221125PerfromanceCtteePaper2AAPeatland

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 2 25^th Novem­ber 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY PER­FORM­ANCE COMMITTEE

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Programme

Pre­pared by: Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Management

Pur­pose

This paper presents an update on the deliv­ery of the CNPA’s Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme for 2022 – 23.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to note the pro­gramme update.

Stra­tegic Background

1. The peat­land pro­gramme will con­trib­ute to the deliv­ery of the tar­gets and pri­or­it­ies of NPPP4. It is also key for assist­ing in the imple­ment­a­tion of the Her­it­age Hori­zon Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme, provid­ing the major­ity of the Programme’s planned match fund­ing for the deliv­ery phase com­men­cing mid 2023 sub­ject to bid approv­al. The pro­gramme is sup­port­ing the deliv­ery of the Scot­tish Government’s peat­land res­tor­a­tion targets.

Per­form­ance Dashboard

Per­form­ance Meas­ure for 2022⁄23	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Fin­ance: max­im­ise use of £2.962 mil­lion cap­it­al fin­ance avail­able in 2022⁄23 for peat­land restoration	Amber	Costs are still not final­ised for a few pro­jects but we estim­ate our cap­it­al expendit­ure is likely to be around £2.0 mill leav­ing a cap­it­al under­spend of around £0.9 mill. We will noti­fy Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment of this likely under­spend shortly. Our resource budget of £0.505 mill is likely to be fully spent.
Fin­ance: impact on Cairngorms NPA budget management	Green	No wider unplanned demands cur­rently made by pro­gramme on fin­an­cial resources.
Area of restored peat­land: 905 hec­tare tar­get 2022⁄23 (Res­tor­a­tion Area)	Green	Machines are now on the ground on sev­en estates and we are on sched­ule to exceed the tar­get of bring­ing 905 ha under res­tor­a­tion this year.
Pro­gramme risk profile	Amber	Cur­rently we have suf­fi­cient con­tract­ors to tackle pro­jects and the weath­er remains mild (at end Octo­ber). A snowy winter remains a risk to the programme.
Future fund­ing profile	Amber	We have a four year fund­ing pro­file agreed, albeit while con­tinu­ing to oper­ate with­in single year allocations.
Future deliv­ery profile	Green	Over the sum­mer we have recruited two peat­land officers and now have an exper­i­enced, com­pet­ent team. We are con­fid­ent the 22⁄23 pro­gramme tar­get of 905 ha (Res­tor­a­tion Area) can be achieved and hope­fully exceeded. Landown­ers con­tin­ue to come for­ward with pro­jects and there are now more con­tract­ors in the mar­ket to tackle res­tor­a­tion. We will aim to con­tin­ue to increase the area of res­tor­a­tion work car­ried out in 2023⁄24.

Tar­get for 2022 – 23

1. In 2022 – 23 we planned to deliv­er 905 hec­tares of peat­land res­tor­a­tion (Res­tor­a­tion Area). This com­pares to a tar­get of 557ha for 2021 – 22 (Res­tor­a­tion Area). This tar­get for 2021 – 22 was exceeded, with 730ha being brought under res­tor­a­tion (Res­tor­a­tion Foot­print) and 900 ha as meas­ured by Res­tor­a­tion Area. If the winter is kind, we are cur­rently on sched­ule to exceed our tar­get of 905 ha.

Fin­ance and staffing

1. Fin­an­cial sup­port from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is £3.47 mil­lion in ²⁰²²⁄₂₃. This com­prises £2.962m cap­it­al fund­ing (primar­ily sup­port­ing grant awards to land man­agers) and £0.505m resource fund­ing (sup­port­ing staff­ing and oth­er deliv­ery costs). As of 31^st Octo­ber there are a few pro­jects where costs are not final­ised and costs in gen­er­al con­tin­ue to rise across the sec­tor. How­ever we estim­ate our likely under­spend will be in the region of 900K. We will dis­cuss re-alloc­at­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­por­tion of the 900K with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in Novem­ber, but we will seek to retain a pro­por­tion in case there are fur­ther unpre­dict­able cost increases.

2. As of 31^st Octo­ber, we have issued Grant Offer let­ters to nine estates. The total grant offered to date is 1.98 mill (approx. two thirds of budget) and this could bring up to

3. 1225 ha of peat­land under res­tor­a­tion man­age­ment (which exceeds our hec­tare tar­get). Of this, 785 ha involves the res­tor­a­tion of act­ively erod­ing peat, with an addi­tion­al 440 ha of drain block­ing. All meas­ure­ments are Res­tor­a­tion Areas at this point.

4. We have recruited Ewan Camp­bell and Simon Thomas as Peat­land Officers to replace Emma Stew­art and Matt Wat­son who now have man­age­ment respons­ib­il­it­ies for the Peat­land Action pro­gramme. Both Ewan and Simon bring a wealth of peat­land res­tor­a­tion exper­i­ence to the team and have been quickly able to take over pro­ject super­vi­sion. We will soon seek to recruit a Train­ee Pro­ject Officer on a 3 year con­tract to com­plete the team. This new post recog­nises the skills short­age which exists at all levels of peat­land res­tor­a­tion and the aim is to equip a new gradu­ate with the skills and know­ledge of a peat­land officer over 3 years. There is no cer­tainty that this per­son will then be employed as a CNPA Peat­land Officer, but it is likely there will be employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies else­where in the sector.

5. We now have an exper­i­enced, expert team which is almost at full strength. We are at the point when our two Pro­gramme Man­agers can spend more of their time on wider stra­tegic issues rather than on dir­ect pro­ject deliv­ery. This will include a focus on imple­ment­ing the recom­mend­a­tions of the Intern­al Audit.

Pro­gress to date on the pro­gramme for 2022 – 23.

	Pro­ject work to date (31.10.22) in fin­an­cial year of 22⁄23
No of estates with grant offers	9
Total grant offer to 31.10.22	£1.985, 136
Poten­tial total num­ber of hec­tares under this offer	1225 ha
Poten­tial total num­ber of hec­tares in drain blocking	440 ha
Poten­tial num­ber of hec­tares in erosion	785 ha

Table 1: Pro­ject work in 2022 – 23.

Colin McLean Head of Land Man­age­ment 03 Novem­ber 2022