CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 7 25^th Novem­ber 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: BOARD COM­MIT­TEES ANNU­AL REPORTS

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 in addi­tion to the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tees annu­al report 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 d) Audit and Risk Committee

Back­ground

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

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

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex | 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.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex | 9^th Septem­ber 2022

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

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 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. o) 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

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex 2 9^th Septem­ber 2022

1. Com­mit­tee is open to for attend­ance by any Board mem­ber where mem­bers have an interest on any spe­cif­ic mat­ter under discussion.

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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 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.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex 3 9^th Septem­ber 2022

1. 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.

2. 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.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex 3 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to Board for Peri­od August 2021 to August 2022

Key Activ­it­ies

1. In addi­tion to man­age­ment reports from the Authority’s Intern­al and Extern­al Aud­it­ors, con­sidered in fur­ther detail below, the Com­mit­tee con­sidered the fol­low­ing issues dur­ing the course of the year:

   a) Risk man­age­ment: the Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee has con­tin­ued to take a stra­tegic over­sight of the Authority’s risk man­age­ment strategy and reg­u­larly con­sidered the stra­tegic risk register. The Com­mit­tee has con­sidered the appro­pri­ate­ness of cov­er­age of the stra­tegic risk register sup­port­ing deliv­ery of the Cor­por­ate Plan for ²⁰¹⁸⁄₂₀₂₂ and trans­ition­al plan for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ through­out the peri­od, and scru­tin­ised adequacy of mit­ig­a­tion action, in peri­ods between full Board con­sid­er­a­tions of risk man­age­ment. b) Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan (BCP) Deploy­ment, Adapt­a­tion and Risk Man­age­ment: the Com­mit­tee has con­tin­ued to take over­sight of man­age­ments deploy­ment of the Authority’s BCP and has under­taken reg­u­lar reviews of the BCP Risk Register to ensure appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion of risks in BCP deploy­ment had been designed and imple­men­ted, and that pos­it­ive effects of risk man­age­ment have been real­ised as inten­ded. This pro­cess was signed off as no longer mer­it­ing stra­tegic over­sight by the Com­mit­tee as the organ­isa­tion began the move from BCP deploy­ment into hybrid work­ing. c) Detailed Risk Ana­lys­is: the Com­mit­tee has con­tin­ued the prac­tice in the year of con­sid­er­ing more in depth ana­lys­is of key risks from seni­or man­age­ment. This prac­tice provides an oppor­tun­ity to explore key or increas­ing stra­tegic risks in more detail and eval­u­ate the adequacy of mit­ig­a­tion actions. The Com­mit­tee has con­sidered detailed ana­lys­is of the risks asso­ci­ated with the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme as it moves through its Devel­op­ment Phase. d) LEAD­ER: the Author­ity, as lead body for the man­age­ment and admin­is­tra­tion of EU LEAD­ER fund­ing with­in Cairngorms, has a respons­ib­il­ity to arrange for appro­pri­ate intern­al audit of its LEAD­ER activ­it­ies under the terms of the ser­vice level agree­ment with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The Com­mit­tee has con­sidered intern­al audit reports on the LEAD­ER pro­gramme. The Com­mit­tee can provide assur­ance on the effect­ive admin­is­tra­tion of the LEAD­ER grants from these intern­al audit reports, and of the man­age­ment of the Authority’s poten­tial fin­an­cial liab­il­it­ies arising from our Account­able Body role from scru­tiny of report­ing on stra­tegic risk man­age­ment. e) Account­ing Policy and Estim­ates: the Com­mit­tee reviews and agrees account­ing policies and con­siders any sig­ni­fic­ant estim­ates required in the final­isa­tion of the annu­al accounts as part of its con­sid­er­a­tion of final accounts pri­or to their

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex 3 9^th Septem­ber 2022

sig­na­ture by the Account­able Officer. There were no sig­ni­fic­ant vari­ations to account­ing policy required in the year, nor were any estim­ates causes of concern.

f) Gov­ernance State­ment: review and approv­al of this state­ment, pri­or to its inclu­sion in the annu­al accounts and pri­or to sig­na­ture by the Account­able Officer.

g) Gov­ernance con­sid­er­a­tions: the Com­mit­tee has con­sidered the devel­op­ment of the Park Authority’s Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity Frame­work and feed­back on the board’s elec­tion process.

h) Best Value and Gov­ernance: the Com­mit­tee con­sidered the review of the terms of ref­er­ence of all board Com­mit­tees fol­low­ing the review of com­mit­tee struc­ture in 2021, and its fit with­in that new struc­ture in order to ensure effect­ive ser­vice deliv­ery with­in the con­text of the work of the wider gov­ernance arrangements.

i) Updates on pro­gress in imple­ment­ing pre­vi­ous audit recom­mend­a­tions: the Com­mit­tee has now imple­men­ted a twice yearly audit review of action taken on pre­vi­ous audit recom­mend­a­tions, sup­ple­men­ted from time to time by man­age­ment reports.

j) Con­sid­er­a­tion and agree­ment of for­ward audit activ­ity plans: the Com­mit­tee, has agreed a for­ward plan of intern­al audit activ­ity and has mon­itored pro­gress in suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of the intern­al audit plan for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ with a plan for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ agreed and cur­rently under delivery.

k) Let­ter of rep­res­ent­a­tion: the Com­mit­tee con­sidered the draft let­ter of rep­res­ent­a­tion from the Author­ity to Grant Thornton, the extern­al aud­it­or, pri­or to its sig­na­ture by the Account­able Officer as an appro­pri­ate reflec­tion of the Authority’s pos­i­tion for pre­par­a­tion of the accounts for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ and con­duct of the Authority’s fin­an­cial and wider con­trol pro­ced­ures over the course of the year.

l) Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Act (FOISA) and Data Sub­ject Access Requests (DSAR): the Com­mit­tee has provided over­sight of the Authority’s man­age­ment and hand­ling of inform­a­tion requests made under FOISA and DSAR reg­u­la­tions, includ­ing the out­come of a small num­ber of refer­rals made by applic­ant to the Scot­tish Inform­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er. With both an assur­ance and Best Value focus, the Committee’s over­sight of these mat­ters has provided con­firm­a­tion on behalf of the Board of the adequacy and effic­acy of arrange­ments imple­men­ted by man­age­ment to handle inform­a­tion requests and con­tinu­ally learn from exper­i­ence and out­comes of processes.

Intern­al Audit

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex 3 9^th Septem­ber 2022

1. The Com­mit­tee agree an annu­al intern­al audit work pro­gramme presen­ted by the intern­al auditor.

2. Over the course of the peri­od of this report, Azets have presen­ted eight man­age­ment reports to the Com­mit­tee. Their find­ings and con­sequent recom­mend­a­tions for action are graded accord­ing to the intern­al aud­it­ors’ assess­ment of the sig­ni­fic­ance of the under­ly­ing weak­ness to the effect­ive man­age­ment of the organisation.

3. Table One presents a sum­mary of the num­ber and degree of sig­ni­fic­ance of intern­al audit find­ings over the peri­od of this report and com­pares this with his­tor­ic levels. The defin­i­tions used for sig­ni­fic­ance of intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions have changed slightly with the change in intern­al audit pro­vider from KPMG to BDO. These defin­i­tions are giv­en after the table. The areas audited are also clas­si­fied in terms of over­all effect­ive­ness of the intern­al audit con­trol sys­tems reviews and these clas­si­fic­a­tions are also explained below the table.

