CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 1 30/09/22

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY AUDIT & RISK COMMITTEE

FOR DECISION

Title: INTERN­AL AUDIT: PEAT­LAND ACTION PRO­GRAMME SET UP

Cov­er Paper Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DEPUTY CHIEF EXEC­UT­IVE AND DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SERVICES

Report Sub­mit­ted by: ELIZA­BETH YOUNG, AZETS STEPHANIE HUME, AZETS

Pur­pose

This paper presents the review of the Cairngorms NPA’s estab­lish­ment of the Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme and design and imple­ment­a­tion of arrange­ments to sup­port the oper­a­tion of that programme.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Con­sider the intern­al aud­it­ors report and find­ings; b) Endorse the man­age­ment responses to recom­mend­a­tions for future action and sys­tem improvements.

Exec­ut­ive Summary

1. Azets have under­taken a review of the Authority’s estab­lish­ment of the Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme, and design and imple­ment­a­tion of arrange­ments to sup­port the oper­a­tion of that pro­gramme. The intern­al audit report is presen­ted in full at Annex 1 to this paper.

2. As a sig­ni­fic­ant, new pro­gramme of activ­ity for the Cairngorms NPA, man­age­ment asked Azets to add this review to the exist­ing pro­gramme of intern­al audit activ­ity agreed with­in the ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ intern­al audit pro­gramme. The Man­age­ment Team recog­nised from the early stages of trans­fer of del­eg­ated respons­ib­il­ity for deliv­ery of a Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme to the Park Author­ity that imple­ment­a­tion of this pro­gramme and achieve­ment of agreed out­comes will require more than the ​“tra­di­tion­al” grant man­age­ment activ­it­ies and pro­cesses on which the team’s pro­cesses were ori­gin­ally built. The lack of capa­city, rel­ev­ant know­ledge and skills with­in many of the poten­tial land man­age­ment and con­tract­or stake­hold­ers with­in this sec­tor have required the Cairngorms NPA Peat­land team to play a much fuller role in the devel­op­ment and deliv­ery of pro­jects than would be the case with a more typ­ic­al grant pro­gramme. There has also been sig­ni­fic­ant pres­sure on the team to deliv­er pro­ject work and peat­land res­tor­a­tion ​‘on the ground’ with little time since the Park Author­ity took on respons­ib­il­ity for the pro­gramme to reflect on sys­tem design and pro­cess. In recog­ni­tion of this situ­ation man­age­ment felt it was appro­pri­ate to under­take an intern­al audit at an early stage in the Park Authority’s own­er­ship of and respons­ib­il­ity for the programme’s aims and object­ives in order to help dir­ect the required evol­u­tion of the admin­is­trat­ive struc­ture and con­trol framework.

3. Giv­en the new and evolving nature of this area of work, the intern­al audit has recog­nised a num­ber of sig­ni­fic­ant areas of work required cre­ate and improve the required con­trol systems.

4. A total of nine recom­mend­a­tions sup­port­ing devel­op­ment and enhance­ment of these con­trol sys­tems and pro­cesses have been made. Two recom­mend­a­tions for action are raised at a red level, assessed as hav­ing very high risk exposure.

5. The first high risk area of work (con­trol 2.1 in the Annex) relates to the need to estab­lish a ​“full ser­vice” agree­ment with land man­agers to make expli­cit the respect­ive roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies of all act­ors involved in each peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­ject. Inform­a­tion presen­ted in an earli­er draft of the intern­al audit report has already been used to take for­ward this action by com­mis­sion­ing leg­al work to draw up a full ser­vices agree­ment for use with land managers.

6. The second very high risk area of work (con­trol 4.1 in the Annex) relates to a full review and con­sol­id­a­tion of the Peat­land ACTION teams pro­cesses and pro­cures. Man­age­ment Team has already restruc­tured the team to add addi­tion­al man­age­ment capa­city and there­fore provide addi­tion­al resource to sup­port review and redesign of intern­al pro­cesses. The team as a whole will also con­trib­ute to this action over the winter months while there is less pres­sure from pro­ject design and management.

7. Of the remain­ing recom­mend­a­tions, six are assessed as present­ing a high risk expos­ure with one present­ing mod­er­ate risk con­sid­er­a­tions. All recom­mend­a­tions have been accep­ted by man­age­ment. Responses to recom­mend­a­tions out­lining future action to be taken, officers respons­ible and timetable for action have been set out in the report at Annex I.

8. Of the five areas of con­trol assess­ment covered by the review, two areas are assessed as hav­ing an absence of required key con­trols, reflect­ing the evol­u­tion­ary nature of the work with­in this pro­gramme; the work required to imple­ment the very high risk recom­mend­a­tions covered above; and the rationale for management’s com­mis­sion­ing of this review work. Two fur­ther con­trol areas are assessed as not cur­rently achieved with work as covered by recom­mend­a­tions needed to resolve con­trol gaps. The remain­ing con­trol object­ive is iden­ti­fied as hav­ing rel­ev­ant con­trol object­ives achieved while with scope for improvement.

9. The audit recom­mend­a­tion is to ensure all con­tracts are in place between land man­agers and con­tract­ors before grant con­tracts are approved to start has now been imple­men­ted with intern­al con­trols designed and imple­men­ted. Wider sep­ar­a­tion of duties and respons­ib­il­it­ies have also been designed and in the pro­cess of imple­ment­a­tion through the revised team structure.

Dav­id Cameron 20 Septem­ber 2022 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk