CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 5 10/09/21

FOR DECISION

Title: STRA­TEGIC RISK MAN­AGE­MENT AND MAN­AGING HER­IT­AGE HORI­ZONS RISKS

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Pur­pose

This paper sup­ports the Audit and Risk Committee’s review of the stra­tegic risk man­age­ment pos­i­tion of the Author­ity. The paper also con­tin­ues to review the hand­ling of risks around the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme, fol­low­ing on from the Board meet­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2021 and from the announce­ment by Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund of the alloc­a­tion of funds to this pro­gramme in July 2021.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Review the Authority’s stra­tegic risk register, agree­ing any required amend­ments or mit­ig­a­tion actions; b) Agree any stra­tegic risk man­age­ment implic­a­tions and their poten­tial mit­ig­a­tion arising from the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme development.

Stra­tegic Risk Man­age­ment Overview

1. The Park Authority’s cur­rent stra­tegic risk register is attached at Annex 1 to this paper. This has been updated fol­low­ing con­sid­er­a­tion by the Board in June 2021 and review by the Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) in August 2021.

2. The Com­mit­tee is invited to review the pos­i­tion on stra­tegic risk man­age­ment as set out in the risk register and:

a) Con­sider the adequacy of cov­er­age stra­tegic risk man­age­ment around achieve­ment of the Authority’s cur­rent stra­tegic object­ives; b) Con­sider the adequacy and effect­ive­ness of mit­ig­a­tion actions set out in the risk register.

1. The Committee’s atten­tion is drawn in par­tic­u­lar to risk A14.1 (page 6) ​“Repu­ta­tion: One-off, high pro­file incid­ents and / or voci­fer­ous social media cor­res­pond­ents have an undue influ­ence on the Authority’s pos­it­ive repu­ta­tion”. This is cur­rently graded as con­tinu­ing at a stat­ic / stable (amber) risk level. The SMT review con­sidered it bor­der­line between stat­ic and declin­ing (green) risk level with no or very lim­ited recent evid­ence to sug­gest there is a sig­ni­fic­ant under­min­ing impact on repu­ta­tion from social media. The Committee’s view on this risk area in par­tic­u­lar, with­in the over­view of cur­rent risk pro­file and cov­er­age of the stra­tegic risk register, would be welcomed.

Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme Risk Impacts

1. The Board reques­ted that the Com­mit­tee con­sider the implic­a­tions of the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­pos­als, includ­ing gov­ernance and risk man­age­ment of the pro­gramme and their poten­tial implic­a­tions for the Authority’s wider risk man­age­ment. The ini­tial view of the risk man­age­ment con­sid­er­a­tions for a Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme was presen­ted to the Com­mit­tee in March 2021 and also sub­mit­ted as part of the fund­ing bid.

2. Recent Board dis­cus­sions high­lighted the poten­tial risk to the Authority’s wider oper­a­tions from staff turnover, and par­tic­u­larly from turnover in fun­ded deliv­ery pro­jects, where staff may be taken away from oth­er work com­mit­ments to bring pro­ject activ­ity to an effect­ive close. The Board dis­cus­sions in this regard drew from exper­i­ence on the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship. Risk A28 has now been added to the risk register to reflect these dis­cus­sions: ​“Staff­ing: deliv­ery of key out­comes is impacted by staff turnover, par­tic­u­larly in pro­ject teams”. While reflect­ing the Board dis­cus­sion, this risk is also inten­ded to cov­er the increased risk on deliv­ery of out­comes posed by an increas­ing num­ber of, often fixed term, staff recruited to deliv­er against pro­ject out­comes on Her­it­age Hori­zons, Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject and Ranger Ser­vices. This risk addi­tion reflects the first pro­posed adapt­a­tion of the Authority’s stra­tegic risk register informed at least in part by the Her­it­age Hori­zons project.

3. The Com­mit­tee is reques­ted to con­sider the risk man­age­ment implic­a­tions for the Author­ity arising from the devel­op­ment of the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme proposals.

Dav­id Cameron 24 August 2021 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk