220211ResourcesCtteePaper4AA211206-DRAFTSCFMinutesV02

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY DRAFT Minutes of the Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um Held via Lifes­ize 11:00am, on Monday 6 Decem­ber 2021

Present Dav­id Camer­on (Chair) Kate Christie Deirdre Fal­con­er Pip Mack­ie Adam Streeter-Smith Alix Hark­ness Ed Swales Heath­er Trench Lucy Ford Richard Hardy (Pro­spect Rep) (arrived at 11:30)

Apo­lo­gies Car­o­lyn Caddick

Item 1: Wel­come and Apologies

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. Apo­lo­gies were received from the above people.

Items 2: Minutes of Last Meet­ing & Action Points

1. The minutes from the pre­vi­ous SCF were approved and the action points updated.

Item 3: Paper 1: 35 Hour Work­ing Week

1. Dav­id Camer­on (DC) intro­duced the item, advised that the budget was expec­ted to be pub­lished by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) on Thursday 9 Decem­ber for imple­ment­a­tion in 2023 and invited feedback.
2. The fol­low­ing feed­back was provided: a) Staff were gen­er­ally pos­it­ive about the ques­tions to be asked.

b) Con­cern had been expressed over resourcing and that this may be dis­pro­por­tion­ately spread across the organ­isa­tion par­tic­u­larly regard­ing stat­utory func­tions. c) Con­cern that this may replace a pay increase. Kate Christie (KC) advised that as far as the CNPA were aware there had been no indic­a­tion from the SG Fin­ance Pay Policy team that a reduc­tion in hours would replace pay awards, but she said she would advise the FPP team of staff con­cerns in this regard. d) Con­cern that staff may not be as access­ible to oth­er colleagues/​members of the pub­lic if they reduce their work­ing hours.

Richard Hardy joined the meeting.

e) A reduc­tion in work­ing hours may see staff less inclined to par­ti­cip­ate in Act­ive Travel due to the addi­tion­al time required. f) Any reduc­tion in annu­al leave enti­tle­ment may be seen as a pen­alty and if SG are not request­ing this then it should not be raised. DC advised that there was no guid­nace from SG on the ques­tions to ask and there­fore the draft set out to cov­er as many bases as pos­sible. Richard Hardy raised con­cern about ask­ing ques­tions for inform­a­tion which was not required at this point in time. DC advised that he would reflect on this ques­tions before the ques­tions were presen­ted to staff. g) The need to gauge if staff are gen­er­ally sup­port­ive of a move to a 35 hour week rather than going straight into ask­ing what staff would be will­ing to trade to get the reduc­tion in hours. h) Staff may prefer a bet­ter cost of liv­ing pay award than a reduc­tion in hours. i) Poten­tial for the pay award to be a per­cent­age across the board to encour­age employ­ers to look at the 35 hour week.

1. Dav­id Camer­on thanked every­one for their feed­back and advised that the doc­u­ment would be reviewed, includ­ing how it would sit under any pay award. A form­al con­sulta­tion was expec­ted to com­mence in January.

Item 4: Paper 2: Second­ment & Redeploy­ment Principles

1. Kate Christie intro­duced the paper and invited feedback.
2. The fol­low­ing feed­back was provided: a) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion at what point a second­ment would become per­man­ent. DC con­firmed there was no stand­ard time­frame and it would depend on the job in ques­tion. b) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion if second­ments could be exten­ded indef­in­itely. It was con­firmed that it was unlikley though there may be peri­ods of exten­sion, if for example a role was depend­ent on fund­ing and addi­tion­al fund­ing allowed for an exten­sion. c) Cla­ri­fictaion if the incum­bent could choose to move back to their pre­vi­ous role at the end of the second­ment, even if it were to be exten­ded. It was advised that the indi­vidu­al is not obliged to con­tin­ue in the role at the end of the

second­ment but any move would have to be mutu­ally agree­able for both the employ­ee and organ­isa­tion. d) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion if an individual’s sub­stant­ive role had con­sid­er­ably changed over the peri­od of the second­ment if the indi­vidu­al may have to reapply for the role. It was advised that this would have to be assessed at that point in time. e) Con­sid­er­a­tion needs to be giv­en to the per­son back­filling the secondees role and how any changes would be cas­caded. DC con­firmed that times­cales were built into the pro­cess with a 3 month hori­zon to look at posts. f) The secondee need­ing to recog­nise that their sub­stant­ive role may change over time and be aware of that risk. DC advised that the HR team kept over­sight of any changes to job descrip­tions which may impact on secondees. It was advised that any back­fill role was usu­ally recruited for the same length of time as the secondment.

1. Kate Christie thanked every­one for their feedback.

Item 5: Verbal Update: Pay Policy Expectations

1. Kate Christie advised that we were expect­ing the SG Fin­ance Pay Policy to be pub­lished on 9^th Decem­ber and that the fact sheet would be cir­cu­lated to staff once published.

Item 6: Dis­cus­sion: Video Con­feren­ing Systems

1. A staff rep asked if any oth­er video con­fer­en­cing sys­tems were being looked at to replace Lifesize.

2. DC respon­ded that Lifes­ize had been part of a joint pro­cure­ment pri­or to Cov­id 19. The CNPA IT team were busy devel­op­ing an approach to Microsft 365 which would include Teams and it was the inten­tion to move across to this at some point. Staff would be advised fur­ther in the New Year.

3. Richard Hardy advised that Teams could some­times be quite band­width heavy, which impacted on users with lim­ited inter­net con­nec­tion. DC advised that Lifes­ize may be retained as a back up system.

Item 7: Dis­cus­sion: Act­ive Travel

1. A staff rep asked for an update on how the organ­isa­tion could sup­port staff with Act­ive Travel.
2. DC respon­ded that this was being looked at through facil­it­ies man­age­ment via vari­ous groups, includ­ing the return to office pro­ject, and an update would be brought back to the next SCF meeting.

Item 8: Dis­cus­sion: Elec­tric Car Salary Sac­ri­fice Scheme

1. A staff rep asked if the organ­isa­tion could look into an Elec­tric Car Salary Sac­ri­fice Scheme.
2. KC advised that the organ­isa­tion were aware of vari­ous schemes through the EELG People Group. How­ever, they would need to be invest­ig­ated fur­ther due to the high value involved and the com­plex­ity of the schemes. The SCF would be kept updated.

Item 9: Dis­cus­sion: ELMS

1. A staff rep raised that frus­tra­tion had been expressed from mem­bers of staff with some of the courses not mark­ing as com­plete or that the assess­ments were dif­fi­cult to complete.
2. KC advised that ELMS was an effect­ive over­all pack­age. How­ever, the courses are cur­rently under review to address the issues raised. It was also noted that a reli­able inter­net con­nec­tion was recom­men­ded before under­tak­ing a course.

Item 10: H&S Update

1. KC advised staff that the H&S Com­mit­tee con­tin­ued to meet quarterly and the minutes and are avail­able for staff to access on the R drive.
2. No oth­er issues were raised.

Item 11: Leadership

1. No points were raised.

Item 7: Equalities

1. KC advised that the intern­al equal­it­ies advocacy group now had 10 mem­bers on it and the first meet­ing was due to be held in Janu­ary. An email would be sent to all staff advising who the staff reps are and any notes of the meet­ing would be con­sidered through the SCF.

Item 8: AOB

1. No points were raised.
2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 12:40.

Ref Action Respons­ible Due Date 24.09.18 Data Breach Policy: KC Dec 18 Para 9c A tool­box talk to be arranged on the policy after a staff meet­ing. To be done after March Staff meeting.

05.10.20: Ongoing
To be kept on – review with hybrid working

and return to office 24.06.19 Men­tal Health First Aid Policy: KC Para 7 Addi­tions to policy:

Review in one year's time
Inclusion of flow diagram.
15.06.20: Ongoing
06.10.20: Ongoing
06.12.21: Ongoing – MHFA training last

week, policy to be looked at with new MHFA and reviewed in New Year 09.12.19 Travel & Sub­sist­ence Policy: DC Mar 20 Para 4h Include a worked example of an expenses claim.

15.06.20: Ongoing
05.10.20: Ongoing
06.12.21: Ongoing

09.12.19 Amend Terms & Con­di­tions: KC June 20 Para 6 Any staff deal­ing with payroll to be consulted

regarding having a specific confidentiality clause
inserted into their contract.
05.10.20: Ongoing
06.12.21: Ongoing, but should be issued

shortly 16.03.20 Volun­teer­ing Policy: KC/MW Sept 20 Item 4 Mike Woolv­in to have a dis­cus­sion with other

partner organisations regarding signing up to
CNPA's volunteering policy.
05.10.20: Ongoing
06.12.21: Ongoing

16.03.20 Best Com­pan­ies Staff Survey: 

Item 5 Con­sulta­tion events to be facil­it­ated for Bands A- KC Sept 20

C regarding enagagement.
05.10.20: Ongoing
06.12.21: Agree to remove, overtaken by

C19

Contact Best Companies for the definition of
'Giving Something Back' and advise staff of the	KC	Sept 20
definition prior to the next survey being
undertaken.
05.10.20: Ongoing
06.12.21: Remove – will be looked at for

next sur­vey

06.12.21: Overtaken by BC survey 2021

issued can now sur­vey every quarter, res­ults soon be out Com­plete 05.10.20 Cov­id 19: Organ­isa­tion­al Work­ing Item 3 Para 2b Fit for pur­pose assess­ment to be under­taken of all IT Mar 21

software in use.

Para 2j Staff teams to be set up to dis­cuss col­lab­or­at­ive KC/DC Mar 21

working solutions
07.06.21 Ongoing
06.12.21: fit for purpose assessment took

place over Sum­mer 2021. Coolab work sols done through return to office pro­ject. Com­plete 27.09.21 Action Points: Item 2 To be gone through to check if still rel­ev­ant DC/KC/ Nov 21 Para 3 PM

06.12.21: Complete

27.09.21 Return to Office Pro­ject: Item 3 Inclu­sion of guid­ance as to how office/​home work KC Oct 21 Para 5a agree­ment should be reached and cla­ri­fic­a­tion of

HR involvement.
06.12.21: Complete

27.09.21 Columbia Kit: DC/KC April 22 Item 5 Para 12 

End date for Columbia sponsorship deal to be
investigated and future options for uniform/PPE to
be investigated.
06.12.21: clarify already PPE procs in place

for add kit to be pur­chased 06.12.21 Act­ive Travel: Para 17 Update on act­ive travel staff sup­port via the return KC Mar 22

to office project.

06.12.21 Elec­tric Car Salary Sac­ri­fice Scheme Para 19 Future updates to be brought back to SCF KC June 22 06.12.21 Equal­it­ies: Para 22 Email to be sent to staff advising mem­bers of the KC Jan 22

internal equality advocacy group