220909CNPABdPaper2Annex1AACorporatePlanOutlineStructure

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 Annex I 9^th Septem­ber 2022

COR­POR­ATE PLAN 2023 TO 2027 — OUT­LINE STRUCTURE

Stat­utory and Stra­tegic Context

Scotland’s nation­al parks are set up as mod­els of sus­tain­able development.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park has four aims set out by Scot­tish Parliament:

• to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area;
• to pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area;
• to pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the pub­lic; and
• to pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s communities.

The pur­pose of a Nation­al Park Author­ity is also set out by the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment as being to ensure the four aims are col­lect­ively achieved in a coordin­ated way. If there is a con­flict between the first aim and the oth­er aims, the Author­ity must give great­er weight to con­sid­er­a­tions of con­serving and enhan­cing the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area.

A key stat­utory respons­ib­il­ity for the Cairngorms NPA in coordin­at­ing the deliv­ery of these four stat­utory aims in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park is to coordin­ate the devel­op­ment, agree­ment and imple­ment­a­tion of a Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (Cairngorms NPPP). The cur­rent Cairngorms NPPP was approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters in August 2022. This Cor­por­ate Plan for the Cairngorms NPA is driv­en by the Cairngorms NPPP. Our Cor­por­ate Plan sets out how the Cairngorms NPA will take for­ward dir­ect deliv­ery of aspects of the NPPP in some instances, togeth­er with our work in coordin­at­ing, influ­en­cing and sup­port­ing a wide range of pub­lic, private, vol­un­tary, char­it­able and com­munity led part­ners in deliv­er­ing the agreed object­ives of the Cairngorms NPPP.

The Cairngorms NPPP and this Cor­por­ate Plan fol­lows three areas of pri­or­ity for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park: pri­or­ity object­ives around nature, people and place have been agreed in work­ing toward our long term vision:

An out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where people and nature thrive together.

Our organ­isa­tion­al mis­sion in lead­ing deliv­ery and coordin­a­tion of the Cairngorms NPPP toward this vis­ion is to:

• bring people togeth­er toward a com­mon purpose;
• enhance the Cairngorms Nation­al Park for everyone;
• inspire new generations.

In addi­tion to driv­ing for­ward the agreed pri­or­ity out­comes estab­lished by the Cairngorms NPPP, our Cor­por­ate Plan also sets out how we will deliv­er our own, intern­al cor­por­ate ambitions.

Our organ­isa­tion­al devel­op­ment object­ive is to be the best small pub­lic body in Scot­land. We will be an open, inclus­ive, innov­at­ive and pro­fes­sion­al organ­isa­tion that behaves with integ­rity. We will drive a net zero cul­ture to oper­ate in an envir­on­ment­ally sus­tain­able way and deliv­er sus­tain­ab­il­ity, a green eco­nomy, inclus­iv­ity and fair work intern­ally with­in our organ­isa­tion while using our pro­cure­ment and grant award­ing prac­tices to pro­mote these object­ives through­out the Cairngorms and Scotland.

We will con­tin­ue to seek to deploy our resources in ways that max­im­ises the return on our invest­ment, secur­ing match fund­ing and inward invest­ment to the Cairngorms wherever possible.

Our Stat­utory Responsibilities

We will deliv­er our stat­utory respons­ib­il­it­ies as a Plan­ning Author­ity and Access Authority.

Our Plan­ning Author­ity Service

[Insert nar­rat­ive on ser­vice deliv­ery and ser­vice standards]

Our Access Author­ity Service

[Insert nar­rat­ive on ser­vice deliv­ery and ser­vice standards]

Our Pro­grammes Of Work

Our pro­grammes of work are cat­egor­ised on the basis of their primary area of impact and intern­al resourcing, across the three pri­or­ity deliv­ery areas of nature, people, place and our cor­por­ate sup­port func­tions. This cat­egor­isa­tion sup­ports our intern­al man­age­ment, resourcing and com­mu­nic­a­tion struc­tures. This also rep­res­ents the focus for our per­form­ance man­age­ment pro­cesses through which we assess our suc­cess in deliv­er­ing inten­ded out­puts and achiev­ing our agreed stra­tegic goals and objectives.

In prac­tice, each aspect of our work has mul­tiple impacts across a wide range of our pri­or­ity object­ives. For example, our deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme is led through our nature work. This pro­gramme of work will how­ever make the fol­low­ing con­tri­bu­tions across our stra­tegic priorities:

• Nature: we will sup­port the res­tor­a­tion of peat­land across the Cairngorms;
• Nature: we will enhance car­bon cap­ture and reduce car­bon emis­sions, tack­ling the cli­mate crisis;
• People: we will sup­port the devel­op­ment of rel­ev­ant skills and new eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies for people in Cairngorms needed to deliv­er peat­land res­tor­a­tion objectives;
• People: invest­ment in peat­land res­tor­a­tion will sup­port the devel­op­ment of a green, well­being eco­nomy in the Cairngorms;
• Place: we will work to assess the implic­a­tions on hous­ing and infra­struc­ture to meet the chan­ging demands of a Cairngorms green and well­being eco­nomy driv­en in part through deliv­ery of our peat­land res­tor­a­tion programme;
• Cor­por­ate: we will imple­ment effect­ive gov­ernance and con­trol sys­tems to ensure our peat­land res­tor­a­tion work is delivered with­in budget and achieves tar­get peat­land res­tor­a­tion objectives;
• Cor­por­ate: we will com­mu­nic­ate with our stake­hold­ers and res­id­ents on our peat­land res­tor­a­tion work, high­light­ing the works under­taken and bene­fits of the out­comes of this work for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and its con­tri­bu­tion to Scot­tish Government’s nation­al objectives.

Our work typ­ic­ally has such mul­tiple impacts across our pri­or­ity areas as a con­sequence of the inter­linked nature of our activ­it­ies. Con­sequently, fin­an­cial and staff invest­ment which is alloc­ated against one ele­ment of this Cor­por­ate Plan will have mul­tiple impacts across a range of outcomes.

Sig­ni­fic­ant Work Programmes

This Cor­por­ate Plan peri­od will cov­er the com­ple­tion of the Devel­op­ment Phase and, sub­ject to suc­cess­fully sat­is­fy­ing assess­ment cri­ter­ia, the com­mence­ment of the Deliv­ery Phase of the Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme. This £43 mil­lion pro­gramme is fun­ded with £12.6 mil­lion from the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) and match fund­ing from the Cairngorms NPA and a wide range of partners.

[Out­line descrip­tion of HH Programme]

The Cor­por­ate Plan peri­od will also bring the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject, also NLHF fun­ded, to an oper­a­tion­al con­clu­sion and bring the focus to the leg­acy of the project.

The Cairngorms NPA will also lead the Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme as it builds toward an annu­al oper­a­tion­al tar­get of 1,510 hec­tares of restored peat­land by ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ and com­bined annu­al resource and cap­it­al budget of £5.3 mil­lion by this point.

Cairngorms NPA con­tin­ues to sup­port the work of com­munity bod­ies and groups such as the Cairngorms Trust in secur­ing fund­ing for com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment activ­it­ies for Cairngorms’ com­munit­ies. We have agreed to con­tin­ue to act as the Account­able Body for these funds if these arrange­ments are required, with the ambi­tion of at least match­ing the £3 mil­lion secured for com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment through the pre­vi­ous part-EU fun­ded LEAD­ER programme.

Our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy (ODS) con­tin­ues our work over sev­er­al years in devel­op­ing the organ­isa­tion and our cul­ture, to achieve our object­ive of being the best small pub­lic body in Scot­land and build an organ­isa­tion which is val­ued by our staff group. Our ODS will con­tin­ue to focus on fos­ter­ing organ­isa­tion­al beha­viours which rein­force our cul­ture and val­ues, and will be informed by the out­comes of the inde­pend­ent staff sur­vey we con­duct every two years with our staff. Over the course of this Cor­por­ate Plan peri­od, these sur­veys will be held in 2023 and 2025. Our ODS over this Cor­por­ate Plan peri­od has added sig­ni­fic­ance and import­ance as the Cairngorms NPA emerges from COVID19 restric­tions and fully embeds our new work­ing prac­tices around a bal­anced, hybrid work­ing approach of in office, on site and remote work­ing. The Cor­por­ate Plan peri­od will also see the organ­isa­tion move for­ward in fur­ther embed­ding Fair Work, Equal­it­ies and Inclus­iv­ity, Well­being, and in imple­ment­ing Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment dir­ec­tion around a 35 hour work­ing week and four day week.

Our Cor­por­ate Deliv­ery Objectives

Cairngorms NPA’s deliv­ery object­ives are driv­en by the pri­or­it­ies estab­lished through our Cairngorms NPPP as agreed by Scot­tish Min­is­ters, togeth­er with any guid­ance issued in grant award let­ters and spe­cif­ic Min­is­teri­al guid­ance. This work is com­ple­men­ted by the suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of the sig­ni­fic­ant spe­cif­ic work pro­grammes high­lighted in the pre­vi­ous section.

