211029_PerformanceCttee_Paper 1_Capercaillie Project

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper | 29/10/21

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY PER­FORM­ANCE COMMITTEE

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: CAIRNGORMS CAPER­CAIL­LIE PRO­JECT Pre­pared by: ANDY FORD, Head of Conservation

Pur­pose This paper presents the latest deliv­ery updates on the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie pro­ject Recom­mend­a­tions The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to review deliv­ery updates and con­sider: a) Pro­gress towards the project’s agreed pur­poses; b) Any stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on deliv­ery of the CNPA’s Cor­por­ate Plan and Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan; and c) Any mater­i­al impacts on the CNPA’s stra­tegic risk management.

Pro­ject Overview

1. Caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tions are neg­at­ively affected primar­ily by a com­bin­a­tion of hab­it­at loss and frag­ment­a­tion, dis­turb­ance, col­li­sions with unmarked fences, pred­a­tion, cli­mate change and pos­sibly genet­ic diversity. Each of these factors plays an import­ant role, and activ­ity in each has a sig­ni­fic­ant and com­ple­ment­ary effect.
2. In 2015 CNPA pro­duced the Caper­cail­lie Frame­work, bring­ing togeth­er know­ledge on pop­u­la­tion status, pres­sures on the pop­u­la­tion, and the suite of meas­ures cur­rently being deployed to inform co-ordin­a­tion of man­age­ment meas­ures and identi­fy where fur­ther invest­ment and activ­ity would be most beneficial.
3. In March 2018 CNPA and part­ners were awar­ded Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund devel­op­ment phase fund­ing to take for­wards recom­mend­a­tions in the Caper­cail­lie Frame­work relat­ing to pop­u­la­tion mon­it­or­ing, hab­it­at cre­ation, sus­tain­able recre­ation plan­ning and enabling com­munit­ies to play a part in caper­cail­lie conservation.
4. In 2020 a fur­ther c£2.3 mil­lion was awar­ded for the deliv­ery phase of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject (CCP), with the approved pur­poses to: a) Enable com­munit­ies to devel­op and deliv­er their own com­munity-led actions for caper­cail­lie; b) Raise aware­ness of the plight of caper­cail­lie and how people can help; c) Research the genet­ic diversity of caper­cail­lie in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park to help inform action;

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper | 29/10/21 d) Improve and cre­ate more hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie and under­take pred­at­or con­trol in key areas; and e) Strengthen cur­rent Caper­cail­lie mon­it­or­ing to enable more informed decisions

1. The pro­ject does not include action for all factors affect­ing caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tions. It centres on a more people focussed approach in the hybrid spaces where people and nature coex­ist. Hab­it­at man­age­ment, fence remov­al, leg­al pred­at­or con­trol and many oth­er aspects of caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion have been going on for dec­ades by land man­agers and agen­cies. The pro­ject works closely with, but does not look to duplic­ate, this already exist­ing good work.
2. In 2021, in addi­tion to the work of the CCP and the ongo­ing work of many part­ners, CNPA ini­ti­ated dis­cus­sions with key stake­hold­ers at a seni­or level to invest­ig­ate the desirab­il­ity and feas­ib­il­ity of new approaches not already under con­sid­er­a­tion or being imple­men­ted, primar­ily around the man­age­ment of pro­tec­ted spe­cies, translocation/​rein­tro­duc­tion and cre­at­ing areas of min­im­um disturbance.

Stra­tegic Background

1. The most recent update to the Board on deliv­ery of the Authority’s stra­tegic object­ives as set out in the agreed Cor­por­ate Plan for 2018 to 2022 was presen­ted at the June 2021 meet­ing. The Cor­por­ate Plan deliv­ery report may be accessed at: Meet­ing — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.
2. Deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie pro­ject dir­ectly impacts on the Cor­por­ate Plan key work area ​‘Deliv­er Caper­cail­lie Frame­work’ and Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­or ​‘num­ber of caper­cail­lie’. The KPI is cur­rently rated red, based on an assess­ment that the pop­u­la­tion tar­get of 1,200 by 2022 tar­get will not be met.
3. Action Id of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) pri­or­ity Id is to ​‘Co-ordin­ate hab­it­at, recre­ation and devel­op­ment man­age­ment to secure the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion through deliv­ery of the Caper­cail­lie Frame­work’. The most recent over­view of deliv­ery of the NPPP hav­ing been presen­ted to the Board at its meet­ing in Septem­ber 2021: Meet­ing — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.
4. The latest review of the Stra­tegic Risk Register was con­sidered by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee in Septem­ber 2021 and may be accessed at: 210910AuCtteePaper5AnnexIStrategicRiskRegisterV8.1.pdf (cairngorms​.co​.uk). Stra­tegic risks of rel­ev­ance to con­sid­er­a­tion of per­form­ance of the pro­grammes of work con­sidered by this paper are: a) A9.3 Staff­ing: addi­tion­al extern­ally fun­ded pro­jects strains staff work­load capa­city with increased risks of stress and reduced mor­ale. b) A11.2 Stra­tegic Risk Resourcing: the end of major pro­gramme invest­ments (Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et, LEAD­ER) requires sig­ni­fic­ant ongo­ing staff­ing to man­age audit and leg­acy which the Author­ity finds dif­fi­cult to resource.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper | 29/10/21 c) A14.1 Repu­ta­tion: One-off, high pro­file incid­ents and / or voci­fer­ous social media cor­res­pond­ents have an undue influ­ence on the Authority’s pos­it­ive repu­ta­tion. d) A27 Tech­nic­al: approaches to con­ser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of endangered spe­cies may be insuf­fi­cient to achieve asso­ci­ated stra­tegic outcomes