Table One: Sum­mary of Intern­al Audit Findings

Intern­al Audit Study	Num­ber of Recommendations
	Crit­ic­al	High	Mod­er­ate	Low
2011⁄12 Total (7 studies)	0	3	14	9
2012⁄13 Total (4 studies)	0	0	0	10
2013⁄14 Total (7 studies)	0	1	9	11
2014⁄15 Total (4 studies)	0	0	5	13
2015⁄16 Total (9 studies)	0	0	9	10
2016⁄17 Total (8 studies)	n/​a	0	11	11
2017⁄18 Total (3 studies)	n/​a	0	3	7
2018⁄19 Total (9 studies)	n/​a	1	6	10
2019⁄21 Total (9 studies)	0	5	16	21
2021⁄22 Total (5 studies)	0	4	10	2

The ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ stud­ies were:

	Very High	High	Mod­er­ate	Lim­ited

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex 3 9^th Septem­ber 2022

LEAD­ER Admin­is­tra­tion (Oct 21)	0	0	2	2
Fin­an­cial Man­age­ment Report­ing (Feb 22)	0	0	3	0
Major Pro­ject Assur­ance (Feb 22)	0	0	2	0
ICT Strategy (May 22)	0	2	2	0
Cyber Secur­ity (May 22)	0	2	1	0
Total for period	0	4	10	2

Key -

Azets defin­i­tion of grades for man­age­ment action recommendations:

a) Very High Risk Expos­ure: major con­cerns requir­ing imme­di­ate seni­or atten­tion that cre­ate fun­da­ment­al risks with­in the organ­isa­tion b) High Risk Expos­ure: absence / fail­ure of key con­trols that cre­ate sig­ni­fic­ant risks with­in the organ­isa­tion c) Mod­er­ate Risk Expos­ure: con­trols are not work­ing effect­ively and effi­ciently and may cre­ate mod­er­ate risks with­in the organ­isa­tion d) Lim­ited Risk Expos­ure: con­trols are work­ing effect­ively, but could be strengthened to pre­vent the cre­ation of minor risks or address gen­er­al house-keep­ing issues.

1. The Com­mit­tee wel­comes the fact that once again there have been no highest grade recom­mend­a­tions raised by intern­al audit over the course of the peri­od covered by this report. The Com­mit­tee has noted a num­ber of high risk expos­ure recom­mend­a­tions in the more recent reports and will mon­it­or res­ol­u­tion of these mat­ters with­in agreed timetables..

2. In line with the Authority’s val­ues of trans­par­ency, the Com­mit­tee is made aware of all recom­mend­a­tions made by the intern­al aud­it­ors, through con­sid­er­a­tion of full man­age­ment reports fol­low­ing each audit review.

3. The Com­mit­tee has agreed man­age­ment responses to all recom­mend­a­tions made and con­tin­ues to mon­it­or pro­gress made. The intern­al aud­it­ors have also con­duc­ted fol­low-up reports and report back to the Com­mit­tee on their findings.

4. The Com­mit­tee has con­sidered the Intern­al Aud­it­ors’ Annu­al Report for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. The intern­al auditor’s annu­al report for the year gives the fol­low­ing over­all opin­ion: ​“In our opin­ion CNPA has a frame­work of gov­ernance, risk man­age­ment and con­trols that provides reas­on­able assur­ance regard­ing the effect­ive and effi­cient achieve­ment of objectives”.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex 3 9^th Septem­ber 2022

Extern­al Audit

1. The Authority’s accounts for ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ received a clear, unqual­i­fied extern­al auditor’s report and opin­ion from Grant Thornton, our extern­al auditors.

2. The accounts and extern­al auditor’s report for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ were con­sidered and approved by the Com­mit­tee at its meet­ing on 10 Septem­ber 2021. The accounts were signed by the Chief Exec­ut­ive as Account­able Officer and passed to Audit Scot­land for sig­na­ture and onward sub­mis­sion to Aud­it­or Gen­er­al and Scot­tish Parliament.

3. The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee con­sidered Grant Thornton’s draft report to those charged with gov­ernance on the audit of the ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ accounts at its meet­ing of 10 Septem­ber 2020. The report high­lighted only one action point, ref­er­en­cing the require­ment to ensure appro­pri­ate pro­cesses and resources were put in place to admin­is­ter and claim the size­able Nation­al Lot­tery Fund Her­it­age Hori­zons grant. This action was accep­ted by man­age­ment and the Com­mit­tee and was an action which man­age­ment were already progressing.

