220513PerformanceCtteePaper4AACaperV2

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 4 13/05/2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY PER­FORM­ANCE COMMITTEE

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: CAIRNGORMS CAPER­CAIL­LIE PROJECT

Pre­pared by: ANDY FORD, DIR­ECT­OR FOR NATURE & CLI­MATE CHANGE

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; c) any mater­i­al impacts on the CNPA’s stra­tegic risk management.

Per­form­ance Dashboard

Per­form­ance Meas­ure: Pro­gress towards the project’s agreed pur­poses	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Empower com­munit­ies to help ensure the sur­viv­al of caper­cail­lie through com­munity led con­ser­va­tion, by imple­ment­ing the Carr-bridge Caper­cail­lie Con­ser­va­tion Strategy and devel­op­ing, agree­ing and imple­ment­ing action plans with addi­tion­al communities.	Amber	Work to agree the Car­rbridge caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion action plan is delayed and at risk of not being final­ised. The moun­tain bike plan and vis­it­or plan are both well accep­ted by stake­hold­ers and imple­ment­a­tion is under­way. The busi­ness community’s action plan is in draft for con­sulta­tion. Ini­tial engage­ment in Deeside has been very pos­it­ive and a draft plan is in development.
Raise aware­ness and increase under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges facing caper­cail­lie through a vari­ety of means includ­ing social media activ­it­ies and events, a new online Engage­ment plat­form, volun­teer work, a pub­lic app, new resources for schools and genet­ics analysis.	Green	Social media engage­ment has increased by over 30% on the last quarter. Volun­teers have been involved in hab­it­at improve­ments on a num­ber of dif­fer­ent land­hold­ings. Genet­ics work is ongo­ing on schedule.
Work with landown­ers to imple­ment plans to improve and man­age around 9,000 hec­tares of hab­it­at across six estates for the bene­fit of caper­cail­lie; enable landown­ers to play their part in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion via a third-party grant scheme tar­get­ing land­hold­ings in caper­cail­lie areas.	Green	Hab­it­at improve­ments have been tak­ing place on Bal­mor­al, Seafield, Rothiemurchus and Aber­nethy estates. Pred­at­or man­age­ment con­tin­ues on Seafield and Rothiemurchus. Planned work to man­age deer has not taken place due to an unsuc­cess­ful FGS applic­a­tion, whilst frus­trat­ing, this will not affect reach­ing over­all targets.
Mon­it­or, test and eval­u­ate ideas through­out deliv­ery, apply­ing learn­ing from the pro­ject to refine activ­it­ies includ­ing hab­it­at improve­ment work, sur­vey tech­niques, pro­mo­tion­al activ­it­ies and the com­munity action plan­ning model.	Green	Work on the eval­u­ation frame­work con­tin­ues as sched­uled. Res­ults from the pilot genet­ic lek sur­vey have been gathered and now inform phase 2.
Devel­op an innov­at­ive and rep­lic­able mod­el for com­munity-led spe­cies con­ser­va­tion that enables com­munit­ies to suc­cess­fully coex­ist with their nat­ur­al her­it­age, shar­ing the project’s find­ings intern­ally and extern­ally with UK organ­isa­tions, and fur­ther afield, to cre­ate a leg­acy of learning.	Green	The mod­el developed through ini­tial work with car­rbridge and sub­sequently mod­i­fied through adapt­ive learn­ing is used effect­ively across the pro­ject. Tools developed in the eval­u­ation frame­work sup­port shar­ing good prac­tise and know­ledge exchange.

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. The Authority’s stra­tegic object­ives of rel­ev­ance to con­sid­er­a­tion of the deliv­ery of the pro­gramme report­ing presen­ted with this paper are: a) 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.

2. The latest review of the Stra­tegic Risk Register was con­sidered by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee in Septem­ber 2021 and may be accessed at: [210910AuCtteePaper5Annex I StrategicRiskRegisterV8.1.pdf (cairngorms.co.uk)](210910AuCtteePaper5Annex I StrategicRiskRegisterV8.1.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. 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

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. The rel­ev­ant ele­ments of the NPPP deliv­ery relat­ing to these pro­grammes are: a) 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.

Per­form­ance Over­view: Deliv­ery Against Stra­tegic Expectations

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 CNPA vis­it­or man­age­ment and access teams are act­ively con­trib­ut­ing to the work now under­way to devel­op detailed pro­pos­als in response to the NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee Report on caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion and man­age­ment. b) Learn­ing from the tri­al sig­nage to encour­age respons­ible access around Car­rbridge and the Moun­tain Bik­ing Recre­ation Man­age­ment Plan, developed with 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 Part­ner­ship is help­ing to inform CNPA’s wider work related to man­aging for vis­it­ors, audi­ence pro­fil­ing and Her­it­age Horizons.

