CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 2 Annex 1 | 10/09/21

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY ÙGH­DAR­RAIS PÀIRC NÀISEANTA À MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

ANNU­AL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ …AN OUT­STAND­ING NATION­AL PARK, ENJOYED AND VAL­UED BY EVERY­ONE, WHERE NATURE AND PEOPLE THRIVE TOGETHER…

AITH­ISG BHLIADH­NAIL AGUS CUN­NTAS­AN ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ …SÀR PHÀIRC NÀISEANTA, A THA A’ CÒRDADH RIS A H‑UILE DUINE AGUS AIR A BHEIL IAD UILE A’ CUR LUACH, AGUS FAR A BHEIL NÀDAR AGUS DAOINE A’ SOIRBHEACHA…

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CON­TENTS

1 PER­FORM­ANCE REPORT 1.1 Key Per­son­nel and spon­sor­ing Body 2 1.2 Chief Executive’s For­ward 3 1.3 The Park Author­ity 5 1.4 Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ and bey­ond 9 1.5 Key issues and Risks 11 1.6 Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Sum­mary 12 1.7 Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary 15

2 ACCOUNT­AB­IL­ITY REPORT 2.1 Dir­ect­ors’ Report 27 2.2 State­ment of Nation­al Park Authority’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 30 2.3 State­ment of Board’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 31 2.4 State­ment of the Account­able Officer’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 31 2.5 Gov­ernance State­ment 32 2.6 Remu­ner­a­tion report and key inform­a­tion on staff 38 2.7 Dis­clos­ures to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment 49 2.8 Inde­pend­ent auditor’s report to the mem­bers of the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity, the aud­it­or Gen­er­al for Scot­land and the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment 50

3 FIN­AN­CIAL STATEMENTS 3.1 State­ment of Com­pre­hens­ive Net Expendit­ure 54 3.2 State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion 55 3.3 State­ment of Cash Flows 56 3.4 State­ment of Changes in Tax­pay­ers’ Equity 57 3.5 Notes to the Fin­an­cial State­ments 58

APPENDIX 1 Accounts Dir­ec­tion 70 APPENDIX 2 Facil­ity Time Pub­lic­a­tion Data (Staff Uni­on) 71

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1 PER­FORM­ANCE OVERVIEW

1.1 Key Per­son­nel and Spon­sor­ing Department

Chief exec­ut­ive and account­able officer Grant Moir

Dir­ect­ors Dav­id Camer­on – Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Mur­ray Fer­guson – Plan­ning & Rur­al Devel­op­ment Dr Peter May­hew – Con­ser­va­tion & Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence (resign­ing with effect from Novem­ber 2021)

Con­ven­or Xan­der McDade

Board mem­bers Peter Argyle Geva Black­ett, Deputy Con­vener (resigned 29^th July 2020) Car­o­lyn Cad­dick, Deputy Con­ven­or (appoin­ted 2^nd Octo­ber 2020), Chair Staff­ing and Recruit­ment Com­mit­tee Deirdrie Fal­con­er Pippa Had­ley Janet Hunter John Kirk John Lath­am Douglas McAdam Dr Fiona McLean Anne Rae Mac­Don­ald Elean­or Mack­in­tosh, Chair Plan­ning Com­mit­tee (resigned 11^th Decem­ber 2020) Ian Maclar­en Wil­lie McK­enna Wil­li­am Mun­ro, Chair Fin­ance and Deliv­ery Com­mit­tee Dr Gaen­er Rodger, Chair Plan­ning Com­mit­tee (appoin­ted 18^th Decem­ber 2020) Derek Ross Judith Webb, Chair Audit and Risk Committee

Spon­sor­ing body Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Government

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1.2 Chief Executive’s Forward

I have pleas­ure in present­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s (the Park Author­ity) Annu­al Report and Accounts cov­er­ing its 17^th year of oper­a­tion, from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021.

This past 18 months have been unlike any that the organ­isa­tion or the wider Park has gone through since its incep­tion in 2004. The Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic has changed the way the organ­isa­tion oper­ates and will influ­ence how it oper­ates in the future. This past year the entire staff group has been work­ing from home and board meet­ings and com­mit­tees have all been held vir­tu­ally. Board meet­ings have been broad­cast and all meet­ings with stake­hold­ers have been held online. Many of these changes are here to stay, with less travel and easi­er access for more people. How­ever, this overnight change put pres­sure on our cor­por­ate resources to ensure that this new way of work­ing could be sup­por­ted and I am glad to say that the organ­isa­tion rose to the challenge.

The con­sequences of the pan­dem­ic has also been seen in the vis­it­or man­age­ment chal­lenges that the Park has faced, with increased num­bers of people look­ing to recre­ate in the Park. This led to the cre­ation of Park-wide Man­aging for Vis­it­ors group, a CNPA Ranger Ser­vice for the first time and sig­ni­fic­ant extra fund­ing for vis­it­or infra­struc­ture pro­jects across the Park. At the same time the Park Author­ity also quickly estab­lished a Green Recov­ery Plan and accom­pa­ny­ing fund to help pro­jects loc­ally that sup­por­ted a green recovery.

