220812 DraftPerformanceCtteeMinsV10

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE PER­FORM­ANCE COM­MIT­TEE MEET­ING of THE CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

held via Lifes­ize on 12 August 2022 at 14.30

PRESENT Wil­lie Mun­ro (Chair) Douglas McAdam (Vice-Chair) Peter Argyle Janet Hunter Xan­der McDade (From 1520) Anne Rae Mac­don­ald Wil­lie McKenna

In Attend­ance: Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Dav­id Clyne, Head of Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 Car­o­lyn Robertson, CCP: Pro­ject Man­ager, Con­ser­va­tion and Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence (Left the meet­ing at 1450 Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment Catri­ona Strang, Clerk to the Board Lisa Mcls­sac, Data, Report­ing and Gov­ernance man­ager Mari­aan Pit, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Manager

Apo­lo­gies: Grant Moir, CEO

Wel­come

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing of Per­form­ance Committee.

Declar­a­tion of Interests

1. Doug McAdam noted for trans­par­ency exist­ing entries in his Register of Interests with a bear­ing on the fol­low­ing items: a) Paper I — HH pro­ject — Inde­pend­ent Chair of the South Grampi­an Deer Man­age­ment Group: a remu­ner­ated interest. b) Paper 4 — sits on the Caper­cail­lie Board as CNPA Board Rep­res­ent­at­ive. Neither of these mat­ters were con­sidered to rep­res­ent a con­flict of interest and Doug McAdam there­fore noted that he would par­ti­cip­ate in the con­sid­er­a­tion of both items mentioned.

Minutes of Last Meet­ings held – for approval

1. The draft Minutes of the last meet­ing held on 13^th May 2022 were agreed with one amend­ment in 8 e. a) The text in rela­tion to pub­lic fund­ing to sup­port activ­it­ies could be mis­lead­ing. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to review and amend wording.

Mat­ters Arising

1. The fol­low­ing out­stand­ing action were agreed as closed with remain­ing mat­ters to be addressed noted in the table at the end of this minute a) 11^th Feb­ru­ary 2022
2. Para 19iv) In Hand – Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to look fur­ther into the liv­ing wage as a require­ment for the future and report back to the Com­mit­tee. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices look­ing at KPIs and would have res­ult in next few weeks. Closed. b) 13^th May 2022
3. Para 6i) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to tab­u­late actions and put them at the end of the Minutes, for the next meet­ing. Closed II. Para 11 i) Head of Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme to look at clear­er format­ting for future reports. Closed. III. Para 25 i) CNPA to provide clear instruc­tion to the Car­rbridge group con­cern­ing final dead­lines for a revised plan and budget, agreed by the pro­ject board and expect­a­tions of fund real­loc­a­tion should dead­lines not be met. Closed IV. Para 28 i) Format of Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Report to be rep­lic­ated in all reports. Closed. V. Para 28 ii) Chair of Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee to pass details of this dis­cus­sion on to Chairs of Resources, Audit & Risk and Gov­ernance Com­mit­tees. Closed

Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme Update (Paper 1)

1. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme Man­ager intro­duced the paper which updated the Com­mit­tee on the Q2 2022 Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme and the planned devel­op­ment work to end Septem­ber 2022.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A mem­ber noted that the pro­ject exe­cu­tion and time scale is still amber b) Head of Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme Man­ager stated that was due to the scale of the pro­gramme and coordin­a­tion of task relat­ing to the applic­a­tion and there was risk in this area how­ever this being man­aged by the staff c) Head of Her­it­age Hori­zon went on to state that the main risk is times­cale and meet­ing the HLF dead­line for the end of June 2023. Deliv­ery times have now been agreed with all man­agers includ­ing when drafts are required, and we are con­fid­ents all dead­line will be met. d) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices added that the staff team are now under­tak­ing col­lab­or­at­ive work­ing and hav­ing reg­u­lar team meet­ing, there is an under­stand­ing and com­mit­ment to the timelines, but still too early to change the rat­ing to Green

e) Sus­tran con­sulta­tion is an area of con­cern how­ever the act­ive travel com­munity con­sulta­tion has now launched f) A new com­mu­nic­a­tion and the engage­ment staff are in post, recruit­ment for Research and Know­ledge exchange has been com­pleted await­ing con­firm­a­tion of start date.