Per­form­ance Over­view: Risks Under Management

1. All pro­ject risks and issues, as iden­ti­fied in the quarterly pro­gress report, are either in a favour­able status or being man­aged closely at CCP Board level with mit­ig­a­tion plans in place.

2. Staff­ing: the pro­ject is oper­at­ing with a full com­ple­ment of staff.

3. Resourcing audit and leg­acy: Review of work plans enabled re-alloc­a­tions of staff time to enable the project’s work with the moun­tain bik­ing com­munity to be accelerated.

The CCP Board will make a decision at their next meet­ing in June on wheth­er or not to seek a pro­ject exten­sion in order to secure a firm leg­acy across all areas of work with­in the pro­ject. The project’s grant expiry date is 30 July 2023. To enable the Board’s decision regard­ing an exten­sion, a full assess­ment will be made of the pro­ject activ­it­ies which are cur­rently anti­cip­ated to be com­pleted by 30 July 2023 and those which need or would bene­fit from more time to secure a firmer legacy.

In Feb­ru­ary, the CCP Board assessed and provided feed­back to the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group regard­ing the draft ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ Action Plan for the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Con­ser­va­tion Strategy. The group dis­puted some ele­ments of the feed­back and reques­ted fur­ther time to appeal and sub­mit an amended plan. The group have found the time require­ments and con­sensus build­ing to be a chal­lenge with mem­bers away over the East­er hol­i­days. The CCP pro­ject team have offered sup­port in re-draft­ing the Action Plan and a response to the feed­back is due immin­ently. Without an agreed plan, work in Car­rbridge is effect­ively stalled and there is a high risk of funds not being alloc­ated timeously. Fun­ders are aware of the issue and are strongly encour­aging CNPA to reach res­ol­u­tion with the group and pro­gress options to re-alloc­ate funds if dead­lines are not met.

1. Repu­ta­tion: a) If an agreed action plan for the com­munity led work in Car­rbridge is not in place with­in a mat­ter of weeks, then the pro­ject may have to alloc­ate pro­ject funds else­where and the Car­rbridge group will need to recon­sider their pos­i­tion. There is a pos­sib­il­ity the group react neg­at­ively to this situ­ation and voice their dis­ap­point­ment. b) An Eval­u­ation Frame­work is in place for the pro­ject to mon­it­or ongo­ing work, to under­stand the suc­cesses and chal­lenges involved in deliv­er­ing the pro­ject and to report on the extent to which the pro­ject has achieved its goals. With effect­ive ongo­ing mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation, it will be pos­sible to learn from achieve­ments and issues, adapt ways of work­ing in the light of exper­i­ence, and share learn­ing with­in and bey­ond the pro­ject. It will also provide the basis for report­ing the out­comes and impacts of the work to oth­ers, intern­ally and extern­ally. c) The wider con­text of caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion is a highly con­ten­tious and high-pro­file arena, attract­ing much com­ment and polar­ised opin­ion. Poten­tial exists for mis­un­der­stand­ings about the rel­at­ively lim­ited scope of the CCP.

This issue may increase now the pro­ject is involved in help­ing to co-ordin­ate the response to the NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee Report on caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion and man­age­ment which is focused on factors affect­ing caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion out with the approved pur­poses of the pro­ject, e.g., pred­at­or con­trol includ­ing the man­age­ment of pro­tec­ted species.

1. Tech­nic­al: CCP staff are help­ing co-ordin­ate the work now under­way to engage stake­hold­ers in the pro­cess of devel­op­ing detailed pro­pos­als for the four areas of action out­lined in the NS SAC report. CNPA Board will con­sider the pro­pos­als and CNPA’s role in fur­ther deliv­ery on 10 June 2022. With this con­text in mind, the CCP Pro­ject Board will dis­cuss at the June pro­ject board meet­ing the project’s role in the emer­ging scen­ario: how the agreed scope and pur­poses of the pro­ject over­lap with the devel­op­ing pro­pos­als, where a dis­cus­sion with fun­ders might be help­ful to explore re-focus­sing some areas of the pro­ject, and where the pro­ject leg­acy will add max­im­um value.

Pro­pos­als cur­rently under devel­op­ment include invest­ig­at­ing the feas­ib­il­ity of min­im­ising human dis­turb­ance by cre­at­ing refu­gia and safe spaces for caper­cail­lie. There is a risk that the CCP’s bot­tom-up, col­lab­or­at­ive approach that has proven very suc­cess­ful with groups to date (e.g. moun­tain bik­ing com­munity, busi­nesses and vis­it­ors) is con­fused with, and there­fore under­mined by, a more top-down, instruct­ive approach to defin­ing and man­aging refuges.

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 2 May 2022 andyford@​cairngorms.​co.​uk