The Author­ity has once again been light on its feet and able to respond to chal­lenges as they have aris­en, enhan­cing our repu­ta­tion loc­ally and nation­ally as a dynam­ic, innov­at­ive organ­isa­tion able to handle a wide range of some­times com­pet­ing pri­or­it­ies des­pite its rel­at­ively small size. While respond­ing effect­ively to the vari­ous chal­lenges posed by the COVID19 pan­dem­ic, our intern­al work to build an organ­isa­tion val­ued by our staff with an open cul­ture has been recog­nised with anoth­er nation­al award: as one of the top 10 employ­ers in Scot­land for flex­ib­il­ity in staff con­tracts and work­ing arrange­ments awar­ded by Flex­ib­il­ity Works.

All of this was done whilst con­tinu­ing to deliv­er the pri­or­it­ies set out in our Cor­por­ate Plan and the big chal­lenges around address­ing the cli­mate and natures crises, build­ing a well-being eco­nomy and deliv­er­ing afford­able housing.

The Park Author­ity con­tin­ued through­out the year to deliv­er across con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and rur­al devel­op­ment. This involved us in provid­ing effect­ive and effi­cient pub­lic ser­vices cov­er­ing our stat­utory func­tions of plan­ning and access, and also in our wider roles work­ing with a wide range of part­ners to deliv­er pro­jects on the ground that deliv­er on our outcomes.

This has been achieved through lever­ing in sig­ni­fic­ant addi­tion­al fund­ing into the Nation­al Park on con­ser­va­tion pro­jects, rur­al regen­er­a­tion pro­jects, access pro­jects, and much more besides. It has been a busy year and some of the key high­lights of our work in the Nation­al Park are in this Annu­al Report and Accounts. Our res­ults for the year set out in these accounts high­light the Author­ity has once again achieved its annu­al fin­an­cial tar­get of a fin­an­cial break-even, mak­ing full use of resources made avail­able by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and our oth­er fund­ing part­ners, while not impos­ing any unex­pec­ted call on pub­lic resources.

The ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ oper­a­tion­al year has also seen us devel­op a £12.5m bid with around 45 part­ner organ­isa­tions for the NLHF Her­it­age Hori­zon Awards. This bid was suc­cess­ful, with a full amount of fund­ing announced in July 2021, and will provide a sol­id found­a­tion to address the cli­mate and nature crises in the Park. The Author­ity has also been work­ing with part­ners to devel­op the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan for 2022 – 27 which will provide the con­text for the future work of the Author­ity and will be out for pub­lic con­sulta­tion this autumn.

This past year has not been easy for staff or board mem­bers. It has not been easy for indi­vidu­als, busi­nesses or com­munit­ies in the Park. It has, how­ever, shown the strength of people work­ing togeth­er to tackle key chal­lenges as they arise. In my almost 10 years work­ing in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park the col­lect­ive endeav­our to tackle the issues col­lect­ively has nev­er been so strong.

I think this stands us is good stead for tack­ling the big chal­lenges ahead, par­tic­u­larly around build­ing a ​‘Green Recov­ery’ and tack­ling cli­mate change. It just remains for me to thank every­one who has helped over the past year to enable the Park Author­ity to con­tin­ue to deliv­er for this incred­ible place, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive and Account­able Officer 10, Septem­ber, 2021

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1.3 The Park Authority

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the largest Nation­al Park in the United King­dom and cov­ers 4,525 square kilo­metres, twice the size of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and 40% lar­ger than the Lake District.

The Park Author­ity is a Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Body sponsored by the Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, estab­lished under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 with the pur­pose of being a mod­el of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment work­ing towards achiev­ing four stat­utory aims:

• to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area;
• to pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area;
• to pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the pub­lic; and
• to pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s communities.

Strategy and busi­ness model

The Park Author­ity has a key role in lead­ing the deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. The Plan sets the con­text for close cooper­a­tion and part­ner­ship across pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions in the Park towards an agreed set of shared pri­or­ity object­ives. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan sets out three long term out­comes for the Park, which have also been used as the basis for devel­op­ing the Cor­por­ate Plan. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 (CNPPP), which was approved by Min­is­ters, provides the over­all guide for stra­tegic align­ment between pub­lic agen­cies with­in the Park, and also with private and com­munity organ­isa­tions who are sig­nat­or­ies to and part­ners in deliv­ery of the CNPPP.

The Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan was approved by the Board and Scot­tish Min­is­ters in spring 2018 to cov­er our work up to the end of the cur­rent CNPPP and the devel­op­ment of the fol­low­ing Park Part­ner­ship Plan which will be put in place to com­mence from April 2022.

