ence to Annex 3. The basic scheme about assets and asset man­age­ment and main­ten­ance. Giv­en the nature in land own­er­ship in Nation­al Park red to amber in last quarter pre­sum­ably because we are get­ting an increase in cap­it­al for fund­ing? CEO advised that the cap­it­al fund­ing from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment over the next 5 years will allow the CNPA to main­tain its cur­rent infra­struc­ture and will allow us to invest in oth­er infra­struc­ture. This will be developed as part of the Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Plan.
   • i) Foot­path qual­ity is import­ant. Do we have a long term main­ten­ance plan? Was cap­it­al fund­ing a con­straint because it can­not be spent on ongo­ing repair? Is there any thought on using any of the fund­ing as a grant scheme to match fund­ing to needs not just Nation­al Park assets? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed that they were look­ing at the poten­tial of grant award­ing cap­it­al funds for main­ten­ance of path net­works to enhance to lifespan of a pro­ject. He con­firmed that cap­it­al funds could be used for maintenance.
   • j) With ref­er­ence to A17 and A18 which relate to ICT. Has any­thing sig­ni­fic­ant happened in the last quarter which has shif­ted it from amber to red? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained on the scale of invest­ment as we emerge from Cov­id – escal­at­ing risk scale of risk of remote work­ing. Cyber secur­ity impact is an increased risk with increased Secur­ity soft­ware costs which is all in hand.
   • k) A mem­ber with know­ledge of the Brae­mer Hous­ing Pro­ject brings the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices up to date. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices will ensure records are updated.
   • l) Con­cerned raised about the peat res­tor­a­tion notes the lack of dig­gers and dig­ger drivers not helped by lack of housing.
   • m) Con­cern expressed about the Caper­cal­lie pro­ject. In the 1970s there were huge num­bers of Capers, num­bers are down and we are los­ing the battle. The diversity of birds are down and the squir­rels are dis­ap­pear­ing from bird tables, the con­cern is the Pine Martens are push­ing them out. The mem­ber says we need to look at pred­at­or con­trol of Pine Martens, Badgers and Foxes and we have to do things as pred­at­ors are out of hand. The Con­vener noted mem­bers need to be care­ful about strong lan­guage in the dis­cus­sion. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices noted the Con­veners com­ment and says need to get into detail about empir­ic­al data. CEO noted there is strength of feel­ing in dif­fer­ent dir­ec­tions in this area. He had a meet­ing last week with NatureScot, Scot­tish Forestry and oth­ers around caper­cail­lie rein­force­ment, pred­at­or con­trol and refuges. Big issues need to have a policy decision. NatureScot are look­ing to set up a sub-group of their Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee to look at the evid­ence and provide advice. We are also wait­ing for key bits of inform­a­tion around genet­ics works to see the genet­ic makeup of the pop­u­la­tion and also await­ing the full winter count, which should be avail­able mid-2022. Pred­at­or con­trol is one issue but there are dif­fer­ing views with no con­sensus. We need to work on all issues not just pred­at­or con­trol. The Con­vener sum­mar­ised the need to look at the evid­ence and make decisions based on evid­ence. We will hope­fully hear more about in due course.
   • n) Regard­ing Peat­land recruit­ment for new team. What will this new team do? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that fund­ing from Scot­Gov was com­ing dir­ect to the Park, there­fore they were set­ting up a team con­sist­ing of a pro­gram man­ager, 4 peat­land officers, GIS officer and an admin­is­trat­or doing 1000 plus HA a year. The officers make arrange­ment with land own­er, scope out pro­ject, find con­tract­or, mon­it­or pro­ject and report back to ScotGov.
   • o) Each officer cov­ers 5 pro­jects. Mem­ber con­cerned about how are we address­ing lack of con­tract­ors? The Dir­ect­or agreed they are work­ing with con­tract­ors and with oth­er pub­lic bod­ies to address this issue but won’t hap­pen overnight. Money is avail­able year on year for peat­land work and that con­sist­ency of fund­ing will help attract people into the sector.
   • p) Con­cern raised on the decline of caper­cail­lie, des­pite ongo­ing pro­jects. What we are doing was not enough what fur­ther mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures should be put in place? Would like to pro­pose some alter­a­tions to the recom­mend­a­tions today. Real con­cern about wait­ing until next year. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change explained that the Caper­cail­lie would have gone extinct if we had not done what we have done over the last 3 dec­ades. But there was a real sense of urgency. There are 3 new areas where there will be dis­cus­sion res­ult­ing in action over the com­ing months: Dis­turb­ance and Refuges; Pred­at­or Man­age­ment and Pos­sib­il­ity of rein­force­ment of the population.
   • q) Noticed risks been added fol­low­ing risk review. Do these go through Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee before get­ting added on to the register? Request made for the Board to have the oppor­tun­ity to have more of a detailed look at it. In addi­tion were we miss­ing an import­ant risk around pub­lic health i.e. ticks and Lyme dis­ease. Should risks to the Pub­lic be included on the risk register? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices advised that the items had been added since the last review. Make sure con­stant review all have a right to take risks on and off the register. This is over­all insur­ance map­ping around stra­tegic risk. Ongo­ing review of the Stra­tegic Risk Register would be car­ried out by the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee going for­ward. With regards to the query around pub­lic health, the risk register looks at our own cor­por­ate object­ives register not as an area as a whole. He agreed to have a think about the points made around pub­lic health.
   • r) Com­ment made around the leg­al routes to address pred­at­ors around pro­tec­ted spe­cies. Evid­ence bur­den was very high.
   • s) Con­cern raised around the Deeside Way Exten­sion fund­ing as plan­ning per­mis­sion might run out and notes there is fund­ing avail­able through loc­al author­it­ies. CEO approached couple of poten­tial fun­ders and Dir­ect­or of Con­ser­va­tion & Vis­it­or Ser­vices is hav­ing dis­cus­sions loc­ally. CEO look­ing at extend­ing Plan­ning Per­mis­sion and the fund­ing from Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil is not some­thing that has been looked at so CEO and Dir­ect­or of Con­ser­va­tion & Vis­it­or Ser­vices will look at that.
   • t) With ref­er­ence to page 10 in Annex 3, a risk added by the Seni­or Man­age­ment Team cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought regard­ing wild­life crime mit­ig­a­tion. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change explained they were look­ing at what powers the Author­ity have and could use to mit­ig­ate fur­ther some of the issues around wild­life crime.
   • u) The Deputy Con­vener com­men­ted that there was a lot of inform­a­tion in the papers provid­ing a thor­ough update. Sug­ges­tion made to find a way of allow­ing an inform­al dis­cus­sion about the items high­lighted in red before com­ing to the Board at a pub­lic meet­ing. With ref­er­ence to Caper­cal­lie Paper 2 annex 1. Pages 2&3 one focus is improv­ing & cre­at­ing hab­it­at. Make sure we don’t wait until the end of the year, giv­en the latest inform­a­tion.. CEO made clear that we have to sep­ar­ate the wider caper dis­cus­sion from the Cairngorms Caper pro­ject. Officers will come back to the Board in the Autumn to dis­cuss refuges, pred­at­or con­trol and rein­force­ment fol­low­ing the work of the NatureScot sub-com­mit­tee look­ing at the evid­ence. This will allow us to con­sider what work we wish to take for­ward with part­ners at a nation­al level that sits along­side the work of the Cairngorms Caper Project.
   • v) The Con­vener explained the Nation­al Lot­tery Fun­ded pro­ject had already set agreed object­ives a change would be a long pro­cess. In terms of speed the CNPA can do this work­ing with part­ners to get the inform­a­tion to have a prop­er dis­cus­sion. Con­vener get­ting exact word­ing to move an addi­tion­al recommendation.
   • w) Con­cern raised that we are look­ing dif­fer­ent fig­ures with regard to the Caper pro­ject which leaves us in a pre­cari­ous pos­i­tion. CEO explains the pro­ject is doing key issues regard­ing dis­turb­ance, genet­ics, and hab­it­at and some leg­al pred­at­or con­trol. It is not set up to do rein­force­ment work nor to make policy decisions around pred­at­or man­age­ment for pro­tec­ted spe­cies. That is what the work with the pub­lic agen­cies at a nation­al level is addressing.
   • x) Deputy Con­vener cla­ri­fied the need to ensure that the Cairngorms Caper Pro­ject and the wider nation­al work come togeth­er to ensure that we have the best pos­sible chance of help­ing the Caper­cail­lie and hav­ing a suc­cess­ful pro­ject with­in the Cairngorms.

