221125DraftPerformanceCtteeMins

DRAFT MINUTES OF THE PER­FORM­ANCE COM­MIT­TEE MEET­ING of THE CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY held at Grant­own on Spey on 25^th Novem­ber 2022 at 13.25

PRESENT Wil­lie Mun­ro (Chair) Xan­der McDade Douglas McAdam (Vice-Chair) Anne Rae Mac­don­ald Janet Hunter Wil­lie McKenna

In Attend­ance: Grant Moir, CEO Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or for Nature, and Cli­mate Change Catri­ona Strang, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies: Dav­id Clyne, Head of Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030, Lisa Mcls­sac, Data, Report­ing and Gov­ernance Manager

Wel­come

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing of Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee. New mem­bers have been spoken to based on sub­ject interest and a paper set­ting out planned future com­mit­tee mem­ber­ships dis­trib­uted to gov­ernance com­mit­tee, with the cur­rent mem­ber­ship of the Com­mit­tee as is for this meeting.

Declar­a­tion of Interests

1. Doug McAdam noted for trans­par­ency exist­ing entries in his Register of Interests with a bear­ing on the fol­low­ing items: a) Paper I — HH pro­ject — Inde­pend­ent Chair of the South Grampi­an Deer Man­age­ment Group: a remu­ner­ated interest. b) Paper 3 — sits on the Caper­cail­lie Board as CNPA Board Rep­res­ent­at­ive. Neither of these mat­ters were con­sidered to rep­res­ent a con­flict of interest and Doug McAdam there­fore noted that he would par­ti­cip­ate in the con­sid­er­a­tion of both items mentioned.

Minutes of Last Meet­ings held – for approval

1. The draft Minutes of the last meet­ing held on 12^th August 2022 were agreed with two amend­ments a) Para 6. Amended to state that the com­mit­tee agreed the recom­mend­a­tions b) Para 20. Inclu­sion of High­land Coun­cil and Police Scot­land at end of sentence.

Mat­ters Arising

1. The fol­low­ing out­stand­ing action were agreed as closed with remain­ing mat­ters to be addressed noted in the table at the end of this minute a) 29 Octo­ber 2021 i. Para 41i– CEO to look again at the HH Advis­ory Pan­el mem­ber­ship and to have in place for the meet­ing on 13^th May 2022. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme Man­ager explained they are still look­ing for a farm­ing rep. Hoped to be in place for the next advis­ory pan­el meet­ing. In place — a new rep­res­ent­at­ive from All The Ele­ments equal­it­ies group. b) 11 Feb­ru­ary 2022 i. Para 19iv) – Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to look fur­ther into the liv­ing wage as a require­ment for the future and report back to the Com­mit­tee. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices look­ing at KPIs and would have res­ult in next few weeks. Noted Liv­ing Wage is a require­ment for dir­ect LEAD­ER grant recip­i­ents. ii. Para 30i) – Chair, Vice-Chair and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to dis­cuss the report­ing of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee and bring it back to the Com­mit­tee. Noted the stand­ard format of report­ing to the Com­mit­tee had been agreed.

Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme Update (Paper I)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice intro­duced the paper which updated the Com­mit­tee on the Q3 2022 Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme and the planned devel­op­ment work to end Decem­ber 2022. Dav­id high­lighted the per­form­ance RAG rat­ing at the begin­ning of paper with the great major­ity of pro­gramme ele­ments oper­at­ing with­in accept­able risk tol­er­ance. He drew atten­tion to the require­ment to look at staff employ­ment con­tracts when mov­ing on to the deliv­ery phase. The bid dead­line for deliv­ery phase has moved to August 2023.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A mem­bers high­lighted sig­ni­fic­ant increase in costs due to infla­tion and how this was being man­aged with­in the budget fig­ures. b) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice noted that this was a chal­lenge and costs will be impacted by infla­tion. The com­pleted pro­gramme bid pro­file will include an expli­cit assump­tion of infla­tion over the next 4 – 5 years and infla­tion cost pro­vi­sion. The pro­gramme team are in com­mu­nic­a­tion with Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund about this mat­ter as part of the bid devel­op­ment. c) A mem­ber asked if Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund has a strategy in place for all its pro­ject to mit­ig­ate inflation.

d) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice noted that the effect of infla­tion is on the cur­rent devel­op­ment stage of the pro­gramme rather than deliv­ery phase. The bid for the deliv­ery phase will need to anti­cip­ate future infla­tion move­ment, where­as we are cur­rently seek­ing to accom­mod­ate exist­ing infla­tion impacts with­in the fixed pro­gramme budget. e) A mem­ber asked where the fund­ing for the pro­posed exten­sion of staff con­tracts is com­ing from. 7. 8. f) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice con­firmed there as a fund­ing envel­ope in the budget to accom­mod­ate this. There was delay in recruit­ment so fund­ing is avail­able with­in pro­gramme budget for exten­sion to bid sub­mis­sion date, but there is a cost con­sequence to the park due to the start of the deliv­ery phase being delayed. g) A mem­ber asked that a review of the fund­ing and where the pro­ject sits is presen­ted at the next per­form­ance com­mit­tee. h) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices noted that the resources com­mit­tee sees fig­ures on the pro­ject and how much sup­port is required. The per­form­ance com­mit­tee will then see this as well as a check point where the devel­op­ment phase and pre­par­a­tion of the deliv­ery phase in March. After both com­mit­tee a report will be presen­ted at the full board deal­ing with the sub­mis­sion of the Deliv­ery Phase bid. Audit and Risk com­mit­tee will also be look­ing at HH pro­gramme risks that may escal­ate the over­all risk to the Park Author­ity and mer­it inclu­sion on the Cairngorms NPA stra­tegic risk register. i) Con­firm­a­tion that Janet Hunter will be a rep­res­ent­at­ive on the Her­it­age Hori­zon Pro­ject Board. j) A mem­ber asked if the rela­tion to Sus­trans the syn­chron­ic­a­tion of fund­ing date had been resolved. k) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice con­firmed there was no con­clus­ive pro­gress as the timeline from Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery fund has changed. This remains an ongo­ing mat­ter. There remains a strong expect­a­tion that we will get fund­ing for later stages.

The com­mit­tee noted the paper. Action Points Arising: a) For future report­ing, ensure with­in the RAG rat­ing sys­tem the col­our is writ­ten on top of the col­our for DDA com­pli­ance and explan­a­tion of RAG rat­ing system.

Cairngorms Peat­land Action Pro­gramme Deliv­ery (Paper 2)

1. Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which presents the latest deliv­ery update for the Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme for 2022 – 23.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a. A mem­ber asked about the mon­it­or­ing of Meth­ane released into the air on an estate in the park. b. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed there are sev­er­al research pro­jects tak­ing place. c. A mem­ber asked if there was pro­gres­sion on the use of wool with­in any pro­jects. d. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed that they were in con­tact with a land man­ager who is cur­rently using wool and mon­it­or­ing its use. e. A mem­ber was keen to see the devel­op­ment of wool and use any learn­ing from estates that are using it cur­rently. Two mem­bers had vis­ited the pro­ject on the Mar Lodge Estate and have seen the use of wool there. f. A mem­ber asked if we have the num­bers of train­ees who have secured employ­ment with con­tract­ors and if this can be shared through media chan­nels? g. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed that we have a list of con­tract­ors but not aware of inform­a­tion on the num­ber of train­ees pro­gress­ing to employ­ment. h. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate, con­firmed that we can seek to col­late the inform­a­tion, as skills and devel­op­ment is one of the indic­at­ors in the NPPP. The num­bers will be repor­ted with­in the green eco­nomy ele­ment of the NPPP Mon­it­or­ing Frame­work in due course. i. A mem­ber asked if the train­ees had come from a land man­age­ment back­ground or dif­fer­ent industry? j. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate respon­ded that con­tact­ors are anonym­ous dur­ing com­pet­i­tion / pro­cure­ment assess­ment, but post­code inform­a­tion is giv­en and is shown as new entry in the green eco­nomy. k. A mem­ber asked if there was an edu­ca­tion­al cer­ti­fic­a­tion l. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate con­firmed that UHI and SFC are devel­op­ing a Fur­ther Edu­ca­tion pro­gramme in Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion. m. A mem­ber asked why there is an under­spend and if this can be held onto at the end of the fin­an­cial year. n. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed the under­spend was due to delays in staff recruit­ments, delays in con­tacts start­ing, and some of the budget will be handed back to Scot­tish Government.

Ο. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice con­firmed that the fund­ing to be returned is cap­it­al from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, while some pro­vi­sion will be held back for any claims arising in response to the increase in costs. With agree­ment from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, there is pos­sib­il­ity the fund­ing returned in ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ can be repro­filed into the com­ing years. P. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed there is a lim­it­ing factor in scal­ing up the pro­gramme as there is a max­im­um to the num­ber of pro­jects each staff mem­ber can handle.

1. Andy Ford noted that this was a con­straint for the future and design work would likely even­tu­ally move to the private sec­tor as this part of the eco­nomy developed a more mature private sec­tor sup­ply. r. A mem­ber asked why two pro­jects had not yet star­ted. S. Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed that the con­tract­ors were work­ing on oth­er pro­jects t. Chair passed on thanks to all involved

Recom­mend­a­tion a) The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to note the pro­gramme update.

The com­mit­tee noted the paper.

||. Action Points Arising: None

Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject Paper 3

1. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or for Nature, and Cli­mate Change intro­duced the paper which presents the latest deliv­ery updates on the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject. a) The pro­ject has an exten­sion in time until Decem­ber 2023, while there will be no addi­tion­al work or budget added. All fin­an­cial con­sequences of the exten­sion will be accom­mod­ated with­in the cur­rent budget. The team are cur­rently mov­ing on to leg­acy map­ping and areas of work with­in the NPPP. There will be over­lap with the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee, and we are await­ing release of their report.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A mem­ber asked if the green plastic being used in Car­rbridge was the cor­rect mater­i­al to use. b) Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change con­firmed the use of the plastic as an altern­at­ive dur­ing the fence remov­al activ­ity, which is on-going.

c) A mem­ber asked if the pub­lic per­cep­tion of the pro­ject was cor­rect and if they were aware of the suc­cess of the pro­ject? d) Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change respon­ded that the pro­ject aim was get com­munit­ies involved in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion and this has been suc­cess­ful with beha­vi­our­al change and busi­ness involve­ment. The over­all num­bers of caper­cail­lie have fallen dur­ing the pro­ject but this is from genet­ic and pred­at­or causes. The pro­ject is achiev­ing all agreed and fun­ded aims and no oth­er group is com­plet­ing work in this area. e) A mem­ber asked if a single A4 paper could be shared with the board mem­bers head­lining the key aims and mes­sage of the pro­ject f) Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change he would pre­pare a short brief­ing papers and dir­ect to the web­site. g) A mem­ber asked if there are any chal­lenges in oth­er areas of the park. h) Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change con­firmed that Car­rbridge com­munity were deliv­er­ing their own actions inde­pend­ently. There has been pos­it­ive work with Moun­tain Bik­ing, with Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship and Deeside Land man­age­ment are both included. The next phase is speak­ing with dog walk­ing com­munity. i) A mem­ber asked if the staff changes had any impact on budget. j) Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change con­firmed there was no impact on core resources and change was accom­mod­ated with budget envel­ope. k) Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change informed the com­mit­tee that the Sci­entif­ic report is in the last stage pri­or to the Min­is­ter receiv­ing it, we do not know the times­cale to receive a copy.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to review deliv­ery updates and con­sider: a) pro­gress towards the project’s agreed pur­poses. b) any stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on deliv­ery of the CNPA’s Cor­por­ate Plan and Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan; c) any mater­i­al impacts on the CNPA’s stra­tegic risk management.

The com­mit­tee noted the paper.

1. Action Points Arising: Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change to pre­pare a single page brief­ing on pro­ject aims.

AOCB

None. Date of Next Meeting

1. The next meet­ing of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee 10^th March 2023.
2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 14:37 hours.

Action Points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ings: | Date of Meet­ing | Action | Respons­ible Officer | Cur­rent Status | Com­ment | | — -| — -| — -| — -| — -| | 11^th Feb­ru­ary 2022 | Para 19i) — Audit of Foot­path Main­ten­ance to come back to Com­mit­tee at some point in future. | | Open | Report to be brought back to com­mit­tee. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­firm timeline with SMT for Com­mit­tee Sched­ule | | 11^th Feb­ru­ary 2022 | Para 19ii) — Report relat­ing to Vis­it Scot­land fund­ing to be brought to the Com­mit­tee. | | Open | Report to be brought back to com­mit­tee. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­firm timeline with SMT for Com­mit­tee Sched­ule | | 11^th Feb­ru­ary 2022 | Para 19iii) Open — Look at Green Fund­ing par­tic­u­larly via Her­it­age Hori­zons. | | Open | Report to be brought back to com­mit­tee. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­firm timeline with SMT for Com­mit­tee Sched­ule | | 13^th May 2022 | Para 16 a) Trans­fer of the ​‘Design & Build’ Ser­vice into the private sec­tor over time should be reviewed reg­u­larly | | Open | Times­cale of report­ing Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­firm timeline with SMT for Com­mit­tee Schedule |