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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 11/02/22

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY PER­FORM­ANCE COMMITTEE

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: CAIRNGORMS LEAD­ER AND CAIRNGORMS TRUST

    DELIVERY

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF CORPORATE

         SERVICES

Pur­pose This paper presents the latest deliv­ery updates on the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme and vol­un­tary and char­it­able giv­ing activ­it­ies as man­aged by the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Loc­al Action Group Trust (Cairngorms Trust).

Recom­mend­a­tions The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to review the deliv­ery updates presen­ted with this paper and con­sider: a) wheth­er the pro­grammes of activ­ity are mak­ing the expec­ted con­tri­bu­tion to the Cairngorms NPA’s agreed stra­tegic out­comes; b) wheth­er the deliv­ery updates sug­gest any stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on the Cairngorms NPA’s agreed per­form­ance object­ives; c) wheth­er any mater­i­al impacts on the Cairngorms NPA’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures arise from assess­ment of pro­gramme delivery.

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](Meeting — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity). The Authority’s stra­tegic object­ives of rel­ev­ance to con­sid­er­a­tion of the deliv­ery of the pro­gramme report­ing presen­ted with this paper are: a) Suc­cess­fully con­clude the Cairngorms LEAD­ER Pro­gramme and con­sider future

       funding for community led local development (CLLD);
   

   b) Devel­op and deliv­er a vis­it­or giv­ing scheme with part­ners. This object­ive has

       since been refocused as development of a voluntary giving scheme.
   

2. The latest review of the Stra­tegic Risk Register is being con­sidered by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee at its meet­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2022 and may be accessed from those

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 11/02/22

papers. Stra­tegic risks of rel­ev­ance to con­sid­er­a­tion of per­form­ance of the pro­grammes of work con­sidered by this paper are: a) Al: Resource risk remedi­al mit­ig­a­tion: Con­tinu­ing to sup­port ​“deliv­ery bodies”

    such as Cairngorms Nature, Cairngorms Trust in securing inward investment.

b) All.I Stra­tegic Risk on Resourcing: Role as Lead / Account­able body for major

    programmes (e.g. LEADER, Landscape Partnership) has risk of significant financial
    clawback should expenditure prove to be not eligible for funding, while CNPA
    carries responsibilities as employer for programme staff.

c) 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.

d) A12.2 Stra­tegic Risk on Resourcing: future com­munity led loc­al development

    funding currently delivered through LEADER, together with wider funding
    previously from EU structural and agricultural sources is lost and creates a
    significant gap in our capacity to deliver against our development priorities.

e) A28 Stra­tegic Risk on Staff­ing: deliv­ery of key out­comes is impacted by staff

    turnover, particularly in project teams.

1. The pro­grammes of activ­ity under con­sid­er­a­tion here also fit with the pri­or­it­ies of the cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP), 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](Meeting — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity). The rel­ev­ant ele­ments of the NPPP deliv­ery relat­ing to these pro­grammes are: a) Cairngorms Trust tak­ing for­ward devel­op­ment of vol­un­tary giv­ing scheme to

       support development of new funding sources supporting public benefits
       (Landscape scale conservation priority li).
   

   b) Devel­op­ing new ways includ­ing vis­it­or giv­ing to fund infra­struc­ture investment

       and maintenance (visitor infrastructure priority 4a).
   

   c) Improv­ing vis­it­or trans­port options (vis­it­or infra­struc­ture pri­or­ity 4f). d) Tar­get­ing people cur­rently liv­ing sedent­ary life­styles and those with long-term

       medical conditions (Active Cairngorms priority 5b).
   

   e) Improv­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for act­ive travel in Aviemore (Act­ive Cairngorms

       priority 5g).
   

   f) Bet­ter coordin­a­tion and pro­mo­tion of pub­lic trans­port and act­ive travel (Act­ive

       Cairngorms priority 5f).
   

Per­form­ance Over­view: Deliv­ery Against Stra­tegic Expectations

1. The Cairngorms Trust / Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group’s quarterly reports received on the deliv­ery of char­it­able and LEAD­ER activ­it­ies respect­ively are presen­ted with this paper at Annexes I and 2.

2. The LEAD­ER quarterly report high­lights the pro­gramme is well advanced to the planned pro­gramme clos­ure in Decem­ber 2021.

3. Devel­op­ment of plans for a replace­ment to CLLD fund­ing remains in its early stages, while the LAG has secured funds to imple­ment tri­al of fund­ing com­munity led approaches to cli­mate action and con­ser­va­tion; and to imple­ment­a­tion of a youth based grant award­ing group. Fund­ing is also in place to secure the LEAD­ER team until the end of May 2022, with focus on future years’ work hoped to become explicit

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 11/02/22

through the evol­u­tion of the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment budget pro­cesses over the next few months.

1. While rel­at­ively small scale, the Cairngorms Trust, in its deliv­ery of a com­mis­sioned LEAD­ER pro­jects sup­ply­ing free use of ebikes to res­id­ents, has made excel­lent pro­gress in enabling the demon­stra­tion of act­ive travel inter­ven­tions for inactiv­ity and health bene­fits, and in pro­mot­ing over­all life­style change. An integ­rated trans­port sig­nage has also now been installed out­side Aviemore rail sta­tion, with the Trust work­ing in part­ner­ship with Hitrans and util­ising LEAD­ER fund­ing to achieve this outcome.

2. The Cairngorms Trust’s Annu­al Report and Accounts is presen­ted for inform­a­tion and con­sid­er­a­tion by the Com­mit­tee at Annex 3 to this report.

Per­form­ance Over­view: Risks Under Management

1. The Trust’s work in the devel­op­ment of a vol­un­tary giv­ing scheme has been sig­ni­fic­antly inter­rup­ted by COV­ID. Des­pite this, the work by the Trust­ees and the Trust Man­ager as set out in the update does demon­strate the lat­ent poten­tial for part­ner­ship with com­mer­cial and oth­er organ­isa­tions to secure new fund­ing streams with worth­while levels of fund­ing which could be attrac­ted to the object­ives of the scheme. While focus on the devel­op­ment of vol­un­tary giv­ing was largely sus­pen­ded dur­ing COV­ID pan­dem­ic response, the Trust has played a valu­able part in coordin­at­ing and help­ing deliv­ery of two phases of Green Recov­ery Grants with the Cairngorms NPA and oth­er partners.

2. As repor­ted to the pre­vi­ous meet­ing of the Com­mit­tee, the resource levels needed to devel­op and deliv­er a vol­un­tary giv­ing scheme of a mean­ing­ful scale is a mat­ter under con­sid­er­a­tion by Trust­ees in light of the exper­i­ence of devel­op­ment of such a scheme with­in the wider needs of char­ity man­age­ment and oth­er demands on the Trust Man­agers lim­ited time. This will be a mat­ter for con­sid­er­a­tion in poten­tial resource deploy­ment mov­ing forward.

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.

Dav­id Camer­on I Feb­ru­ary 2022 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

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