4. The Con­vener put for­ward a motion to approve the recom­mend­a­tions includ­ing the addi­tion­al recom­mend­a­tion d) and this was seconded by Judith Webb as chair of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee. The Board:

   • a) Reviewed the update on cor­por­ate per­form­ance and stra­tegic risk man­age­ment set out in this paper.
   • b) High­lighted any achieve­ments or excep­tions which, from a stra­tegic lead­er­ship per­spect­ive, Board mem­bers believe are of par­tic­u­lar sig­ni­fic­ance to the deliv­ery of the Authority’s stra­tegic objectives.
   • c) Reviewed and com­men­ted on the risk register for com­plete­ness in cov­er­age of cur­rent stra­tegic risks and adequacy of mit­ig­a­tion actions.
   • d) The Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity will take for­ward work with key part­ners to look at the fol­low­ing key issues for caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion – refuges and dis­turb­ance, pred­at­or con­trol and rein­force­ment and that this work will come back to the Board with the evid­ence base later in the year so the Board can have a detailed con­ver­sa­tion around this and that this evid­ence base would be passed on to Cairngorm Caper­cail­lie pro­ject to inform their future decision making.

5. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion around pro­ced­ure was sought by a Mem­ber regard­ing her request some time ago for a paper to be brought to the Board on rap­tors. Could it be explained why was one paper going through as a recom­mend­a­tion where­as her request was put through as an action? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained about the pro­cess and the key pur­pose of the paper is to flag up the Board con­cerns, to advise officers who will come back to the Board. Wheth­er it was high­lighted as an amend­ment or an action in the minutes, it does not mat­ter as it would have effect­ively done the same job.

6. Action Points Arising:

   • i. The issue of afford­able hous­ing would be picked up while devel­op­ing the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and would be brought back to the Board through that process.
   • ii. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices will call the mem­ber dir­ectly who asked about cla­ri­fy­ing the Stra­tegic Risk Register.
   • iii. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices will update CNPA records regard­ing the Brae­mer Hous­ing Project.
   • iv. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices will talk to the Con­vener about bring­ing the ongo­ing review of stra­tegic risk back to the Board via the Gov­ernance Committee.
   • v. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices will con­sider the pos­sib­il­ity of includ­ing the Pub­lic Health Risks to the Register.
   • vi. The CEO and Dir­ect­or Con­ser­va­tion and Vis­it­or Ser­vices invest­ig­ate pos­sible fund­ing aven­ues from Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil for the Deeside Way Extension.

Cairngorms Nature Action Plan Mid-term Report (Paper 3)

1. Andy Ford, Head of Con­ser­va­tion intro­duced Paper 3 which presents the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan mid-term report. He intro­duced Andy Wells Chair of the Cairngorms Nature Strategy Group who togeth­er presen­ted the paper the fol­low­ing points were made:

   • a) Andy Wells praised the work of the Park Author­ity and the Cairngorms Nature Team, it was a chal­len­ging area with dif­fer­ing views.
   • b) It was set up for people to work togeth­er in part­ner­ship with key stake­hold­ers. The plan was mak­ing good progress.
   • c) Thanked Head of Con­ser­va­tion and team for their work that had been invalu­able bring­ing people together.
   • d) Without work­ing in part­ner­ship the Cairngorm Nature object­ives would not be achieved.
   • e) Praise for the effort going into build­ing rela­tion­ships in the Park; col­lab­or­a­tion and co-oper­a­tion, he referred to ini­ti­at­ives lis­ted in the report.
   • f) Head of Con­ser­va­tion recog­nized the range of work from a wide range of dif­fer­ent part­ners which were work­ing well.
   • g) He added there was still a lot to do. As well as look­ing at the reds and ambers in the report he high­lighted the green items with 80% actions which were green.
   • h) He also noted the suc­cess of the Biod­iversity Chal­lenge Fund which has drawn over £0.5million into the park over the last 3 years.
   • i) Also, to note the Amber actions are there because of Cov­id and acknow­ledge the impact it has had.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   • a) The Con­vener noted it was good to see 80% was on track.
   • b) A mem­ber thanked Andy Wells & Andy Ford and has some obser­va­tions: When Cairngorms Con­nect and ECMP are both our part­ners only Cairngorms Con­nect got a men­tion. At the end of video why the pine marten were used not the red squir­rel? Which spe­cies bene­fit by rewild­ing and which by land man­age­ment. Would ask again to look at key spe­cies and look at what impact land man­age­ment is hav­ing on them. Head of Con­ser­va­tion advised in terms of the film, the point try­ing to get across was con­ser­va­tion in the park sits along­side land man­age­ment, it is not either/​or. We did not men­tion ECMP as we did not have any spe­cif­ic pro­ject or out­put to point at. But we will focus on ECMP more and more as pro­jects devel­op and deliv­er. With regards to the pine marten, they are pred­at­ors, as are many spe­cies, and they are also biod­iversity and make nature rich­er. Bear­ing in mind the audi­ence, the film was not meant to open a dis­cus­sion on pred­at­or man­age­ment. Mon­it­or­ing spe­cies – the Cairngorms Nature index will do exactly that with the same indic­at­ors across the Park which will include grouse. The pro­ject would look at the range of upland spe­cies bene­fit grass­land man­age­ment. The mem­ber stated it was not just about birds, it was about dif­fer­ent spe­cies — moths, rare plants and the whole eco­sys­tem across the Park. Head of Con­ser­va­tion cla­ri­fied that the pro­ject would look at all wild­life groups. Chair of the Cairngorms Nature Steer­ing Group poin­ted out integ­rated moor­land man­age­ment was the inten­ded mes­sage which involved a range of sport­ing activ­it­ies as well as everything else.
   • c) Com­ment made that is was good to hear about the wide vari­ety of work going on across the Park. With ref­er­ence to Page 11 of the Annex could more inform­a­tion be giv­en around the impact of decrease in spe­cies rich grass­land due to the reduc­tion in graz­ing? How would this impact on key spe­cies? Andy Wells advised that with too many grazers the grass­land will be grazed out, if too few the rank veget­a­tion would out com­pete some of the oth­er spe­cies. It was a fine bal­ance. In a lot of nature reserves grazers will be del­ic­ately con­trolled in order to man­age for par­tic­u­lar spe­cies. We are at the start of this, identi­fy­ing what we have got, then the inten­tion was to approach land man­agers and farm­ers, if we want to focus on it how shall we work together.
   • d) Sug­ges­tion that the inform­a­tion and data is fed into Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment at a high­er level.
   • e) Praise giv­en for the excel­lent paper and strong on col­lab­or­a­tion acknow­ledge­ment of land managers.
   • f) Nation­al Polices and Frame­works. As it is regard­ing biod­iversity and land man­age­ment, should we have men­tion future strategy for Scot­tish Agri­cul­ture or/​and cli­mate change reports was this an omis­sion? Also men­tioned vacancy for the Farm Advis­ory Post and a Con­ser­va­tion Engage­ment Officer. Asked to be reas­sured that we are filling the vacan­cies as mat­ter of urgency. CEO advised that the inter­views for Head of Land Man­age­ment would take place next week. After we have that post in place, we look at job spe­cific­a­tion for oth­er posts in the next couple of weeks.
   • g) Con­cern raised about decreas­ing and extent of spe­cies rich grass­land. What was under-graz­ing and how could this be addressed? With regards to Hous­ing devel­op­ments –Should spe­cies rich grass­lands be looked at in the future? Andy Ford advised that in cer­tain cir­cum­stances the reduc­tion in live­stock from spe­cies rich grass­land can res­ult in under graz­ing. Regard­ing hous­ing devel­op­ments he explained that devel­op­ment did include a range of things includ­ing sheds and farm tracks as well as hous­ing units. Now there are no wood­land sites in next loc­al devel­op­ment plan, future devel­op­ments might be on grass­land. We should know where spe­cies rich grass­lands are for bal­anced decisions on plan­ning applications.
   • h) Chair of CNSG answers ques­tion about spe­cies rich grass­land – it is about graz­ing by cattle and sheep but also about chan­ging farm man­age­ment con­trib­ut­ing to such as hay man­age­ment and ​‘fly­ing herds’ where cattle move around.
   • i) A mem­ber asks does reduc­tion of deer and hare num­bers have an impact. Chair of CNSG it is mainly the changes to sheep and cattle graz­ing is the issue. A mem­ber notes lack of stock and dif­fer­ent pay­ment schemes. Caper were suc­cess­ful when cattle used to graze in the woods. RSPB have rein­tro­duced cattle in to woods. Pine martens have an impact on reduc­tion of squir­rel. Head of Con­ser­va­tion explained the under-story man­age­ment using cattle helps Caper­cal­lie and wild life man­age­ment. Regard­ing red squir­rel, Sav­ing Scotland’s Red Squir­rel pro­ject annu­al sur­vey shows pop­u­la­tion range is increas­ing, and estim­ate the pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing with­in the Park..
   • j) A mem­ber noted there are now red squir­rels in Aber­deen as well as pine martens which help get rid of the grey. Huge and import­ant area of work. Dif­fer­ent con­tro­ver­sies about this work, with a dif­fi­cult bal­ance. This review shows what good work has been done. No one can please all the people all the time. The pro­ject as a whole is vital loc­ally and nationally.