Per­form­ance Over­view: Deliv­ery of Approved Pur­poses against Stra­tegic Outcomes

1. Pos­it­ive pro­gress has been made against all of the project’s approved pur­poses. The quarterly report to Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund high­lights the pro­gramme is well advanced and on track to deliv­er pro­ject outcomes.
2. Cor­por­ate Plan and Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan actions and indic­at­ors pos­i­tion the activ­it­ies of the NLHF fun­ded pro­ject with­in the con­text of wider CNPA and part­ner work on land man­age­ment, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and rur­al devel­op­ment. The pro­ject main­tains strong links with ongo­ing and devel­op­ing wider activ­it­ies to strengthen inform­a­tion flow and sup­port adapt­ive pro­ject and leg­acy plan­ning: a) The CCP Board are updated on dis­cus­sions at the joint meet­ing of key stake­hold­ers and the terms of ref­er­ence for the sub group of NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee, estab­lished to review the sci­entif­ic evid­ence around caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion. b) Learn­ing from the tri­al sig­nage to encour­age respons­ible beha­viours around Carr-bridge and amongst the moun­tain bik­ing com­munity is inform­ing CNPA access team stra­tegic plan­ning. c) Research to under­stand vis­it­ors’ per­cep­tions and val­ues relat­ing to access and caper­cail­lie in Rothiemurchus, Aber­nethy and Glen­more and work with the Cairngorms Busi­ness Com­munity is form­ing part of CNPAs work on devel­op­ing a ​‘sus­tain­able tour­ism des­tin­a­tion’. d) Pro­ject staff are part of an intern­al work­ing group shar­ing the learn­ing from NLHF fun­ded pro­jects to strengthen deliv­ery of Her­it­age Horizons.

Per­form­ance Over­view: Risk Management

1. All pro­ject risks and issues, as iden­ti­fied in the quarterly pro­gress report, are in a favour­able status with mit­ig­a­tion plans in place.
2. Staff­ing: the pro­ject is oper­at­ing with a full com­ple­ment of staff. The recruit­ment of a CNPA ranger ser­vice presen­ted the oppor­tun­ity to incor­por­ate activ­it­ies in the project’s ranger role into the work plans of CNPA rangers. This in turn cre­ated oppor­tun­it­ies to sup­port pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and reduce over-commitments.
3. Resourcing audit and leg­acy: Review of work plans enabled re-alloc­a­tions of staff time and respons­ib­il­it­ies, with pro­ject board and NLHF approv­al, to facil­it­ate more mana­geri­al time and stra­tegic sup­port to pro­ject and leg­acy planning.
4. Repu­ta­tion: a) Com­munity-led work in Car­rbridge: cor­res­pond­ence with the hosts and spon­sors of the Scot­tish Land & Estates ​‘Mak­ing it Hap­pen’ Award, for which the

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper | 29/10/21 pro­ject was nom­in­ated. Pro­ject staff liaised with SL&E to provide up to date inform­a­tion on pro­ject activ­it­ies and no fur­ther recourse was neces­sary. b) There is a peti­tion against path improve­ment pro­pos­als in the vil­lage. Pro­pos­als are cur­rently on dis­play and avail­able on-line for com­ments until end Oct. All responses will be con­sidered by the pro­ject team, landown­ers and com­munity bod­ies in decid­ing which improve­ments will be delivered. c) An art­icle in the shoot­ing times, and sub­sequent on-line shar­ing and posts on social media chan­nels, cri­ti­cised the pro­ject for not employ­ing enough game­keep­ers or advoc­at­ing for the con­trol of pro­tec­ted spe­cies. Part­ners and pro­ject board mem­bers with close under­stand­ing of the com­munit­ies of interest sup­por­ted a pos­it­ive com­mu­nic­a­tions approach to rais­ing aware­ness and under­stand­ing and demon­strat­ing sup­port from the sec­tor. d) The wider con­text of caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion is a highly con­ten­tious and high pro­file arena, attract­ing much com­ment and polar­ised opin­ion. Mis­un­der­stand­ing about the rel­at­ively lim­ited scope of the CCP can lead to the CCP, and by exten­sion the CNPA, being asso­ci­ated with inactiv­ity. This has been escal­ated in the project’s risk register and communications.

1. Tech­nic­al: In June 2021, the CNPA con­vened a meet­ing of key stake­hold­ers to pro­gress dis­cus­sion on factors affect­ing Caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion out­with the approved pur­poses of the pro­ject. A sub group of the NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee con­vened to review sci­entif­ic evid­ence. A mem­ber of CNPA Board sits as an observ­er on the sub group. A report from the sub-group will be presen­ted to CNPA Board mem­bers for discussion.
2. Evid­ence from the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project’s genet­ic research will become avail­able in 2022. The find­ings will under­pin any future decisions on the feas­ib­il­ity and desirab­il­ity of spe­cies translocation.

Con­clu­sions: Per­form­ance Over­view and Mat­ters Mer­it­ing Stra­tegic Review

1. There are no mat­ters of stra­tegic sig­ni­fic­ance which mer­it escal­a­tion at this time in the opin­ion of seni­or man­agers lead­ing the Cairngorms NPA’s link­age to the areas of activ­ity covered by this paper and asso­ci­ated reports.

Andy Ford 5^th Octo­ber 2021 andyford@​cairngorms.​co.​uk