220812PerformanceCtteePaper4AAAnnual Report v11

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 4 12^th August 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY PER­FORM­ANCE COMMITTEE

FOR DECISION

Title: PER­FORM­ANCE COM­MIT­TEE ANNU­AL REPORT TO BOARD Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SER­VICES & DEPUTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Pur­pose This paper presents the draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to the Board for the peri­od of August 2021 to August 2022.

Recom­mend­a­tions 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.

Activ­ity in Period

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee was estab­lished fol­low­ing a review of the Cairngorms NPA’s board com­mit­tee struc­tures over the first quarter of ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂.
2. The Com­mit­tee met for the first time in August 2021 and has met a total of five times up to and includ­ing the meet­ing of 12 August 2022.
3. The Com­mit­tee has sought assur­ance over the per­form­ance of the fol­low­ing pro­grammes and major pro­jects where the Cairngorms NPA leads deliv­er or holds sig­ni­fic­ant respons­ib­il­ity as a lead applic­ant and / or account­able body for fund­ing deployed: a. Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject; b. Cairngorms LEAD­ER and Cairngorms Trust deliv­ery; c. Badenoch Great Place Pro­ject; d. Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme; e. Cairngorms 2030 Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme; f. Evol­u­tion of Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment Fund­ing approaches.
4. The Com­mit­tee has also con­sidered the fol­low­ing aspects of its oper­a­tions: a. Review of terms of ref­er­ence. b. Devel­op­ment of a stand­ard format of pro­gramme and pro­ject report­ing to the committee.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 4 12^th August 2022

c. Devel­op­ment of a per­form­ance dash­board for over­view of per­form­ance by the com­mit­tee. d. Devel­op­ment of private fin­ance approaches. e. Ini­tial con­sid­er­a­tion of cri­ter­ia for identi­fy­ing appro­pri­ate areas to report to the committee.

Review of Activ­it­ies and Commentary

1. The Com­mit­tee, as a new aspect of the Cairngorms NPA assur­ance pro­cesses, has worked over the year to under­stand its remit and its role in the con­text of oth­er com­mit­tees and gov­ernance struc­tures and evolve appro­pri­ate report­ing struc­tures and points of focus. Over­all, the com­mit­tee feels it has been suc­cess­ful in this work. Appro­pri­ate areas of over­lap with oth­er com­mit­tees on resource and risk man­age­ment have been recog­nised and min­im­ised. Key areas of the Cairngorms NPA man­aged and part­ner led activ­it­ies have been iden­ti­fied for report­ing with a tem­plate report­ing struc­ture estab­lished. Use of exist­ing reports has bene max­im­ised to min­im­ise addi­tion­al report­ing bur­dens on staff.
2. The Com­mit­tee had a con­sist­ent mem­ber­ship over the course of the year with excel­lent attend­ance and engage­ment by mem­bers in mat­ters covered.
3. The Com­mit­tee has not iden­ti­fied any changes required to its terms of ref­er­ence over the course of this report­ing period.
4. There have been no instances of need for escal­a­tion of con­cerns to the full board, while some minor mat­ters have been made known to oth­er com­mit­tees to enhance coordin­ated assur­ance over organ­isa­tion­al per­form­ance. Gen­er­ally, per­form­ance reports have been pos­it­ive. Activ­ity on sig­ni­fic­ant pro­grammes and pro­jects has gen­er­ally secured agreed object­ives with minor devi­ations noted, as has been more fully rep­res­en­ted in cor­por­ate per­form­ance report­ing to the full board.
5. The ini­tial schedul­ing of four com­mit­tees on the same day has been chal­len­ging for tim­ing of meet­ings; keep­ing meet­ings to time while allow­ing full and valu­able dis­cus­sions to take place; and on officer sup­port time. The change to hold­ing per­form­ance com­mit­tee meet­ings as part of a sched­ule of three com­mit­tees is wel­comed and will be mon­itored for effectiveness.
6. The Com­mit­tee has evolved a stand­ard format for report­ing over the year, based on exper­i­ence and feed­back over sev­er­al com­mit­tee cycles and the devel­op­ment of a tem­plate by the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices with the approv­al of the Seni­or Man­age­ment Team.

Con­clu­sions

1. The oper­a­tion of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee has provided an import­ant and effect­ive addi­tion­al ele­ment of assur­ance to the Cairngorms NPA’s gov­ernance and assur­ance sys­tems. This has been rein­forced by pre­lim­in­ary intern­al audit reports on per­form­ance man­age­ment con­duc­ted in the year and to be repor­ted to the Audit and Risk Committee.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 4 12^th August 2022

1. The Com­mit­tee believes there are no sig­ni­fic­ant changes needed in the Committee’s oper­a­tions over the com­ing year. Com­mit­tee mem­bers will con­tin­ue to work with seni­or officers to evolve and adapt report­ing struc­tures as required.
2. The Com­mit­tee is grate­ful to the sup­port of officers provided over the year, for full and clear papers and effect­ive, help­ful engage­ment at our meetings.
3. The com­mit­tee has been keen to foster a trust­ing and col­lab­or­at­ive approach to its work and, as a res­ult, it has been pos­sible to have some very full, open and frank dis­cus­sions on some of the reports it has considered.

Dav­id Camer­on 26 July 2022 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

v1.1 Chair Review com­ments reflected