CAIRNGORMS

NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

UGH­DAR­RAS PAIRC NAISEANTA A’ MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

Cairngorms Equal­ity Advis­ory Pan­el 26^th April 2022

5:00pm – 6:30pm — Held virtually

Minutes

Present | Anita Howard | Becca Mayo | | : — — — — — — — - | : — — — — — — — - | | Bo Mansell | Don­ald Ross | | Heath­er Earn­shaw | Kev­in Hutchens | | Lili­ana Cor­ri­eri | Lina Payne | | Linda Bam­ford | Peter Kennedy | | Stu­art Hall | Vanessa Altweck |

Attend­ing | Alan Smith | Anna Ronayne | | : — — — — — — — — — | : — — — — — — - | | Fiona McLean (Chair) | Kate Christie | | Margo Pater­son | Sjo­erd Tel | | Kath­er­ine Will­ing | Vicky Walker |

1. Wel­come 1.1. Fiona wel­comed the pan­el, vis­it­ors, and speak­ers to the meeting.

2. Recap and Actions from pre­vi­ous Meet­ing on 29^th March 2022 2.1. The minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing were agreed on the basis that the changes sug­ges­ted in email cor­res­pond­ence were made pri­or to them being pub­lished on the web­site. 2.2. The action log was reviewed.

3. Item 1: Scot­tish Youth Hostel Asso­ci­ation – Margo Paterson 3.1. Margo Pater­son, the CEO of the Scot­tish Youth Hostel Asso­ci­ation (SYHA), dis­cussed the chal­lenges the SYHA had face dur­ing and fol­low­ing the pan­dem­ic. Margo also dis­cussed ways in which the EAP and SYHA can work togeth­er in the future.

Pan­el Response

3.2. The pan­el dis­cussed with Margo wheth­er there were links between the ranger ser­vices in the park and the youth hos­tels. Margo explained that this was done on a loc­al basis with man­agers of the hos­tels form­ing those links but if needed more detailed inform­a­tion could be sent on. 3.3. The pan­el dis­cussed vari­ous SYHA prop­er­ties and future refur­bish­ment plans. Margo explained to the pan­el some of the chal­lenges of leg­acy prop­er­ties for cre­at­ing more access­ible prop­er­ties but reaf­firmed SYHAs com­mit­ment to this. The pan­el also dis­cussed fund­ing that the SYHA may be eli­gible for and some of examples of good prac­tice. A sep­ar­ate indi­vidu­al meet­ing was sug­ges­ted if the pan­el mem­ber felt com­fort­able with this. 3.4. The pan­el raised con­cerns that some organ­isa­tions charge more for access­ible accom­mod­a­tion. Margo explained that SYHA are work­ing on mak­ing there prop­er­ties more access­ible and the chal­lenges that this presents, how­ever, SYHA are adam­ant that they will not charge more for these facil­it­ies. 3.5. The pan­el asked about afford­ab­il­ity, par­tic­u­larly for low income, single book­ings. Mar­got explained that the aim of SYHA is to offer as wide a vari­ety of room options, as well as listen to guest feed­back sur­round­ing room con­fig­ur­a­tion. 3.6. The pan­el dis­cussed with Margo wheth­er it would be a pos­sib­il­ity to link loc­al busi­nesses to SYHA prop­er­ties dur­ing the quit­ter sea­sons to help with accom­mod­a­tion for staff. 3.7. The pan­el also dis­cussed trans­port to SYHA prop­er­ties with Margo. Margo explained that they have tried to offer this as a ser­vice pre­vi­ously but at present this would be to oper­a­tion­ally chal­len­ging. 3.8. The pan­el asked wheth­er SYHA are still oper­at­ing their explorer fund. Margo explained as this is self-fun­ded it has not been advert­ised over Cov­id. Margo explained they are work­ing on rais­ing the fund­ing needed for this before advert­ising this.

