CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE BOARD MEETING

held by telephone/​video con­fer­ence on Fri­day 26^th August 2022 at 13.30PM

PRESENT

Xan­der McDade (Con­vener) Geva Black­ett Peter Argyle Car­o­lyn Cad­dick (Deputy Con­vener) Deirdre Fal­con­er Pippa Had­ley Janet Hunter John Kirk John Latham

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh Wil­lie McK­enna lan McLar­en Dr Fiona McLean Anne Rae Mac­don­ald Dr Gaen­er Rodger Derek Ross Wil­lie Munro

In Attend­ance:

Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices & Deputy CEO Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning & Place Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature & Cli­mate Change Catri­ona Strang, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies:

Judith Webb

Wel­come and Introduction

1. Xan­der McDade, the Board Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

Declar­a­tions of Interest

1. There was no declar­a­tion of Interest

Elec­tion of Board Deputy Con­vener (Paperl)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice, intro­duced Paper I which noti­fies board mem­bers of the forth­com­ing end of appoint­ment as a board mem­ber of the cur­rent Board Deputy Con­vener. The paper also sets out pro­pos­als for the elec­tion of the Board Deputy Con­vener fol­low­ing pri­or con­sid­er­a­tion of this mat­ter by the Board’s Gov­ernance Committee.

Recom­mend­a­tions

It is recom­men­ded that the Board con­siders the pro­pos­al of the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee and agrees to:

a) Note the term of appoint­ment of the Board Deputy Con­vener to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity board will end on 30 Septem­ber 2022.

b) Note the pro­pos­al to con­sider amend­ment to Stand­ing Orders at the 9 Septem­ber board meet­ing, to allow a tem­por­ary amend­ment to the term of office of the Board Deputy Con­vener for one year to 30 Septem­ber 2023, for the next elec­tion of the Deputy Con­vener only.

c) Agree the prin­ciple of pro­cess and timetable for the elec­tion pro­cess for the Board Deputy Con­vener as a postal (or elec­tron­ic if feas­ible) bal­lot under exist­ing busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments, com­men­cing fol­low­ing the board meet­ing of 9 Septem­ber 2022.

1. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the following:

a) A mem­ber asked if a job shared would be con­sidered for Deputy Con­vener Role.

b) Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, con­firmed that with­in the stand­ing order there is no pro­vi­sion for this. If this is a pro­pos­al, then would require leg­al clar­ity over amend­ing the stand­ing orders to include job share which would then need to come back at next meet­ing for con­sid­er­a­tion by board.

c) The con­ven­or asked the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice to look at the pro­vi­sion with­in the act and seek leg­al clar­ity for the pro­vi­sion spe­cific­ally for job share and report back to the board.

d) The Con­vener con­firmed that the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee had dis­cussed the dif­fer­ent options and con­sidered the changes in the board cohort in the com­ing months. The com­mit­tee agreed a one-year appoint­ment from the cur­rent board mem­ber would be best option. This would allow the new board cohort to get to know each oth­er pri­or to an elec­tion in Septem­ber 2023 for the stand­ard 3‑year peri­od provided for in Stand­ing Orders.

e) A mem­ber wanted con­firm­a­tion on how many from the cur­rent board would be eli­gible to stand.

f) CEO con­firm that all con­tinu­ing mem­bers would be eli­gible. CEO con­firmed that there will be five loc­al author­ity mem­bers join­ing in Octo­ber. 2 min­is­teri­al appoint­ments will come to the end of their 2^nd term in 2023 and the dir­ect elec­tions will take place in March 2023.

g) The con­vener con­firmed that the 5 min­is­teri­al appoint­ments that are com­ing to the end of their first term would hear shortly about the terms of their appoint­ment for a 2^nd term..

1. h) A mem­ber asked if an altern­at­ive meas­ure could be con­sidered until the dir­ectly elec­ted mem­bers are aware of their pos­i­tion next year.

i) The con­vener con­firmed that the pro­tocol is for the con­vener to del­eg­ate to the deputy in their absence and expli­cit word­ing would need to be added to the stand­ing order for a tem­por­ary appoint­ment pri­or to next year. The deputy con­vener receives addi­tion­al remu­ner­a­tion which would also need to be accom­mod­ated in any tem­por­ary measure.

j) The Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice noted there was noth­ing to pre­clude a per­son to stand again for a full three-year term after this ini­tial one year.

k) A mem­ber asked if the time of elec­tions could be amended from Septem­ber to May or June. As it is noted that between Septem­ber and March there are sev­er­al changes in the board and some of the above ques­tions will re-emerge at the next elec­tion period.

l) Deputy con­vener agreed with the one-year appoint­ment. This would allow new mem­bers of the board to be nom­in­ated for deputy con­vener soon after their appoint­ment should they wish. Cur­rent Deputy con­vener ten­ure was due to end next year so the approach sug­ges­ted does chime with this tim­ing as well.

Action Points Arising:

a) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice to seek leg­al advice on job share b) Provide recom­mend­a­tion in a paper to board meet­ing on the 9^th of Septem­ber 2022.

Date of Next Meeting

1. Next form­al Board meet­ing to be held on 9^th Septem­ber 2022.

Motion to take paper in con­fid­en­tial session.

1. The pub­lic part of this meet­ing closed 13.58