In the wider Scot­tish con­text, the Park Author­ity will also work on ensur­ing great­er stra­tegic align­ment to ensure deliv­ery of key nation­al strategies, such as cur­rent and future Pro­grammes for Gov­ern­ment, 2020 Chal­lenge for Scotland’s Biod­iversity, Scot­tish Cli­mate Change Act, the Land Use Strategy for Scot­land, Scotland’s Eco­nom­ic Strategy, Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work, the Com­munity Empower­ment Act, the nation­al Tour­ism Strategy 2020, the Nation­al Walk­ing Strategy and the Cyc­ling Action Plan for Scotland.

Our stra­tegic work includes being an act­ive mem­ber of the Envir­on­ment and Eco­nomy Lead­ers’ Group, togeth­er with input to a range of nation­al lead­er­ship and stake­hold­er groups.

Our com­mit­ment

Fol­low­ing engage­ment with staff and our Board in 2016 we adop­ted a vis­ion, mis­sion state­ment and a set of val­ues, as part of our cor­por­ate plan­ning pro­cesses, which are cent­ral to our pur­pose and stra­tegic context:

Our vis­ion – an out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive together;

Our mis­sion – to lead the way in deliv­er­ing for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park by bring­ing people togeth­er towards a com­mon pur­pose; enhan­cing the Park for every­one and inspir­ing new gen­er­a­tions to be Park Champions;

Our val­ues – the CNPA is an open, inclus­ive, innov­at­ive and pro­fes­sion­al organ­isa­tion that behaves with integ­rity. The CNPA will also oper­ate in an envir­on­ment­ally friendly way that provides lead­er­ship in this area.

Our cul­ture – …to be the best small pub­lic body in Scotland.

We aspire to be the best small pub­lic body in Scot­land. Our staff sur­vey res­ults, under­taken every 2 years through ​“The Best Com­pan­ies Sur­vey” has shown that we are a people ori­ented organ­isa­tion per­form­ing well. We were delighted to once again be lis­ted in the Top 100 Not For Profit Organ­isa­tions in the UK wide sur­vey in autumn 2019. We will con­tin­ue to build on our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy to imbed a high per­form­ance, high achiev­ing and high qual­ity cul­ture. The Park Author­ity will be innov­at­ive, quick to act and empower staff to deliv­er the strategies put in place by our Board.

We will con­tin­ue to build on our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy to imbed a high per­form­ance, high achiev­ing and high qual­ity cul­ture based on an equal­it­ies and staff focused cul­ture. The Park Author­ity will con­tin­ue to be innov­at­ive, quick to act and empower staff to deliv­er the strategies put in place by our Board.

New ways of work­ing: the impacts of COVID19, cli­mate change and future operations

As has been the case for all organ­isa­tions across all sec­tors over ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁, the impact of COVID19 and con­sequen­tial lock­down arrange­ments has sig­ni­fic­antly changed the way the Author­ity has gone about its work. Our Board and staff arrange­ments have been sub­ject to our suc­cess­ful Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan­ning (BCP) arrange­ments, with all gov­ernance and staff oper­a­tions changed to a remote and vir­tu­al basis, primar­ily work­ing from home and mak­ing use of video con­fer­ence and oth­er digit­al and inform­a­tion man­age­ment tech­no­lo­gies to deliv­er our business.

The Cairngorms NPA has adop­ted new work­ing mod­els and prac­tices which have sup­por­ted a range of suc­cess­ful out­comes over the year as we con­tin­ue to deliv­er against our exist­ing stra­tegic objectives.

We have also adop­ted new stra­tegic focus for our work over the course of the year: a nature based, green recov­ery from COVID19 impacts which seeks a sus­tain­able, nature based eco­nom­ic recov­ery with­in the Cairngorms while deliv­er­ing urgent action to address cli­mate change. Our ​‘Net Zero With Nature Strategy’ was adop­ted just before the pan­dem­ic caused lock­down to com­mence, while our Green Recov­ery Strategy was approved by our Board as early as June 2020, just three months into the nation­al man­age­ment of COVID19.

In addi­tion to chan­ging our work­ing prac­tices, these strategies res­ul­ted in the Cairngorms NPA chan­ging our oper­a­tion­al mode: we imple­men­ted an employed Sea­son­al Ranger Ser­vice for the first time, hav­ing rangers on the ground by June 2020. This ini­ti­at­ive recog­nised the increas­ing num­ber of vis­it­ors expec­ted to the Cairngorms as travel to oth­er coun­tries was replaced by vis­its with­in Scot­land and the UK over 2020. We instig­ated a new Green Recov­ery Grant Fund with a fund of £250,000 which was fully alloc­ated by a part­ner­ship pan­el to sup­port com­munity and busi­ness based green recov­ery pro­jects. Both these ini­ti­ates were designed, approved and oper­a­tion­al with­in 3 months of com­mence­ment of the COV­ID response, evid­en­cing once again the dynam­ic, respons­ive nature of the organ­isa­tion and com­mit­ment and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of our staff group.