4. The extern­al audit report noted that the single action point noted in the pri­or year had been fully closed.

5. The extern­al audit report noted that com­plete draft fin­an­cial state­ments, includ­ing the Per­form­ance Report, Account­ab­il­ity Report and Gov­ernance State­ment with­in the agreed timescales.

Stra­tegic Risk Management

1. The Authority’s stra­tegic risk register has con­tin­ued to be reviewed and revised as neces­sary through­out this report­ing peri­od by the Com­mit­tee and full Board, ensur­ing it reflects the deliv­ery pri­or­it­ies and stra­tegic envir­on­ment of the Author­ity in its deliv­ery of our new Cor­por­ate Plan for 2018 to 2022 and trans­ition­al plan for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃. The Board reviews the stra­tegic risk register twice each year, while con­sid­er­ing wider cor­por­ate per­form­ance reports. The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee will con­tin­ue to review the cov­er­age and adequacy of the stra­tegic risk register in those quar­ters where it is not presen­ted to the full Board.

Con­clu­sions

1. The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee con­siders that it has been suc­cess­ful in pro­gress­ing the Board’s gov­ernance and intern­al con­trol pri­or­it­ies dur­ing the peri­od covered by this annu­al report.

2. The Com­mit­tee wel­comes the work of the Authority’s fin­ance team in once again main­tain­ing a high qual­ity and pro­fes­sion­al fin­an­cial account­ing ser­vice with­in agreed

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board meet­ing Paper 8 Annex 3 9^th Septem­ber 2022

audit times­cales des­pite the var­ied pres­sures of remote work­ing and oth­er BCP and COV­ID 19 impacts. The Com­mit­tee also greatly appre­ci­ates the work of the intern­al and extern­al aud­it­ors in adapt­ing their work­ing prac­tices to deal with the impacts of COVID19 over the last year.

1. The Com­mit­tee has engaged through the year with issues iden­ti­fied by the Authority’s intern­al and extern­al aud­it­ors, and also by the Authority’s officers. The Com­mit­tee has received full reports on issues raised; con­sidered recom­mend­a­tions made; and approved responses and actions. The Com­mit­tee has shaped and approved the over­all audit plan and guided the dir­ec­tion and approach of the intern­al aud­it­ors and their pro­gramme of work. The Com­mit­tee has also mon­itored deliv­ery against approved action plans.

2. Both the intern­al and extern­al aud­it­ors’ find­ings provide assur­ance to the Com­mit­tee and Board that the Authority’s intern­al con­trol and gov­ernance object­ives are being met effect­ively by management.

3. It is also reas­sur­ing for Com­mit­tee mem­bers to see once again that audit recom­mend­a­tions have typ­ic­ally been of a low or mod­er­ate risk level. It is accep­ted that there will always be a range of improve­ments than can be made to ser­vices and con­trols; that these con­trols must con­tin­ue to adapt to chan­ging oper­at­ing and stra­tegic envir­on­ments; and as such a num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions for improve­ment from intern­al audit will always be expec­ted. The Com­mit­tee warmly wel­comes the evid­ence of gen­er­ally effect­ive con­trol sys­tems evid­enced by the reports and very low level of improve­ment recom­mend­a­tions arising from audits over the year.

4. The Com­mit­tee will con­tin­ue to address key, basic issues of intern­al con­trol and the devel­op­ment of appro­pri­ate pro­cesses with­in the Authority.

5. The Com­mit­tee will also seek to con­tin­ue to have over­sight of the Authority’s approach to and hand­ling of risk man­age­ment, and of wider aspects of cor­por­ate gov­ernance such as the approach to Best Value and value for money. In par­tic­u­lar, mem­bers will seek to ensure that les­sons are learned from oper­a­tion­al exper­i­ence and that wherever pos­sible reviews of work­ing prac­tices and learn­ing from them lead to improve­ments in our systems.