CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 7 27/05/2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY AUDIT & RISK COMMITTEE

FOR DECISION

Title: ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ GOV­ERNANCE STATEMENT

Pre­pared by: ALIX HARK­NESS, CLERK TO THE BOARD

Pur­pose

This paper presents the draft Gov­ernance State­ment cov­er­ing ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ for con­sid­er­a­tion by the Com­mit­tee pri­or to its inclu­sion in the Annu­al Report and Accounts.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Con­sider the draft Gov­ernance State­ment; and b) Sub­ject to any agreed amend­ments, approve the Gov­ernance State­ment for inclu­sion in the Authority’s draft ²¹⁄₂₂ Annu­al Report and Accounts;

Exec­ut­ive Summary

1. An ele­ment of the Committee’s remit is to provide advice to the Account­able Officer on the com­ple­tion of the annu­al Gov­ernance State­ment for inclu­sion in the Authority’s Annu­al Report and Accounts.

2. This paper presents the draft of the Gov­ernance State­ment for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ for con­sid­er­a­tion by the Com­mit­tee pri­or to its inclu­sion in the draft Annu­al Report and Accounts doc­u­ment to be sub­mit­ted for audit.

3. The Scot­tish Pub­lic Fin­an­cial Manu­al (SPFM) states there is no set format for the Gov­ernance State­ments, while set­ting out the fol­low­ing essen­tial fea­tures of the Statement:

a) The gov­ernance frame­work of the organ­isa­tion, includ­ing inform­a­tion about the com­mit­tee struc­ture of the gov­ern­ing board (or equi­val­ent) and the cov­er­age of its work. b) The oper­a­tion of the gov­ern­ing board (or equi­val­ent) dur­ing the peri­od. c) An assess­ment of cor­por­ate gov­ernance with ref­er­ence to com­pli­ance with gen­er­ally accep­ted best prac­tice prin­ciples and rel­ev­ant guid­ance, and explan­a­tions where a dif­fer­ent approach has been adop­ted. d) An assess­ment of the organisation’s risk man­age­ment arrange­ments and risk pro­file, includ­ing, sub­ject to a pub­lic interest test, details of sig­ni­fic­ant risk-related mat­ters arising dur­ing the peri­od. e) A record of any writ­ten author­it­ies provided to the Account­able Officer. f) Details of any sig­ni­fic­ant lapses of data security.

1. The SPFM advises that any per­son­al or con­fid­en­tial mat­ters requir­ing dis­clos­ure by the Account­able Officer should be men­tioned in suit­ably care­ful terms, with details repor­ted to the extern­al auditor.

2. The Com­mit­tee is invited to review the draft Gov­ernance State­ment presen­ted with this paper in light of the SPFM state­ment of its essen­tial features.

Alix Hark­ness 16 May 2022 alixharkness@​cairngorms.​co.​uk