This dynam­ic, respons­ive organ­isa­tion­al eth­os will con­tin­ue. The Park Author­ity will con­tin­ue to look at new ways to oper­ate to deliv­er our com­mit­ments in the cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. This will include con­tinu­ing our suc­cess in look­ing for altern­at­ive fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, includ­ing applic­a­tions to funds, such as the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund, spon­sor­ship oppor­tun­it­ies and mer­chand­ising. It also includes work­ing col­lab­or­at­ively with part­ners to deliv­er improved ser­vices. We also con­tin­ue to strive for more effi­cient, and sus­tain­able work­ing prac­tices intern­ally through deliv­er­ing against the third phase of our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy.

Our future fund­ing has received a sig­ni­fic­ant boost from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂, with step change increases in fund­ing sup­port­ing con­tinu­ation of the COV­ID responses and more per­man­ent changes to the Cairngorms NPA’s ways of work­ing. Both the Sea­son­al Ranger Ser­vice and Green Recov­ery Fund are being delivered again over the course of the year to 31 March 2022. We have aug­men­ted this response by the design and deploy­ment of a per­man­ent ranger ser­vice over 2020 bring­ing increased staff­ing to sup­port our man­age­ment and enhance­ment of a pos­it­ive vis­it­or exper­i­ence in the Cairngorms. We have also received sig­ni­fic­ant sums of fund­ing dir­ect to the Author­ity to deliv­er the Cairngorms Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion Pro­gramme, while an aug­men­ted cap­it­al alloc­a­tion will sup­port our devel­op­ment of a multi-year, tar­geted cap­it­al invest­ment programme.

The Author­ity has also had a fur­ther sig­ni­fic­ant award of resources to sup­port fur­ther innov­a­tion and work on con­ser­va­tion and cli­mate action with the announce­ment in July 2021 by the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund of an alloc­a­tion of £12.6 mil­lion toward the Her­it­age Hori­zons (Cairngorms 2030) pro­gramme with total budgeted expendit­ure of £43.2 mil­lion. The pro­ject spans a 2 year devel­op­ment phase, to which a devel­op­ment grant of £1,715,500 has been awar­ded to sup­port total devel­op­ment phase costs of £3,805,210. Remain­ing fund­ing over the devel­op­ment phase is sup­por­ted by an annu­al £150,000 con­tri­bu­tion from the Author­ity togeth­er with sup­port from a large num­ber of fund­ing part­ners. Sim­il­arly, the sub­sequent 5 year deliv­ery phase will be sup­por­ted by a wide range of fund­ing part­ners. This grant award makes a huge con­tri­bu­tion to sup­port­ing the Authority’s work on con­ser­va­tion; in encour­aging and imple­ment­ing innov­a­tion and beha­viour change to sup­port action on cli­mate change; and in sup­port­ing great­er com­munity par­ti­cip­a­tion in adapt­a­tion to a net zero lifestyle.

The wide scope of deliv­ery of the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme rep­res­ents a fur­ther step-change in our organ­isa­tion­al struc­ture and the scale of our oper­a­tions. We will also, accord­ingly, focus atten­tion on ensur­ing the resourcing and struc­ture of our cor­por­ate sup­port ser­vices are appro­pri­ate to the chan­ging scale of organ­isa­tion these ser­vices are sup­port­ing. The first step in this, a man­age­ment restruc­ture to focus appro­pri­ate levels of man­age­ment resources to deliv­ery of these new oper­a­tion­al areas, was com­pleted at the start of the year. This included pro­vi­sion for the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme should the Authority’s bid prove suc­cess­ful as is now the case.

Per­form­ance monitoring

Per­form­ance indic­at­ors have been set for each of our key themes against which we will meas­ure and mon­it­or per­form­ance. By the nature of the Park Authority’s role, in seek­ing to lead col­lab­or­at­ive effort in tack­ling the big issues for the Cairngorms, these per­form­ance meas­ures are rarely entirely con­trol­lable by the Park Author­ity. Rather, they require col­lab­or­a­tion and engage­ment with our part­ners and are meas­ures of the effect­ive­ness of our lead­er­ship and influ­en­cing, com­bined with our dir­ect invest­ment of fin­ance and staff resources, in address­ing our pri­or­it­ies. We com­pile per­form­ance mon­it­or­ing reports twice each year to the Authority’s Board, with all of these reports avail­able on our website.

The most recent report which spans the peri­od to 31 March 2021, togeth­er with detail of per­form­ance against each meas­ure, is avail­able at:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​1​1​0​6​2​0​2​1​/​2​1​0​6​1​1​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r​2​A​A​C​P​U​p​d​a​t​e​C​o​v​e​r​V​1​.​1​G​M.pdf

Fur­ther detail on our most recent per­form­ance against our key per­form­ance meas­ures is avail­able in the Annexes to this report, avail­able at:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​s​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​/​b​o​a​r​d​-2021 – 06-11/

Over­all, the Author­ity has suc­cess­fully delivered against the major­ity of our key per­form­ance indic­at­ors in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ des­pite the impact of COVID19 on our nor­mal oper­a­tion­al deliv­ery meth­ods through­out the year. We high­lighted at the end of the year in the report linked above that aspects of our work on con­ser­va­tion around wild­life crime and peat­land res­tor­a­tion did not meet our chal­len­ging tar­gets, as does our work to equal­ise the eco­nom­ic impacts of the Nation­al Park across all areas of the Cairngorms. We con­tin­ue to push to deliv­er improve­ment actions in the year ahead.

Prin­cip­al Risks Under Management

The Author­ity has con­tin­ued to man­age our stra­tegic risks in accord­ance with our agreed Risk Man­age­ment strategy over the course of the year, togeth­er with man­aging a spe­cif­ic set of COVID19 and Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity deliv­ery risks. Our scope of risks man­aged include:

• Fund­ing levels, which have been suc­cess­fully mit­ig­ated through our work with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment on budget alloc­a­tions, togeth­er with extern­al fund­ing bids;
• Man­aging our staff resources, both on well­being and deploy­ment to key pri­or­it­ies, mit­ig­ated through imple­ment­a­tion of effect­ive devel­op­ment con­ver­sa­tions and effect­ive Human Resources policies and services.
• Man­aging poten­tial expos­ure to ineligible activ­ity and spend in fun­ded pro­jects, mit­ig­ated through imple­ment­a­tion of effect­ive con­trol sys­tems sup­por­ted by intern­al audit review.
• Man­aging the Authority’s Inform­a­tion and Com­mu­nic­a­tions Tech­no­logy ser­vice and cyber secur­ity robust­ness, mit­ig­ated through appro­pri­ate levels of invest­ment, shared ser­vices, and full imple­ment­a­tion of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and intern­al audit cyber secur­ity recom­men­ded actions.
• Man­aging risks around the main­ten­ance and enhance­ment Authority’s pos­it­ive repu­ta­tion, mit­ig­ated through design and imple­ment­a­tion of an appro­pri­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions strategy and invest­ment in our com­mu­nic­a­tions team.
• Man­aging extern­al risks of depend­en­cies on private con­tract­or capa­city and stake­hold­er con­tri­bu­tions through design and imple­ment­a­tion of appro­pri­ate influ­en­cing and sup­port systems.

Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Overview

We have delivered against our fin­an­cial tar­gets of a break-even pos­i­tion, mak­ing full use of resources made avail­able by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and our oth­er fund­ing part­ners, while not impos­ing any unex­pec­ted call on pub­lic resources. Total income of £7.1 mil­lion, includ­ing grant-in-aid made avail­able by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, is matched by our expendit­ure man­aged in the year of an equi­val­ent £7.1 million.

A more detailed ana­lys­is of the Cairngorms NPA’s per­form­ance over ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ and our future plans is presen­ted in the fol­low­ing ​‘Per­form­ance Ana­lys­is’ sec­tion of this report.

PER­FORM­ANCE REPORT: PER­FORM­ANCE ANALYSIS

1.4 Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ and beyond

We con­trib­ute to deliv­ery of the long term out­comes in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, through work­ing to achieve our agreed Cor­por­ate Plan stra­tegic object­ives. Our stra­tegic aims and pri­or­it­ies are set out across three Themes of Con­ser­va­tion, Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence and Rur­al Devel­op­ment. Each of these three themes set out a num­ber of pri­or­ity object­ives. Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Com­mu­nic­a­tions sup­port the main themes and their outcomes.

Con­ser­va­tion – to be a spe­cial place for people and nature with nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age enhanced

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the premi­er area in the UK for nature con­ser­va­tion, with 50% of the area recog­nised as import­ant on a European scale through Natura 2000 des­ig­na­tion. Home to some of the most extens­ive and inter­na­tion­ally import­ant mont­ane, wood­land, river and wet­land hab­it­ats, our role is to bring part­ners togeth­er to deliv­er con­ser­va­tion at a land­scape scale and engage the pub­lic in this endeavour.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• sup­port land­scape-scale con­ser­va­tion, espe­cially the expan­sion of nat­ive and mont­ane wood­land, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, nat­ur­al flood man­age­ment and caper­cail­lie management;
• ensure deer man­age­ment is focused on deliv­er­ing pub­lic interest pri­or­it­ies spe­cific­ally the expan­sion of nat­ive wood­lands and peat­land restoration;
• sup­port sus­tain­able moor­land man­age­ment to deliv­er great­er hab­it­at diversity and good man­age­ment practice.

Vis­it­or exper­i­ence – people enjoy­ing the Park through out­stand­ing vis­it­or and learn­ing experiences

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is an inter­na­tion­ally renowned vis­it­or des­tin­a­tion with an out­stand­ing range of out­door recre­ation oppor­tun­it­ies. Our role is to ensure the qual­ity of vis­it­or exper­i­ence matches the qual­ity of envir­on­ment by coordin­at­ing invest­ment in the core infra­struc­ture, car­ry­ing out our role as an Access Author­ity, pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism and ensur­ing people of all ages, back­grounds and abil­it­ies are able to exper­i­ence and enjoy the Nation­al Park.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• con­tin­ue to ensure vis­it­or infra­struc­ture meets the expect­a­tions of vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park and help deliv­er a sus­tain­able tour­ism economy;
• increase phys­ic­al activ­ity in both res­id­ents and vis­it­ors and sup­port deliv­ery of Scot­land Nat­ur­al Health Service;
• cre­ate a ​‘Park for All’ by encour­aging people from all back­grounds to come and recre­ate, learn in or vis­it the Nation­al Park.