4. Item 2 Sus­tain­able Trans­port Pro­jects Over­view for the Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el – Anna Ronayne and Sjo­erd Tel 4.1. A pan­el mem­ber declared a con­flict of interest due to fund­ing for the pro­ject com­ing in part from Sus­trans so did not con­trib­ute to the dis­cus­sion. 4.2. Anna explained the pro­jects and fund­ing struc­tures. Anna also dis­cussed the main parts of the paper provided to the pan­el. The paper asked the pan­el the fol­low­ing questions:

• Sense check of work to date – have we missed anything?
• What would you recom­mend we do to deliv­er best prac­tice in terms of equal­it­ies and inclus­iv­ity dur­ing the devel­op­ment phase?
• Do you know of any sim­il­ar pro­jects where best prac­tice has been achieved?
• How best can we work togeth­er? 4.3. The pan­el felt the paper and approach missed:
• Access­ib­il­ity and afford­ab­il­ity – over­all the pan­el felt the paper, and the pro­ject, were lack­ing details around access­ib­il­ity and afford­ab­il­ity. The pan­el gave the example of there being no non-stand­ard e‑bikes being included.
• Angus Glens Pro­jects – the pan­el felt that the Angus Glens pro­jects lacked detail.

4.4. The pan­el sug­ges­ted sev­er­al areas of good prac­tice to be adopted:

• Equal­ity Impact Assess­ments (EQIA’s) – the pan­el explained that best prac­tice is to con­duct an EQIA early, pri­or to devel­op­ing the scope of the project.
• Pro­cure­ment – ensure that the pro­cure­ment brief out­lines the com­mit­ment to equal­ity mat­ters and that pro­viders are genu­inely com­mit­ted to access­ib­il­ity and affordability.
• Con­sulta­tion — the pan­el sug­ges­ted that good prac­tice is to ensure con­sulta­tion and involve­ment is intro­duced early into the pro­ject and that experts by exper­i­ence are involved in these pro­cesses. The pan­el also asked for fur­ther work to be done on how the con­sulta­tion would present access­ib­il­ity and equal­it­ies issues to the community.
• Read Pre­vi­ous Minutes – the pan­el sug­ges­ted that the sus­tain­able trans­port officers read the minutes from the 22^nd Feb­ru­ary 2022, on Liz Henderson’s sec­tion as much of the advice on good prac­tice and links to organ­isa­tions could be rel­ev­ant to this pro­ject. 4.5. The pan­el sug­ges­ted sim­il­ar pro­jects and organ­isa­tions which may be help­ful for the pro­ject to reference:
• Guide Dogs Scotland
• Glas­gow Dis­ab­il­ity Alliance
• Dis­ab­il­ity Equal­ity Scotland
• Deaf Blind Scotland
• Access Pan­els – Badenoch and Strathspey
• Edin­burgh City Coun­cil – Access­ib­il­ity Commission
• CNPA’s Equal­ity Out­comes – The more inclus­ive access to nature evid­ence sec­tion provides reports that may be of help. 4.6. The pan­el sug­ges­ted how best the pro­ject could work with the panel:
• Pro­cure­ment briefs – the pan­el asked that pro­cure­ment briefs are brought to the pan­el early as get­ting this right is key to ensur­ing that every­one involved in the pro­ject is focused on equal­ity issues.
• Bring Doc­u­ments Early and Ensure they are Detailed – the pan­el felt it was dif­fi­cult to com­ment on the paper as it lacked detail. The pan­el also felt that they would bene­fit from see­ing doc­u­ments earli­er, such as tender bids, so that they can com­ment when there is still the abil­ity to make changes.
• Bring Everything to Main Meet­ings – Fiona reflec­ted that all doc­u­ments should be brought to the main meet­ing where pos­sible and not giv­en to select groups. 4.7. The pan­el reflec­ted that they often give sim­il­ar advice to mul­tiple pro­jects across the CNPA. The pan­el sug­ges­ted cre­at­ing a guid­ance or advice doc­u­ment that out­lines the basic asks that a pro­ject should con­sider before com­ing to the pan­el so that the advice giv­en at pan­el meet­ings can be more in-depth. It was agreed that this was an area that needed work and that the EAPs response to the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) Con­sulta­tion would be shared with pro­ject man­agers. It was also sug­ges­ted that a ​“mani­festo” could be pro­duced con­sist­ing of six to ten asks of those whish­ing to gain advice from the pan­el to be com­pleted before they present to the panel.

5. AOBS 5.1. A pan­el mem­ber raised that the Scot­tish Coun­cil for Vol­un­tary Organ­isa­tions was com­ing up and offered to go on behalf of the group. It was agreed that they would speak to Fiona before attend­ing. 5.2. Fiona reminded the pan­el that if any pan­el mem­ber wished to meet for a face-to- face dis­cus­sion to please con­tact her to arrange this. 5.3. Fiona expressed her thanks on behalf of the pan­el to Vicky Walk­er for all the work that they have put in to set­ting up the panel.

Next Meet­ing 31^st May

End of Meeting