211029DraftResourcesMinutesPUBLIC

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE RESOURCES COM­MIT­TEE MEET­ING of

THE CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

held via Lifes­ize Video Con­fer­en­cing on 29^th Octo­ber, 2021 at 10.30am

PRESENT Deirdre Fal­con­er (Chair) Ian McLar­en Car­o­lyn Cad­dick (Vice Chair) Xan­der McDade (Con­ven­or) Derek Ross Geva Blackett

In Attend­ance: Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, CNPA Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, CNPA Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer, CNPA Lynn Ander­son, Minute Clerk, CNPA

Apo­lo­gies: Pippa Hadley

Wel­come and Apologies

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meeting.

Declar­a­tion of Interests

1. There were no interests declared.

Minutes of last meet­ing held – for approval

1. The draft Minutes of the last meet­ing held on 6^th August were agreed with no changes, pro­posed by Car­o­lyn Cad­dick, seconded by Deirdre Falconer.

Mat­ters Arising

1. The Chair asked the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices wheth­er there was still some tweak­ing to do on the word­ing for the terms of ref­er­ence? The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed amend­ments to the terms of ref­er­ence would be con­sol­id­ated into a paper for the Board’s Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee meet­ing in December.

2. Board papers to be col­our coded in due course, the Con­ven­or asked for it to be noted that they would like a set of gray­scale papers rather than any­thing col­our coded.

Iden­ti­fic­a­tion of items for publication/​recording on website

1. The Chair intro­duced this item for dis­cus­sion. The Com­mit­tee were asked to con­sider what items or papers should be pub­lished on the web­site. The Chair com­men­ted that we should be aim­ing for as much clar­ity and trans­par­ency as pos­sible yet still being mind­ful of confidentiality.

2. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices gave a brief over­view of this item. The Resources Com­mit­tee had con­sol­id­ated the 2 com­mit­tees togeth­er of Fin­ance and Deliv­ery and Staff­ing and Recruit­ment. Fin­ance and Deliv­ery Com­mit­tee pub­lished and made pub­lic as much of their busi­ness as pos­sible, how­ever Staff­ing and Recruit­ment Com­mit­tee, giv­en the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of much of the inform­a­tion in the papers, had not typ­ic­ally been published.

3. The Con­ven­or com­men­ted we should be as open as pos­sible and it is import­ant for the pub­lic to see how their money is being spent and the abil­ity to scru­tin­ise decisions made. They sug­ges­ted that there could be an over­view paper which could be pub­lished with any inform­a­tion deemed to be con­fid­en­tial set out in appendices.

4. A mem­ber com­men­ted that it was good that we are now review­ing what could be pub­lished. Con­fid­en­tial items should stay at the end of the agenda.

5. Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer com­men­ted that it makes more sense for this Com­mit­tee to be recor­ded rather than live streamed. Com­mit­tee mem­bers agreed that giv­en the nature of the dis­cus­sions live stream­ing would not be possible.

6. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment asked the Chair wheth­er it might be sens­ible when set­ting the agenda to decide what papers will be pub­lished and what papers will remain con­fid­en­tial and there­fore not pub­lished. This will be dif­fer­ent for each meet­ing. The Vice Chair and Com­mit­tee mem­bers agreed that his would be a sens­ible approach.

7. The Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment had not pub­lished any of the papers for this meet­ing on the web­site but would do so fol­low­ing this meeting.

8. A mem­ber sug­ges­ted that this pro­cess should be reviewed at this stage next year.

9. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices com­men­ted that the record­ing of these meet­ings means as much inform­a­tion as pos­sible can be published.

10. The Resources Com­mit­tee approved the recom­mend­a­tions in the paper with the fol­low­ing actions: i. Meet­ings should be recor­ded rather than live streamed ii. Con­fid­en­tial items should be the final items for dis­cus­sion on the agenda iii. Decision to be made on which papers will be pub­lished to be agreed by Chair, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment when agenda is set iv. Papers which are deemed to be not con­fid­en­tial from this meet­ing to be pub­lished on web­site V. Review of pro­cess to be under­taken one year from now.

²¹⁄₂₂ Budget Mon­it­or­ing, includ­ing Scot Gov in year sav­ings exer­cise and impacts (Paper I)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, intro­duced the paper which presents an over­view of the Cairngorms NPA budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the half year point of the cur­rent ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ fin­an­cial year. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices asked mem­bers to note that the fig­ure of £125,000 indic­ated as the impact for Cairngorms NPA of in year grant in aid reduc­tions applied across the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Envir­on­ment port­fo­lio was more likely to be around £117,000, it has been indic­ated that there will be no recov­ery from the Cairngorms Peat­land pro­gramme. The Com­mit­tee are asked to: i. Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ ii. Identi­fy any stra­tegic risks or implic­a­tions posed for the Board’s deliv­ery of its stra­tegic object­ives which may require addi­tion­al man­age­ment action; iii. Note the expec­ted reduc­tion in the Authority’s resource grant fund­ing of 2% and that man­age­ment have plans in place to accom­mod­ate this action with­in a con­tin­ued break-even fin­an­cial target.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

3. A mem­ber com­men­ted that this was a good and healthy set of fig­ures how­ever they expressed con­cern regard­ing the staff­ing under­spend and wondered wheth­er this meant things were not being delivered and was delays in recruit­ment hav­ing a knock on effect on our effectiveness?

4. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that there did not appear to be any sig­ni­fic­ant impact on deliv­ery, and high­lighted Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­ors are being met as evid­enced in latest per­form­ance mon­it­or­ing reports to the full board. The under­spand against staff budget was more about assump­tions made when the budget for the year was set. The levels of staff­ing costs being covered from oth­er sources was under­es­tim­ated and this under­spend has been recycled into oth­er invest­ment areas. For example, 100% of LEAD­ER staff­ing costs have been able to be recovered from extern­al sources as opposed to what was ori­gin­ally thought. So although ini­tial assump­tions were a little prudent this has had no impact on delivery.

5. The Chair con­cluded that: this was a very pos­it­ive pos­i­tion to be in mid-year and it was good to see such a high recov­ery from oth­er sources.

6. The Resources Com­mit­tee approved the recom­mend­a­tions in the paper and indic­ated they were all happy with the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion. They iden­ti­fied no addi­tion­al stra­tegic risks and noted the expec­ted 2% reduc­tion in the Authority’s grant resource funding.

New Nor­mal Pro­gramme Stra­tegic Impacts (Paper 2)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, intro­duced this paper which provides an over­view on the hybrid work­ing approach and office return. The Com­mit­tee were asked to: i) Con­sider the risks, and to advise on any omis­sions ii) Com­ment on pre­vent­at­ive and remedi­al actions

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations.

3. The Con­ven­or asked how staff are feel­ing in gen­er­al and com­men­ted that this would be use­ful barometer.

4. The Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment respon­ded that there appeared to be a little bit of online fatigue, staff had had a busy sum­mer and typ­ic­ally at this this time of year the HR case load starts to rise and this year is no dif­fer­ent. The Best Com­pan­ies Sur­vey had just been sent to staff: the res­ult of this will be a good indic­a­tion on how staff are feel­ing. Ini­tial head­line res­ults of this sur­vey will be brought to the Resources Com­mit­tee meet­ing in February.

5. It has been a chal­lenge for new mem­bers of staff start­ing in a vir­tu­al set­ting and this has also posed chal­lenges for exist­ing staff.

6. It is recog­nised that there needs to be a bal­anced approach to this and not every­one will get what they want. Some people are very keen to return to the office and be able to have those face to face meet­ings, some would prefer a com­bin­a­tion of a home and office base and some people really don’t want to be in the office.

7. The Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer com­men­ted that staff just want to see what this hybrid approach actu­ally looks like. It is recog­nised that this will need to be adjus­ted as we go along. It has been chal­len­ging over the last 18 months. How­ever he feels that staff are still oper­at­ing as a staff group but people are suf­fer­ing from VC fatigues and we need to try and find ways to get staff away from screens.

8. The Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained that gradu­ally staff num­bers have increased into the build­ing how­ever num­bers are lim­ited by the Im social dis­tan­cing rule.

9. A mem­ber com­men­ted that staff and organ­isa­tion­al effect­ive­ness is key in all of this and a more flex­ible way of work­ing which allows those that want to be in the office to be there and those that want a mix­ture of both can have that. It is good that it is under­stood that this will evolve as we move forward.

10. The Chair agreed organ­isa­tion effect­ive­ness is key. They noted from the report that the major­ity of staff wish to be in the office on a Tues­day, Wed­nes­day or Thursday and wondered how this would look from a pub­lic per­cep­tion. This might be per­ceived as staff hav­ing long week­ends? Should there be some sort of rota sys­tem in place to man­age numbers.

11. The Chair noted that meet­ing rooms could only be used by one meet­ing a day and sug­ges­ted a way of clean­ing those in between meet­ings to enable more use?

12. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices under­stood the con­cern of the Com­mit­tee around the office being used more Tues­day – Thursday how­ever felt this was in fact very pos­it­ive. This con­cen­tra­tion of staff on those days means full engage­ment across Teams and as inclus­ive a staff group as pos­sible. The repur­pos­ing of the office sup­ports teams com­ing togeth­er for col­lab­or­a­tion on a face to face basis.

13. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices did recog­nise there are risks involved with an intense peri­od of change and try­ing to come out of that after achiev­ing what needs to hap­pen as opposed to going on a step by step basis over a longer peri­od of time, which may seem relent­less to staff. There needs to be a bal­ance drawn and timetable that appropriately

14. The Con­ven­or asked if staff are able to access the office at weekends?

15. The Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained that staff are able to work their con­trac­ted hours over 7 days. In terms of the office, clean­ers do not work week­ends and at this moment in time this was not pos­sible. To be able to allow this would need more con­sid­er­a­tion and plan­ning how­ever staff have not indic­ated that they would wish to access the office at weekends.

16. The Chair asked wheth­er there should be a paper on all the options men­tioned in the paper cir­cu­lated to the Committee?

17. The Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained that staff have been con­sul­ted with extens­ively and we now have a final pos­i­tion. This final office lay­out con­fig­ur­a­tion can be cir­cu­lated to Com­mit­tee mem­bers for information.

18. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that the idea of the dis­cus­sion today was to flush out any con­cerns on the wider risk and approach as set out in the papers. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices sug­ges­ted that they could come back to the Com­mit­tee in 6 month’s time to provide an update on man­age­ment and facil­it­a­tion of the new ways of work­ing. This future paper would allow the Com­mit­tee to tak­ing assur­ance on how things are going and review how things are going and to be able to input into the wider sense of direction.

19. The Chair con­cluded that: there are risks to be con­sidered, the offices needs to be open for busi­ness 5 days a week and it is about strik­ing that bal­ance and get­ting it right for staff and the pub­lic. At the end of the day it is what is right for the organ­isa­tion as a whole.

20. The Resources Com­mit­tee approved the recom­mend­a­tions in the paper with the fol­low­ing actions: i. Update to Resources Com­mit­tee to review pro­cess and pro­gress at Resources Com­mit­tee meet­ing in May 2022

SCF Update (Paper 3)

1. Minutes were noted – no fur­ther discussions/​actions

2. The Chair com­men­ted this was a very detailed set of minutes and apo­lo­gised for being unable to attend the meeting.

Health & Safety Update (Paper 4)

1. Minutes were noted no fur­ther discussions/​actions

Private Fin­ance (Verbal Update)

1. Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer, gave an update to the Com­mit­tee on Private Finance.

2. The launch of Net Zero Nature Private Fin­ance Facil­ity took place a couple of weeks ago which involves all the Nation­al Parks in part­ner­ship with Pal­la­di­um. This is look­ing at bring­ing private fin­ance into the Parks. There are a num­ber of pro­jects ongo­ing through the Nation­al Park net­works. CNPA tak­ing two bits for­ward, one through the Her­it­age Hori­zon pro­gramme and a part­ner­ship with Pal­la­di­um and Sant­and­er to restore 200 hec­tares of peat­land. The Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer is in the pro­cess of arran­ging a ses­sion with Pal­la­di­um and the Board on all the work in the imme­di­ate future.

3. A mem­ber com­men­ted that this was really excit­ing to see this part­ner­ship but was wor­ried that this might be seen as us endors­ing these private fun­ders to oth­er part­ners on oth­er projects.

4. The Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer respon­ded that these fun­ders are a part­ner with­in Nation­al Parks Part­ner­ship. They have put a lot of time and effort into this how­ever this is a non-exclus­ive oper­a­tion and it is an entirely vol­un­tary agree­ment. They have been a good part­ner so far and we are look­ing to devel­op the right sort of product which will help Nation­al Parks. Key aspects of the CNPA’s interests include look­ing at Com­munity bene­fit which has not come through private fin­ance previously.

5. The Chair com­men­ted that it would be use­ful to have a present­a­tion for board members.

6. Board mem­bers noted the inform­a­tion in the oral update with the fol­low­ing action: i. Present­a­tion ses­sion with Pal­la­di­um high­light­ing all the work being car­ried out

Motion to move to con­fid­en­tial session.

AOCB

1. The Con­ven­or thanked the Chair for their run­ning of the meet­ing and sug­ges­ted some thought should be giv­en to man­aging agen­das going forward.

Date of Next Meeting

1. The next sched­uled Resources Com­mit­tee meet­ing will take place on Fri­day 11^th Feb­ru­ary 2022.

2. The meet­ing fin­ished at 12.45.