Rur­al devel­op­ment – a sus­tain­able eco­nomy sup­port­ing thriv­ing busi­nesses and communities

Deliv­ery of our pri­or­it­ies with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park can only come through close joint work­ing with the people who live and work in the com­munit­ies of the Park. Our role is to pro­mote invest­ment in a diver­si­fied eco­nomy, help com­munit­ies plan and achieve their own vis­ions and deliv­er a Plan­ning Ser­vice to guide the right devel­op­ment to the right place.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• sup­port deliv­ery of hous­ing for loc­al needs through an effi­cient and effect­ive plan­ning service;
• sup­port com­munit­ies, spe­cific­ally focus­sing on the most fra­gile, to deliv­er their agen­das for change;
• work closely with the busi­ness com­munity and part­ners to sup­port a sus­tain­able Park economy.

Sup­port themes

The deliv­ery of the themes and pri­or­it­ies is sup­por­ted by Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Cor­por­ate Ser­vices teams. Our Com­mu­nic­a­tions team works with vis­it­ors, com­munit­ies and stake­hold­ers to raise the pro­file of the Park and cre­ate a con­nec­tion and com­mit­ment to care for it. Our Cor­por­ate Ser­vices team ensure the deliv­ery of effect­ive, effi­cient and sus­tain­able ser­vices in addi­tion to pro­mot­ing the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance, both with­in the Park Author­ity itself and also in work­ing with com­munity and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions involved in deliv­ery of NPPP priorities.

Cor­por­ate services

Deliv­er­ing effect­ive, effi­cient and sus­tain­able ser­vices and pro­mot­ing the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance, to sup­port deliv­ery of the Cor­por­ate Plan and Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan by the Park Author­ity and our com­munity and char­ity part­ners. We will also play an act­ive role in the Envir­on­ment and Eco­nomy Lead­ers’ Group.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• imple­ment the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and embed the organ­isa­tion­al and cul­tur­al improve­ments to make the Park author­ity the best small pub­lic body in Scotland;
• ensure that the office exten­sion, exist­ing accom­mod­a­tion and ICT facil­it­ies are ​‘fit for pur­pose’ and help to deliv­er the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy;
• deliv­er ongo­ing ser­vice improve­ment, includ­ing appro­pri­ate shared ser­vices devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion, to the Park Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support;
• pro­mote and sup­port the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance and man­age­ment, includ­ing equal­it­ies actions, with­in the Park Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and engagement

Com­mu­nic­at­ing with vis­it­ors, com­munit­ies and stake­hold­ers is vital for the work of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. It sup­ports the work being under­taken across the organ­isa­tion to deliv­er on con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and rur­al devel­op­ment. Our role is to raise the pro­file of the Park and cre­ate a con­nec­tion and com­mit­ment to care for it with iden­ti­fied audi­ences so they act­ively sup­port the Park and bene­fit from doing so.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• deliv­er the Com­mu­nic­a­tion and Engage­ment Strategy and increase aware­ness, engage­ment and involve­ment with the Park;
• ensure high qual­ity intern­al com­mu­nic­a­tions that help deliv­er the key pri­or­it­ies of the Cor­por­ate Plan.

1.5 Key Issues and Risks

Risk man­age­ment and con­sid­er­a­tion of issues arising that may impact on the deliv­ery of our stra­tegic cor­por­ate pri­or­it­ies are cent­ral to our man­age­ment activ­it­ies with­in the Park Author­ity. The Man­age­ment Team reviews stra­tegic risks at least quarterly, and we have developed and embed­ded stra­tegic and oper­a­tion­al risk man­age­ment prac­tices, togeth­er with pro­ject man­age­ment pro­cesses, to take full cog­nis­ance of these core aspects of effect­ive organ­isa­tion­al and stra­tegic con­trol arrangements.