The Cairngorms NPA’s work over the peri­od covered by this plan will be a blend of:

• Dir­ect deliv­ery of pro­jects, pro­grammes and services;
• Dir­ect resource sup­port through grants and oth­er sup­port to part­ners to assist in their deliv­ery of NPPP outcomes;
• Indir­ect work to influ­ence policy devel­op­ment and resource deploy­ment by our partners;
• Influ­en­cing invest­ment decisions by part­ners in the Cairngorms through influ­en­cing policy and offer­ing essen­tial match fund­ing resource con­tri­bu­tions to their projects;
• Coordin­at­ing activ­it­ies and estab­lish­ing an effect­ive per­form­ance man­age­ment frame­work through which to assess the effect­ive­ness of deliv­ery and achieve­ment of outcomes.

The fol­low­ing sec­tions of this Cor­por­ate Plan sets out the key stra­tegic focal points for our work over the com­ing four years. These stra­tegic object­ives for the Cairngorms NPA set out the organisation’s spe­cif­ic role in achiev­ing the agreed Cairngorms NPPP outcomes.

The Cairngorms NPA will estab­lish an oper­a­tion­al plan each year as part of its budget set­ting pro­cesses. This oper­a­tion­al plan will stem from the stra­tegic object­ives estab­lished in this Cor­por­ate Plan, estab­lish­ing the con­tri­bu­tion to be made each year from our invest­ment of staff and fin­an­cial resources toward deliv­ery of these object­ives and ulti­mately con­trib­ut­ing to achieve­ment of the Cairngorms NPPP outcomes.

Cor­por­ate Object­ives: Nature (Draft Example)

Name	NPPP Object­ive	NPPP Actions by 2027	CNPA Dir­ect Deliv­ery	CNPA Indir­ect Delivery
A1: Net Zero	Ensure the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Reaches Net Zero as soon as pos­sible and con­trib­utes all it can to help­ing Scot­land meet its net zero commitments.	• Car­bon audit and baseline estab­lished for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park in 2022. • Estab­lish date for Cairngorms Nation­al Park to be net zero and car­bon neg­at­ive by 2023. • Estab­lish a Com­munity Cli­mate Action Hub for the Nation­al Park. • Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 programme	CNPA will lead on deliv­er­ing baseline report and mon­it­or­ing. CNPA will lead on deliv­er­ing Cairngorms 2030.	CNPA will work with part­ners includ­ing SG to estab­lish a Com­munity Cli­mate Action Hub
A2: Wood­land Expansion	Increase the amount of wood­land in the Nation­al Park to sup­port lar­ger, more nat­ur­al wood­land, expand­ing in places up to a nat­ur­al treeline, provid­ing con­nec­tions across river catch­ments and around the cent­ral core of the mountains.	• Expand wood­land by a min­im­um of 7,000 ha through the deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Forest Strategy and tar­geted grant schemes. • Ensure all scales of wood­land are con­sidered and sup­por­ted, includ­ing agro-forestry, and that at least 2,500 ha is achieved through nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion without plant­ing. • Work with land man­agers to ensure exist­ing wood­lands are man­aged for a range of bene­fits includ­ing tim­ber pro­duc­tion, pub­lic access, biod­iversity etc.	CNPA will lead on deliv­er­ing Cairngorms 2030. Deliv­er Wood­land Chal­lenge Fund	CNPA will provide advice on poten­tial forestry applic­a­tions & forest plans in the Park to landown­ers and Scot­tish Forestry in line with NPPP, Cairngorms Nature & Cairngorms Forest Strategy.
A3: Peat­land Restoration	Restore and man­age peat­land with­in the Nation­al Park to reduce car­bon emis­sions and improve biodiversity.	• Work to deliv­er improve­ments to wood­land deer man­age­ment plan­ning in forest plans. • Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme • Restore a min­im­um of 6,500 ha of peat­land. • Increase con­tract­or and estate capa­city while cre­at­ing job oppor­tun­it­ies through a peat­land skills train­ing pro­gramme • Devel­op guid­ance on the integ­ra­tion of peat­land res­tor­a­tion and wood­land expan­sion in the Nation­al Park • Explore pro­tec­tion options for peat­land res­tor­a­tion from herb­i­vores. • Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 programme	We will sup­port and fin­ance the res­tor­a­tion of peat­land, with 6,500 hec­tares restored by 2027	Peat­land skills train­ing pro­gramme to be developed with part­ners Guid­ance on integ­ra­tion of peat­land and wood­land to be developed with part­ners includ­ing how to pro­tect from herbivores.

Cor­por­ate Object­ives: People

Name	NPPP Object­ive	NPPP Actions by 2027	CNPA Dir­ect Deliv­ery	CNPA Indir­ect Delivery

Cor­por­ate Object­ives: Place

Name	NPPP Object­ive	NPPP Actions by 2027	CNPA Dir­ect Deliv­ery	CNPA Indir­ect Delivery

Cor­por­ate Object­ives: Organ­isa­tion­al and Communications

The best small pub­lic body in Scotland

Cairngorms NPPP	Object­ive	Dir­ect Deliv­ery Out­comes	Indir­ect Activ­ity Outcomes