CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 7 9^th Septem­ber 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: ANNU­AL REPORTS OF BOARD COMMITTEES

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SER­VICES & DEPUTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Pur­pose

This paper presents the Annu­al Reports of the Per­form­ance, Gov­ernance and Resources Com­mit­tees to the Board.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to note the Annu­al Reports to the Board from the: a) Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee b) Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee c) Resources Committee

Back­ground

1. The Author­ity has now com­pleted the first year of oper­a­tion of its revised Com­mit­tee structure.

2. In line with intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions and as an ele­ment of the remit of the Com­mit­tees, each Com­mit­tee sub­mits an annu­al report cov­er­ing its activ­it­ies and reflect­ing on its oper­a­tions over the course of the last year to the full bord. This paper presents the reports for those Com­mit­tees which have now com­pleted their annu­al cycle. Due to the Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee meet­ing being sched­uled on 23^rd Septem­ber, its Annu­al Report will be presen­ted to the Board at its Novem­ber meeting.

Dav­id Camer­on 12 August 2022 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

---

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 7 Annex I 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to Board for Peri­od August 2021 to August 2022

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. 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. Some mat­ters of con­cern around levels of resourcing and capa­city fall­ing below require­ment for Her­it­age Hori­zons and Peat­land Pro­grammes and the assessed poten­tial risks around those 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. The Com­mit­tee has been keen to foster a trust­ing and open approach to its work and, as a res­ult, it has been pos­sible to have some very full and frank dis­cus­sions on some of the reports it has considered.

---

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 7 Annex 2 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to Board for Peri­od August 2021 to August 2022

Activ­ity in Period

1. The Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee was estab­lished fol­low­ing a review of the Cairngorms NPA’s Board com­mit­tee struc­tures over the first quarter of ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. The Com­mit­tee form­al­ised the ​“Gov­ernance Group” of Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener and Com­mit­tee Chairs which pre­vi­ously met to sup­port man­age­ment of gov­ernance, stra­tegic devel­op­ment, and Board man­age­ment activities.

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 fol­low­ing key aspects of the Cairngorms NPA’s oper­a­tions over the course of the report­ing period:

   a) Oper­a­tion of Board com­mit­tees with­in their terms of ref­er­ence. b) Com­mu­nic­a­tion strategy and its imple­ment­a­tion. c) Devel­op­ment of private fin­ance and green fin­ance ini­ti­at­ives. d) Board com­plaints pro­ced­ure. e) Board devel­op­ment, eval­u­ation, and train­ing. f) Board appoint­ment pro­cesses includ­ing devel­op­ment of skills mat­rix. g) Appoint­ment of Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or role. h) Liais­on with Scot­tish Min­is­ters. i) Over­sight of Board busi­ness schedul­ing and Board agen­das. j) Over­sight of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment stra­tegic spend­ing and budget review exer­cises. k) Over­sight of Board’s digit­al and vir­tu­al oper­a­tions: hybrid meet­ings, devel­op­ment, sup­port require­ments and imple­ment­a­tion of Board portal. l) Over­sight of evol­u­tion of COVID19 busi­ness con­tinu­ity responses. m) Check­point reviews of key pro­grammes and pro­jects: includ­ing Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme, Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie pro­ject, and peat­land res­tor­a­tion green fin­ance activ­it­ies. n) New Mod­el Code of Con­duct devel­op­ment and imple­ment­a­tion. ○) Board mem­bers’ com­mit­ments to extern­al organisations.

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 per­form­ance, resources and risk man­age­ment have been recog­nised and duplic­ate work has attemp­ted to be minimised.

2. The Com­mit­tee had a con­sist­ent mem­ber­ship over the course of the year with excel­lent attend­ance and engage­ment by mem­bers in mat­ters covered. The

3. The Com­mit­tee has not iden­ti­fied any changes required to its terms of ref­er­ence over the course of this report­ing period.

4. Part of the Committee’s role is to con­sider the sched­ule of busi­ness for the full Board. There have been no instances of need for escal­a­tion of con­cerns to the full Board in terms of events iden­ti­fied requir­ing mat­ters to be raised with the Board as excep­tion­al items. Some minor mat­ters have been made known to oth­er com­mit­tees to enhance coordin­ated assur­ance over organ­isa­tion­al performance.

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 Gov­ernance com­mit­tee meet­ings as part of a sched­ule of three com­mit­tees is wel­comed and will be mon­itored for effectiveness.

6. The Com­mit­tee are of the view that the adapt­a­tion and enhance­ments made to the Cairngorms NPA com­mit­tee struc­ture in 2021 have made a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the over­view and scru­tiny of the work of the organ­isa­tion and sig­ni­fic­antly enhanced levels of assur­ance. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee in par­tic­u­lar has led to a mater­i­al improve­ment in levels of assur­ance, enabling reg­u­lar deep dives into major pro­ject and pro­gramme work and, through doing so, improv­ing board gov­ernance and scru­tiny. The com­bin­a­tion of over­sight of both staff and fin­an­cial resource deploy­ment into a single Resources Com­mit­tee has also provided for enhanced over­view and assur­ance through more integ­rated ana­lys­is and review of deploy­ment of the Authority’s total resources.

Con­clu­sions

1. The Com­mit­tee believes that the estab­lish­ment of the Com­mit­tee has made a pos­it­ive enhance­ment to the assur­ance pro­cesses of the Cairngorms NPA, form­al­ising and schedul­ing key gov­ernance over­view activ­it­ies and dis­cus­sions which had pre­vi­ously been on a more ad hoc basis. The oper­a­tion of the Resources Com­mit­tee has provided an import­ant and effect­ive ele­ment of assur­ance to the Cairngorms NPA’s gov­ernance and assur­ance systems.

2. The Com­mit­tee believes there are no sig­ni­fic­ant changes needed in the Committee’s oper­a­tions over the com­ing year.

3. 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.

---

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 7 Annex 3 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Resources Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to Board for Peri­od August 2021 to August 2022

Activ­ity in Period

1. The Resources Com­mit­tee was estab­lished fol­low­ing a review of the Cairngorms NPA’s board com­mit­tee struc­tures over the first quarter of ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. The Com­mit­tee com­bined may of the respons­ib­il­it­ies of the pre­vi­ous Fin­ance and Deliv­ery and Staff­ing and Recruit­ment Committees.

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 fol­low­ing key aspects of the Cairngorms NPA’s oper­a­tions over the course of the report­ing period:

   a) Staff pay award effect­ive from I April 2022; b) Devel­op­ment of ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ budget; c) Budget mon­it­or­ing for both ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ and ²⁰²²⁄₂₃; d) Draft fin­an­cial out­turn pos­i­tion for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂; e) Deliv­er­ing the Cairngorms NPA’s Equal­ity Duties; f) Staff engage­ment, includ­ing the res­ults of the staff sur­vey and Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um dis­cus­sions; g) Evol­u­tion of staff terms and con­di­tions, par­tic­u­larly around the devel­op­ment of 35 hour work­ing week pro­pos­als; h) The Right to Dis­con­nect Charter; i) Health and Safety operations;

4. The Com­mit­tee also ini­ti­ated con­sid­er­a­tion of the poten­tial for devel­op­ing com­mer­cial income and the committee’s future con­sid­er­a­tion of this aspect of the Authority’s activ­ity toward the end of this report­ing peri­od. The Com­mit­tee will take this aspect of work for­ward in future years.

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 per­form­ance and risk man­age­ment have been recog­nised and minimised.

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.

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.

Con­clu­sions

1. The oper­a­tion of the Resources Com­mit­tee has provided an import­ant and effect­ive ele­ment of assur­ance to the Cairngorms NPA’s gov­ernance and assur­ance systems.

2. Mem­bers believe the com­bin­a­tion of the remits of two com­mit­tees into a single com­mit­tee scru­tin­ising the key areas of fin­an­cial and staff resources, in addi­tion to some over­sight of wider resources work in the deploy­ment of offices and oth­er facil­it­ies, has giv­en an enhanced level of assur­ance over these key areas. The Committee’s view there­fore after the first year of oper­a­tion is that the Com­mit­tee should be retained as an ele­ment of the Cairngorms NPA’s gov­ernance and assur­ance frame­work under its cur­rent remit.

3. 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.

4. 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.