3. The Board thanked Andy Wells and Andy Ford and the teams for this timely, help­ful and clear update.

4. The Con­vener thanked Andy Wells for join­ing the meet­ing, said it is an impress­ive achieve­ment with pos­it­ive work going on and repeated the member’s thanks, which were form­ally recor­ded in the Minutes. He also thanked Judith and Doug for their con­tri­bu­tion as part of Cairngorms Nature.

5. The Con­vener put for­ward a motion to approve the recom­mend­a­tions and this was seconded by Car­o­lyn Cad­dick. The Board noted the paper.

6. Action Point Arising: None

The meet­ing paused for a Short Com­fort Break.

Cairngorms Green Recov­ery Plan (Paper 4)

1. Grant Moir CEO, intro­duced Paper 4 which updates the Board on the Cairngorms Green Recov­ery Plan cur­rent pos­i­tion and the plans ahead.

2. Grant Moir gave a short intro­duc­tion and thanked every­one involved. This will be the last update on this spe­cif­ic plan as it will be wrapped up in cor­por­ate report­ing going forward.

3. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   • a) The Con­vener noted the use­ful­ness of bring­ing this plan back of the year and to see the Green Recov­ery Fund money we have man­aged to get into the com­munit­ies since last year.
   • b) Wil­lie Mun­ro, Chair of Fin­ance and Deliv­ery Com­mit­tee and also the Chair of the Pan­el noted it was good to see most actions in the plan were mov­ing for­ward. Trust mem­bers did a huge amount of work eval­u­at­ing the pro­jects. 28 out of 30 pro­jects across the Park which came to the pan­el received fund­ing. It was a healthy sign.
   • c) A mem­ber noted to the Board that the Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing group also had pos­it­ive meet­ings over the year. For example the last one we met with The Dir­ect­or of Loc­al Eco­nom­ic Strategies and mem­bers of the Well Being Eco­nomy Alli­ance where we had good dis­cus­sions about the Well Being eco­nomy. At the end of the month, we have meet­ing with the Chair of Coun­tryside Learn­ing, Scot­land who devel­op a pro­gram of Rur­al Skills Path­ways which should be con­struct­ive for people in the park going forward.
   • d) The Con­vener con­firmed the good reports from the Action group.
   • e) The Con­vener thanked officers for their work and Wil­lie Mun­ro for his work chair­ing the pan­el and Deirdre Fal­con­er for her work chair­ing the Eco­nom­ic Action Group.

4. The Con­vener moved the motion to agree the paper and this noted the pro­gress being made on the deliv­ery of the Green Recov­ery Plan. This was seconded by Car­o­lyn Caddick.

5. Action Point Arising: None

Cairngorm Estate Mas­ter­plan (Paper 5)

1. The CEO intro­duced Paper 5 which updates the Board about the approv­al of a Mas­ter­plan for the Cairngorm Estate by High­lands & Islands Enter­prise (HIE).

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

   • a) A mem­ber acknow­ledged that they would have an engage­ment with the CNPA advis­ory pan­el regard­ing equal­ity and accessibility.
   • b) A mem­ber com­men­ted that they had been pleased to see after many requests that a Mas­ter Plan approved by HIE was now in place, which was a long awaited development.
   • c) Gav­in Miles Head of Plan­ning and Com­mit­tee made a cor­rec­tion — word­ing is wrong in one instance. It reads ​‘a mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tion’ but should read ​‘rel­ev­ant con­sid­er­a­tion’ when determ­in­ing plan­ning applic­a­tions. The change was noted.
   • d) A mem­ber asked would each plan­ning applic­a­tion be giv­en due con­sid­er­a­tion when they come through? The Con­vener con­firmed it would, with each applic­a­tion judged on its own merits.

3. The Board noted that High­lands and Islands Enter­prise has pre­pared and launched a Mas­ter­plan for Cairngorm Estate which provides a wel­come sense of dir­ec­tion for their man­age­ment of the area.

4. Action Point Arising None

Change to Stand­ing Orders: Imple­ment­ing Changes to Com­mit­tee Chair Elec­tions (Paper 6)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced Paper 6 which pro­poses changes required to Stand­ing Orders to imple­ment the changes to the elec­tion pro­cess for Com­mit­tee Chairs as agreed by the Board. The paper fol­lows agree­ment by the Board at its meet­ing of 28 May 2021 that Stand­ing Orders require amendment.

2. The Con­vener thanked the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices for the report.

3. Wil­lie Mun­ro moved that the Board approve the Changes to the Stand­ing Orders. This was seconded by the Convener.

4. The Board:

   • a)