230310ResourcesCtteePaper1_2022-23BudgetMonitoring

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee: Paper 1, 10^th March 2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY RESOURCES COMMITTEE

FOR DIS­CUS­SION

Title: ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ BUDGET MON­IT­OR­ING Pre­pared by: LOUISE ALLEN, HEAD OF FIN­ANCE AND COR­POR­ATE OPER­A­TIONS Pur­pose This paper presents an over­view of the Cairngorms NPA’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion as at 31 Janu­ary 2023, the end of the tenth month of the cur­rent fin­an­cial year Recom­mend­a­tions The Resources Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for 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. Overview

1. Pre­vi­ous key ele­ments of the in-year fin­an­cial pos­i­tion are sus­tained into the cur­rent mon­it­or­ing pos­i­tion. The under­spend against the ori­gin­al pro­file of invest­ment in staff, after the agreed sup­ple­ment­ary pay award, remains. Levels of oper­a­tion­al plan com­mit­ment against expect­a­tions also remain low in some areas of activ­ity, as has been com­mon in many years of the park authority’s operations.
2. The fin­an­cial pos­i­tion con­tin­ues to sup­port pro­jec­tion of a break-even out­turn pos­i­tion as tar­geted in the Authority’s approved budget for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃.
3. The detail of the fin­an­cial mon­it­or­ing pos­i­tion is set out in Annex One to this paper. Staff and Board
4. December’s report noted an expect­a­tion that the budget for staff costs would be under­spent by £120,000 at the year-end. This expect­a­tion remains, such that £120,000 is likely to be avail­able for real­loc­a­tion to sup­port the oper­a­tion­al plan in the final quarter of the year. Pro­gramme Management

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee: Paper 1, 10^th March 2023

1. All expec­ted pro­gramme man­age­ment costs have been recovered from extern­al funds as anti­cip­ated. There are no budget excep­tions to report, and no unanti­cip­ated impacts of pro­gramme budget man­age­ment on the cent­ral budget for the Park Authority.

Run­ning costs

1. Over­all, run­ning costs are broadly in line with budget expect­a­tions. At the end of the cur­rent report­ing peri­od, there is a small under­spend on oth­er staff and board costs off­set by over­spends on phased budgets at the end of the peri­od on facil­it­ies costs, and on IT and pro­fes­sion­al costs. The over­all pos­i­tion for run­ning costs is a small over­spend against budget phas­ing to the end of January.

Oper­a­tion­al Plan 7 The oper­a­tion­al plan pos­i­tion on budget against actu­al invest­ment shows a vari­able pos­i­tion across the park authority’s areas of activ­ity. Over­all, exclud­ing peat­land res­tor­a­tion works, which is under­pinned by a sep­ar­ate ring-fenced budget, the pos­i­tion at the end of the mon­it­or­ing peri­od is some £303,000 under a pro­filed budget expendit­ure of £1,740,000. 8 Con­tracts and requis­i­tions con­tin­ue to be raised, giv­ing some assur­ance that work con­tin­ues at a pace that will bring over­all budget pos­i­tions closer to the out­turn expect­a­tion by the end of the fin­an­cial year.

Peat­land Pro­gramme 9 The pos­i­tion against the peat­land pro­gramme remains par­tic­u­larly low for actu­al cash expendit­ure in com­par­is­on with full year budget. Nev­er­the­less, cap­it­al com­mit­ments stand at just under £2m. Best endeav­ours are being made to encour­age claims against these com­mit­ments. While remain­ing below phased expendit­ure expect­a­tions at this point in the fin­an­cial year, the man­age­ment accounts to the end of Janu­ary 2023 do show an increase in cash expendit­ure on grant claims of almost £1million from the pos­i­tion last repor­ted to the Com­mit­tee as at the end of Octo­ber 2022. 10 A fur­ther review of the pos­i­tion of the pro­gramme has revealed the poten­tial to reph­ase upward of £300,000 of this budget into future years. We will engage with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment team man­aging this area of work and budget on this mat­ter. II The tar­get area for res­tor­a­tion in the fin­an­cial year will be achieved or exceeded des­pite the lower than fore­cast expenditure.

Oth­er Con­sid­er­a­tions 12 No pro­gramme or pro­ject man­age­ment impacts on the Park Authority’s core budget have been iden­ti­fied. There are no unanti­cip­ated calls on fin­an­cial resources created

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Resources Com­mit­tee: Paper 1, 10^th March 2023 by the Park Authority’s lead­er­ship or account­able body roles for these pro­grammes and projects.

13 The only impact on income levels is from oth­er, non-grant income from plan­ning fees, oth­er recharged costs and con­tri­bu­tions received toward core expendit­ure. This income pos­i­tion is £52,000 below the phased budget for the report­ing peri­od. As pre­vi­ously repor­ted, there remains some risk that the full budget level will not be real­ised by the end of the fin­an­cial year. Over­all this risk can be man­aged with­in the wider budget position.

Louise Allen louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk 28 Feb­ru­ary 2023