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.

The com­mit­tee agreed that progression

Cairngorms Peat­land Action Pro­gramme Deliv­ery (Paper 2)

1. Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which presents the latest deliv­ery update for the Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme for 2022 – 23.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a. It was noted that there have been staff short­ages with­in the pro­ject, and this would be scal­ing up of the pro­gramme from 2023. Two can­did­ates have accep­ted Peat­land Office posts since the writ­ing of the papers b. A Mem­ber asked about the fin­an­cial aspect, and would the budget be spent this year and if not, would this have an implic­a­tion on future fund­ing and could the under­spend be trans­ferred into next years cap­it­al budget. C. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed we are not likely to spend the full cap­it­al budget and that the under spend and this would not affect the fund­ing for the next 4‑year cycle. d. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed that we were able to repro­file fund­ing from last year into this year. Once bulk of pro­ject are under­way, we will approach Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to repro­file any under­spend on Cap­it­al Fund­ing into future years. This would allow con­tracts with land man­agers to be over mul­tiple years so they can have con­sist­ency in Staff and pur­chase plant for pro­jects. e. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed that con­tract is not just with con­tract­ors but also train­ing to land man­ager staff so they can man­age their own peatlands

f. A mem­ber asked if part­ners were see­ing the same issue with capa­city in oth­er areas of Scot­land g. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed that all part­ners are see­ing same issues around capa­city, staff­ing and skilled staff­ing. An addi­tion staff mem­ber is join­ing for next 8.5 month work­ing between CNPA and RSPB Aber­nethy on a ⁶⁰⁄₄₀ Split to assist with capa­city. h. Dis­cus­sion took place on the dis­par­ity on the dif­fer­ence report­ing terms with regards to res­tor­a­tion areas and foot­print. Tar­gets are repor­ted in both formats but not iden­ti­fied to which is being used. A con­sist­ent report meth­od is cur­rently in devel­op­ment. i. A Mem­ber asked is any exper­i­ment with wool were tak­ing place with­in the Nation­al Park j. Head of Land Man­age­ment that none were tak­ing place cur­rently, but it is pos­sible for future and is an attract­ive loc­ally pro­duced approach. k. The Chair asked if the com­mit­tee could be updated if there was any pro­gress on wool use in the Nation­al Park. l. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed there was an unof­fi­cial tri­al on Bal­mor­al at this time and will update the com­mit­tee on this.

The chair would like Head of Land Man­age­ment to pass on Thanks to the team.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the deliv­ery update and considered:

Recom­mend­a­tion a) The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to note the pro­gramme update.

1. Action Points Arising: None

Cairngorms LEAD­ER and com­munity lead loc­al devel­op­ment fund­ing (Paper 3)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, intro­duced the paper which 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). This update focuses on the ongo­ing work to seek replace­ment LEAD­ER fund­ing to sup­port Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD). Xan­der McDade joined the meet­ing 1520

