Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 1 of 5

Draft Minutes of the Resources Com­mit­tee Meeting

Held at Mac­don­ald Aviemore High­land Resort, Aviemore

In Per­son

10 March 2023 at 09.00am

Present Deidre Fal­con­er (Chair) Xan­der McDade (Board Con­vener) Chris Beat­tie Elean­or Mackintosh

In Attend­ance Grant Moir, CEO Dav­id Camer­on, Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance Kate Christie, Head of Oper­a­tions Catri­ona Strang, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies Janet Hunter

Wel­come and introduction.

1. The chair wel­comed all to the March Resources Committee.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of Interest.

Minutes from Pre­vi­ous Meeting

1. Minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing are con­fid­en­tial so this Item was deferred to the end of the meeting.

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²⁰²²⁄₂₃ Budget Monitoring

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance, presen­ted the paper which was a brief over­view of the cur­rent year, ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ budget mon­it­or­ing pos­i­tion. Louise high­lighted gen­er­al con­tinu­ation of fin­an­cial trends over the peri­od as repor­ted to Com­mit­tee in pre­vi­ous papers. Over­all, the fin­ance team con­tin­ued to tar­get a fin­an­cial break-even pos­i­tion for the year, while recog­nising some risk of an under­spend giv­en the scale of fin­an­cial com­mit­ments remain­ing to be delivered by the end of the year.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) A mem­ber asked for cla­ri­fic­a­tion if the peat­land pro­ject fund­ing was ring­fenced or if any under­spend would be reclaimed by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The mem­ber also asked if under­spend on staff salar­ies could be used towards pay awards. b) Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance, con­firmed that the any pay awards this year were already covered with­in the expendit­ure fig­ures now repor­ted and based on the allow­ance for pay move­ments spe­cified by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. Pay awards had been covered by the under­spend on budgeted staff salar­ies and some under­spend on this budget remained after provid­ing cov­er for the pay award. The Head of Fin­ance also con­firmed that the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment have been noti­fied of the peat­land pro­ject under­spend, which is a ring-fenced budget pro­vi­sion. c) Dav­id Camer­on, Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, con­firmed that mod­el­ling for next year’s pay award has taken place as part of ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ budget devel­op­ment and dis­cus­sion will com­mence with Com­mit­tee on spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions for the pay award once inform­a­tion is pub­lished on the pub­lic sec­tor pay policy for the com­ing year. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment are expec­ted to pub­lish future pay policy once oth­er pub­lic sec­tor awards have con­cluded from this year. d) Grant Moir, CEO, con­firmed that the peat­land pro­ject have com­pleted a great­er num­ber of hec­tares of res­tor­a­tion than tar­geted, but the budget is under­spent due to the type of work being done which has been toward the lower end of costs per hec­tare. e) A mem­ber asked if there is an oppor­tun­ity to use any under­spend on addi­tion­al train­ing pro­grammes. f) The CEO con­firmed dis­cus­sion at Scot­tish gov­ern­ment level has taken place regard­ing peat­land train­ing courses and nation­al qual­i­fic­a­tion courses are now avail­able. Dis­cus­sions are tak­ing place with Comms team about pro­mo­tion of the courses.

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g) Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vice con­firmed in response to a point on the dif­fi­culties some­times in indi­vidu­als or groups of people access­ing train­ing that there was a pos­sib­il­ity for groups to seek fund­ing through com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment fund­ing. Where indi­vidu­als or organ­isa­tions per­ceived access to train­ing as a par­tic­u­lar prob­lem there may be mer­it in mak­ing this known to com­munity devel­op­ment organ­isa­tions such as the Cairngorms Trust to help shape their under­stand­ing of needs for deploy­ment of future grant pro­grammes. h) CEO noted the moved away from mul­tiple organ­isa­tions offer­ing fund­ing for train­ing to more cent­ral­ised coordin­a­tion of train­ing and its funding .

1. The Resources Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion of ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ b) Con­sider any risks around achiev­ing and out­turn with­in tar­get para­met­ers arising from the cur­rent budget mon­it­or­ing pos­i­tion on which the com­mit­tee wishes to see spe­cif­ic man­age­ment action.

2. The com­mit­tee noted the report and thanked the officers

3. Action Point Arising: none.

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²⁰²³⁄₂₄ Budget Development

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, presen­ted the paper on the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ budget devel­op­ment. He high­lighted the sig­ni­fic­ant increase in grant in aid (para 5) and table 1 and gave an over­view of the budget pos­i­tion par­tic­u­larly with regard to key assump­tions and estim­ates used in devel­op­ing the cur­rent budget fig­ures for income and expendit­ure in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) A mem­ber noted that the budget had seen a huge increase since the start of the Nation­al Park which was seen as an excel­lent achieve­ment. The mem­ber asked why People budget in the oper­a­tion­al plan was so low. b) Grant Moir, CEO, respon­ded that the people budget encom­passed vol­un­tary and com­munity sup­port and that oth­er ele­ments of work sup­port­ing people and com­munit­ies were with­in the Place sec­tion of the budget. c) Dav­id Camer­on, Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, noted that he would amend this sec­tion for board present­a­tion to show the fuller break­down as the Park Author­ity was expect­ing addi­tion­al fund­ing for com­munity devel­op­ment and this will go into the People based ele­ment of the Oper­a­tion­al Plan. d) The Con­vener noted and wel­comed that the budget has tripled in 5 years and asked officers to con­firm reas­ons for the increase in sup­port and com­mu­nic­a­tion budget. e) Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed there are two sig­ni­fic­ant one off spends for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ included in this budget mak­ing pro­vi­sion for renew­al of web­site and invest­ment in the build­ing and estates includ­ing EV char­ging points and upgrades to audio visu­al equip­ment in the main meet­ing rooms. f) The Con­vener recom­mend the inclu­sion of an infra­struc­ture invest­ment line to the budget sum­mary table show the sig­ni­fic­ant one off costs sep­ar­ately from oth­er sup­port and com­mu­nic­a­tions oper­a­tion­al plans. g) A mem­ber asked if pro­posed tech­no­logy upgrade would be in the cur­rent year or next year’s budget. h) Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed that as a con­sequence of sup­ply lead times and the delay in deliv­ery of tech­no­logy and fit­ting, the cur­rently deliv­ery time is May 2023.

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1. Recom­mend­a­tions i) The com­mit­tee is invited to review the pos­i­tion achieved in devel­op­ment of the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ fin­an­cial year budget and provide any feed­back to officers pri­or to the present­a­tion of the budget pro­pos­al to the full board on 24 March 2023.

2. The Com­mit­tee noted the update from officers on the budget devel­op­ment process.

3. Action Point Arising: present the Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment sep­ar­ately in budget sum­mary table.

AOCB

Motion to move onto con­fid­en­tial session.