The Park Author­ity has developed a Stra­tegic Risk Man­age­ment Strategy and asso­ci­ated Stra­tegic Risk Register, which, in tan­dem with our cor­por­ate per­form­ance and mon­it­or­ing sys­tem, details the key issues and risks around deliv­ery of our Cor­por­ate Plan togeth­er with the stra­tegic object­ives and key per­form­ance indic­at­ors set out in that plan. The Board receives detailed reports and com­ments on key issues and risks twice annu­ally, with the Board’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee review­ing stra­tegic risk man­age­ment between these Board meet­ings. The most recent review of key issues and risks was con­sidered by the Board as part of their review of cor­por­ate per­form­ance and risk man­age­ment over ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ in June 2021:

210611CNPABdPaper2Annex3Strategic Risk Register v7.1Final.pdf (cairngorms​.co​.uk)

Sig­ni­fic­ant pro­jects will also have their own embed­ded risk registers and risk mit­ig­a­tion plans. More inform­a­tion on risk and intern­al con­trols can be found in the Gov­ernance State­ment with­in this doc­u­ment and in our Risk Man­age­ment Strategy avail­able at:

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​1​5​0​6​2​0​1​9​/​1​8​0​6​1​5​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r​4​A​n​n​e​x​1​R​i​s​k​M​a​n​a​g​e​m​e​n​t​S​t​r​a​t​e​g​y​V​0​.​1.pdf

Our busi­ness con­tinu­ity plan­ning and oper­a­tion­al man­age­ment dur­ing the peri­od of COVID19 restric­tions in par­tic­u­lar has been sup­por­ted by a spe­cif­ic risk man­age­ment approach and a ded­ic­ated risk register, repor­ted on reg­u­larly through our pro­ject man­age­ment team, organ­isa­tion­al Seni­or Man­age­ment Team and Board Audit and Risk Committee.

1.6 Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Summary

This sec­tion provides a sum­mary of the Authority’s fin­an­cial per­form­ance for the year against the Board approved budget and grant-in-aid awar­ded by the Scot­tish Government.

The main sources of the Park Authority’s fund­ing for the year were grant-in-aid fund­ing from the spon­sor­ing body the Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, of the Scot­tish Government.

The Author­ity also acts as Account­able Body for the Cairngorm LEAD­ER pro­gramme and The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) and part­ner fun­ded pro­jects, the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship (T&GLP), Great Place Badenoch and the deliv­ery phase of the Caper­cail­lie Framework.

Our total fund­ing for the year reduced by £1.310m from ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ reflect­ing the reduc­tion in activ­ity in the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund fun­ded Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship (T&GLP) and the LEAD­ER pro­gramme as they neared completion.

Grant-in-aid received in the year was £5.415m, an increase of £.448m from ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀. Grant-in-aid was alloc­ated as Resource grants £4.928m (2020: £4.727m an increase of £.201m) was received against oper­a­tion­al activ­it­ies, togeth­er with Cap­it­al grants of £0.487m (2020: £0.240m, an increase of £.247m). The increases include addi­tion­al fund­ing made avail­able dur­ing the year for peat­land recov­ery work (£.127m, [resource £.030m and cap­it­al £.097m]).

Oper­at­ing Income

Oper­at­ing income was £1.758m less than ¹⁹⁄₂₀ due to the sig­ni­fic­ant drop in activ­ity in the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) fun­ded Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship (T&GLP) and the LEAD­ER pro­gramme as they neared com­ple­tion. Both were ori­gin­ally due to com­plete in the year and both were exten­ded into ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ as agreed responses to COVID19 deliv­ery delays by respect­ive fun­ders. T&GLP com­pleted in May 2021 with the final grant claim sub­mis­sion and receipt of all out­stand­ing mon­ies from match fund­ing part­ners with­in this revised dead­line agreed with the NLHF as the lead fund­ing part­ner. The LEAD­ER pro­gramme was exten­ded to 31 Decem­ber 2021 by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment act­ing as the lead fund­ing body for LEAD­ER across Scotland.

Oper­at­ing expenditure

Due to the reduc­tion in the activ­it­ies of the Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship (T&GLP) and the LEAD­ER pro­gramme oper­at­ing expendit­ure was reduced by amounts cor­res­pond­ing to changes in income levels. The reduc­tion in oper­at­ing expendit­ure, com­pared to ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ was £1.331m. Addi­tion­al oper­at­ing expendit­ure was covered by the increase in grant-in-aid of £0.448m.

The com­ple­tion of the T&GLP pro­ject marks the end of a pro­ject star­ted in 2015 with £3.746m inves­ted in many pro­jects in the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et com­munit­ies by the time of the form­al clos­ure of the pro­ject in May 2021.

Staff costs, includ­ing Board fees, accoun­ted for 53.3% of total income (2019÷20 40.9%). As a per­cent­age of spend of grant-in-aid received this was 70.2% (2019÷20 69.5%).

Out­turn to budget (exclud­ing depre­ci­ation and non-cash allocations)

A budget is agreed with the spon­sor­ing depart­ment with an agreed level of fund­ing sup­port rep­res­ent­ing the Authority’s alloc­a­tions of Depart­ment­al Expendit­ure Lim­ited (DEL) which cov­ers all expendit­ure net of income from all oth­er sources. DEL is fur­ther split between cash alloc­a­tions (resource [RDEL] and cap­it­al [CDEL]) and non-cash alloc­a­tions. Non-cash DEL cov­ers depre­ci­ation and impair­ment of non-cur­rent assets, which are cap­it­al­ised tan­gible and intan­gible assets included in the State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion at the year end.