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A mem­ber asked if the lack of suc­cess­ful fund­ing in this area is tak­ing up more staff time com­par­able to LEAD­ER fund­ing which was auto­mat­ic­ally alloc­ated b) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices answered by say­ing Yes and No. At the begin­ning of a LEAD­ER fund­ing cycle the work would take months to pull togeth­er the applic­a­tion. The Over­all work­load now is less with annu­al pack­ages of fund­ing giv­ing com­munity and action groups flex­ib­il­ity over applic­a­tion peri­od. c) A mem­ber asks about the RAG red rat­ing on Vol­un­tary Giv­ing Scheme and was there a sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ent in the income from the pro­jec­ted and the scale of the stra­tegic risk. d) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed that anti­cip­ate vol­un­tary dona­tion £5- 10K over 3 years, cur­rently gen­er­a­tion of £1 – 2k per quarter. The value of staff time inves­ted has been bene­fi­cial uses for Her­it­age hori­zon com­munity grant and col­lab­or­at­ive work with COV­ID 19 recov­ery grants. The busi­ness case will be refreshed with the launch of the NPPP. We are look­ing at new fund­ing streams avail­able as there may be great­er depend­ency on the trust if budgets are reduced fur­ther. e) A Mem­ber ask about the test­ing change fund­ing and are there any assess­ment on the capa­city with­in com­munit­ies to take on devel­op­ment work. f) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed there is a pro­gramme wide review of test­ing change funds. Every­one involved has feed­back to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. Issue com­munity led devel­op­ment; capa­city issues due to massive volun­teer­ing that took place dur­ing COV­ID. Part of £281K is being dir­ec­ted to look at how volun­teer can be brough into com­min­ute roles g) A Mem­ber noted dis­ap­point­ment about the income gen­er­ated through the Vol­un­tary Giv­ing Scheme, but asked if people per­cep­tion may be chal­lenged over the sig­ni­fic­ant press received from pro­ject such as Her­it­age Hori­zon h) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices that the air­time received from fund­ing could be an oper­a­tion­al risk for the trust. Busi­nesses asso­ci­ated with the nation­al park under­stand the value of nation­al park with products being pro­duced and dis­trib­uted from the nation­al park. COV­ID has inter­rup­ted the trust. The next 3 – 4 years will see if we can make it work and if we need to add more resources to the Trust. i) Cairngorms Trust man­ager is employed for 15 hours per work which includes with Vol­un­tary Giv­ing Work. Some addi­tion­al fund­ing has been provided for mar­ket­ing and com­mu­nic­a­tion of the pro­ject j) A mem­ber asked if the trust could explore a green levy and how this could bene­fit com­munit­ies mov­ing forward.

k) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed that a green levy had not been looked at but a con­ver­sa­tion on how this could bene­fit com­munit­ies could take place with­in the resources committee.

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.

1. Action Points Arising: None

Draft Annu­al Report to Board (Paper 4)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, intro­duced the paper which presents the draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to the Board for the peri­od of August 2021 to August 2022.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A mem­ber thanked Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices for the report. b) The mem­ber Para 8 that the word­ing under­plays the col­lab­or­a­tion with oth­er com­mit­tees but notes that it states the ongo­ing staff­ing issues with­in peat­land and Her­it­age horizons.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to review the draft Annu­al Report to the Board and agree any amend­ments pri­or to sub­mis­sion to the board in Septem­ber. pro­gramme delivery.
2. Action Point Arising: DC to amend word­ing Para 8

AOCB

1. A mem­ber raised con­cern that part­ners related to the Loch Mor­lich work were not speak­ing to each oth­er and about an image appeared in the press of CNPA Ranger with police officer and this could be con­strued as unwel­com­ing to the area.

2. DC ask to expand

3. Vis­it­or are ignor­ing park­ing cone along­side the loch and mov­ing them to park on the updated areas. If there an agree­ment between between FLS, CNPA and

4. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed that the team is aware of the ongo­ing traffic man­age­ment issue in the area and are receiv­ing reg­u­lar reports from the rangers. Assur­ance that this is a key focal point in the area and aware of the urgency and import­ance. There have been some ele­ments of the pro­jects that have not gone well. Received pos­it­ive feed­back from Part­ners on the join ranger and police patrols.
5. There will be a com­plete review of the ranger ser­vice at the end of the sea­son, and this will be repor­ted back to the board.
6. A mem­ber would like passed back SMT how much they enjoyed the time and atti­tude for full time, part time and train­ee ranger on a recent board visit.
7. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed that we have been aware of the Glen­more cor­ridor for sev­er­al year and board have had a lot of con­ver­sa­tion about sea­son­al ranger ser­vices just after lock down. There has been a com­plex set of cir­cum­stances and organ­isa­tion respons­ib­il­it­ies take a lot to bring every­one work­ing in the same dir­ec­tion to bring everything through. Have been look­ing at cap­it­al fund­ing, award made to improve park­ing and has not been able to resolve issues. Effort will con­tin­ue to be brough in and will con­tin­ue to put time into being a resolution.,
8. The Chair thanked Peter Argyle for his input into the com­mit­tee as this will be his last before stand­ing down from the board.
9. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices thanked Peter Argyle for this value con­tri­bu­tion, sup­port in the committee.
10. Peter Argyle thanked every­one for remarks and pleas­ure for work­ing with Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices over the years.

Date of Next Meeting

1. The next meet­ing of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee 25 Novem­ber 2022 at 13:30 via Lifesize.
2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 1606 hours.

Action Points arising from pre­vi­ous meetings:

Date of Meet­ing	Action	Respons­ible Officer	Cur­rent Status	Com­ment
29 Octo­ber 2021	Para 41i– CEO to look again at the HH Advis­ory Pan­el mem­ber­ship and to have in place for the meet­ing on 13th May 2022. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme Man­ager explained they are still look­ing for a farm­ing rep. Hoped to be in place for the next advis­ory pan­el meet­ing. In place — a new rep­res­ent­at­ive from All The Ele­ments equal­it­ies group.	CEO	In Hand	Need to confirm
		th Feb­ru­ary 2022	Para 19i) — Audit of Foot­path Main­ten­ance to come back to Com­mit­tee at some point in future.		Open	Report to be brought back to com­mit­tee. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­firm timeline with SMT for Com­mit­tee Schedule
		th Feb­ru­ary 2022	Para 19ii) — Report relat­ing to Vis­it Scot­land fund­ing to be brought to the Committee.		Open	Report to be brought back to com­mit­tee. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­firm timeline with SMT for Com­mit­tee Schedule
		th Feb­ru­ary 2022	Para 19iii) Open — Look at Green Fund­ing par­tic­u­larly via Her­it­age Horizons.		Open	Report to be brought back to com­mit­tee. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­firm timeline with SMT for Com­mit­tee Schedule
		th Feb­ru­ary 2022	Para 19iv) In Hand – Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to look fur­ther into the liv­ing wage as a require­ment for the future and report back to the Com­mit­tee. Dir­ect­or of Corporate	Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services	Closed	KPIs ref­er­enced in report include new jobs cre­ated by applic­ants, all of which are at or above liv­ing wage, plus iden­ti­fied added jobs because of pro­ject with other

| || th Feb­ru­ary 2022 | Ser­vices look­ing at KPIs and would have res­ult in next few weeks. Para 30i) Open – Chair, Vice-Chair and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to dis­cuss the report­ing of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee and bring it back to the Com­mit­tee. This to be picked up under any oth­er busi­ness today. | Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices | Open | organ­isa­tions, which can­not be con­trolled in terms of salary level. Agreed in cor­res­pond­ence and through com­ments in May 2022 meet­ing that tem­plate report now rep­res­ents a robust and com­pre­hens­ive report­ing struc­ture. | | 13^th May 2022 | Para 6i) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to tab­u­late actions and put them at the end of the Minutes, for the next meet­ing. | Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices | Closed | | | 13^th May 2022 | Para 11 i) Head of Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme to look at clear­er format­ting for future reports. | Head of Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme | Closed | | | 13^th May 2022 | Para 16 a) Trans­fer of the ​‘Design & Build’ Ser­vice into the private sec­tor over time should be reviewed reg­u­larly | | Open | Times­cale of report­ing Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­firm timeline with SMT for Com­mit­tee Sched­ule | | 13^th May 2022 | Para 25 i) CNPA to provide clear instruc­tion to the Car­rbridge group con­cern­ing final dead­lines for a revised plan and budget, agreed by the pro­ject board and expect­a­tions of fund real­loc­a­tion should dead­lines not be met. | | Closed | Car­rbridge group provided update of costs of the pro­ject plan that were agreed at board and are now in place. A action plan should be delivered in the next 12 months with fun­ders agree­ment. Dis­cus­sion at pro­ject board for 6 months’ time exten­sion due to start­ing with­in the pan­dem­ic. The cur­rent under­spend will fund the pro­ject exten­sion, decision due in September. |

| 13^th May 2022 | Para 28 i) Format of Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Report to be rep­lic­ated in all reports | | Closed | Nature Scot SAC has sent a con­fid­en­tial brief­ing to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment await­ing response. | | 13^th May 2022 | Para 28 ii) Chair of Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee to pass details of this dis­cus­sion on to Chairs of Resources, Audit & Risk and Gov­ernance Com­mit­tees | | Closed | |