	Budget*	Actu­al	Vari­ance
Total income **	5,054	7,075	2,021
Staff cost	(3,151)	(3,800)	(649)
Office run­ning costs	(692)	(634)	58
Oper­a­tion­al plan costs	(1,235)	(2,601)	(1,366)
Out­turn	(24)	40	64

* the budget is that presen­ted to the Board on 28 March 2020, and exclude pro­jects costs and recov­er­ies, the net effect is nil reflect­ing full recov­ery of costs.

Out­turn to grant-in-aid allocation

	Cash Resource	Cash Cap­it­al	Total Cash	Non-Cash DEL	Total DEL
Grant-in-aid	4,928	487	5,415	330	5,745
Expendit­ure
Resource expendit­ure	4,907	-	4,907	25	4,932
Cap­it­al grants	-	392	392	-	392
Net expendit­ure	4,907	392	5,299	25	5,324
Depre­ci­ation	-	-	-	149	149
Com­pre­hens­ive net expenditure	4,907	392	5,299	174	5,473
Non-cur­rent assets bought	-	51	51	-	51
Grant-in-aid (under)/overspend	(21)	(44)	(65)	(156)	(221)

* 0.4% 9% 47.6%

* The cap­it­al grant awar­ded included £0.097m for Peat­land Recov­ery work of which £0.053m was spent in the year due to COV­ID restric­tions which delayed grant approv­al pro­cesses and plan­ning and access to sites to start recov­ery work.

** The non-cash alloc­a­tion is made up of 3 com­pon­ents: depre­ci­ation which was to cov­er the depre­ci­ation of cap­it­al­ised tan­gible and intan­gible assets, depre­ci­ation on cap­it­al­ised leases under IFRS 16, and a late award for £0.001m to cov­er the increase in the staff hol­i­day pay accru­al which is non-cash expendit­ure. Imple­ment­a­tion of IFRS 16 was again post­poned, due to cov­id, and is now due to be intro­duced for account­ing peri­ods com­men­cing 1 April 2022.

Trans­fer to Taxpayer’s funds

We are trans­fer­ring (£0.058m) for the year (2019: £0.079m) to Tax­pay­ers’ equity, sum­mar­ised in the table below. After account­ing for cap­it­al invest­ment cre­at­ing £0.051m in new tan­gible and intan­gible assets, and cap­it­al grants of £0.392m, the poten­tial budget over­spend at the com­mence­ment of the year was man­aged to a small under­spend on resource spend­ing of £0.040m. We con­sider this an excel­lent out­turn pos­i­tion in a dif­fi­cult year as the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic severely impacted our and part­ners’ operations.

	£,000
Total cash grant-in-aid received	5,415
Less net expenditure	(5,324)
Less depre­ci­ation	(149)
Trans­fer for year to Tax­pay­ers’ equity	(58)

The accounts for the year to 31 March 2021, set out on pages 55 to 70, are pre­pared on a going con­cern basis, and in a format dir­ec­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters in accord­ance with the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. A copy of the Accounts Dir­ec­tion is repro­duced in Appendix 1.

Changes in non-cur­rent assets

Move­ments in non-cur­rent assets are shown in note 8.

Char­it­able donations

There were no char­it­able dona­tions made in the year or pre­vi­ous year.

Rela­tion­ship with sup­pli­ers and partners

Our sup­pli­er pay­ment policy com­plies with the terms of the Bet­ter Pay­ment Prac­tice Code. Dur­ing the year to 31 March 2021, the time taken to pay cred­it­ors achieved an aver­age of 10.9 days (2020: 9.4 days) against a tar­get of 10 days (2020: 10 days), with 66.3% (2020: 71.0%) of pay­ments being made by the tar­get date.

Anti-bribery and corruption

The Author­ity has adop­ted a zero tol­er­ance policy against, fraud, bribery and cor­rup­tion reflec­ted in clear policies on con­duct expec­ted from staff and on hospitality.

There were no reports of fraud in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ or ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀.

Min­is­teri­al Direction

There were no min­is­teri­al dir­ec­tions received from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁.

1.7 Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Summary

As set out in the pre­lim­in­ary sec­tions of this report, our oper­a­tions over the course of ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ have been sig­ni­fic­antly impacted in the mode of deliv­ery by our busi­ness con­tinu­ity plans required to man­age the impact of the COVID19 pan­dem­ic. Des­pite this, the Cairngorms NPA has made sig­ni­fic­ant, pos­it­ive pro­gress in the real­isa­tion of our stra­tegic object­ives through the third year of our cur­rent four year Cor­por­ate Plan. The Author­ity has also recog­nised at the end of ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ that we face some sig­ni­fic­ant chal­lenges around the real­isa­tion of some of our aspir­a­tions, par­tic­u­larly on a few spe­cif­ic aspects of our nature con­ser­va­tion objectives.

The Authority’s Board receives quarterly updates from the Chief Exec­ut­ive on activ­it­ies and per­form­ance to sup­ple­ment the cor­por­ate per­form­ance reports linked above. The most recent such report is avail­able at:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/docs