Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 1 09 June 2023

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For Decision

Title: Elec­tion of Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener and Com­mit­tee Chairs

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services

Pur­pose

1. This paper fol­lows up the board’s dis­cus­sion of 24 March on the pro­cess for elect­ing the Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener and Com­mit­tee Chairs. The paper sets out pro­posed arrange­ments for under­tak­ing those elections.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board Is asked to:

a) Agree the elec­tion pro­cess for Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener and Com­mit­tee Chairs as set out in this paper.

b) Note the board’s pre­vi­ous request to con­sider the pos­sib­il­ity of elec­ted roles being under­taken by mul­tiple mem­bers on a role share basis has been fol­lowed up by the Prop­er Officer and is not possible.

Back­ground Information

1. The Board noted the require­ment to hold elec­tions for the roles of Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener and Chairs of the Audit and Risk, Per­form­ance and Resources Com­mit­tee at its meet­ing of 24 March 2023.

2. At the same meet­ing, the board agreed to res­cind busi­ness con­tinu­ity amend­ments to stand­ing orders, and to rein­state agreed Stand­ing Orders oth­er than for the pro­vi­sion to hold elec­tions by remote means. Mem­bers agreed the busi­ness con­tinu­ity pro­vi­sion for remote elec­tions should remain in force as an amend­ment to Stand­ing Orders.

3. The Board agreed a num­ber of prin­ciples on which the meth­od of hold­ing remote elec­tions should be constructed.

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a. All mem­bers should be afforded the oppor­tun­ity to par­ti­cip­ate in each vote;

b. Mem­bers should have some advance aware­ness of those mem­bers nom­in­ated and seconded to stand for elec­tion pri­or to the vot­ing period;

c. Elec­tion of Con­vener will take place as the first elec­tion, fol­lowed by elec­tion of Deputy Convener.

d. In the con­text of points a and b the over­all timetable for elec­tions tak­ing place should be as com­pressed as pos­sible to allow all elec­tions to take place in a reas­on­able time­frame and for the iden­tity of office hold­ers to be con­firmed without undue delay.

Pro­posed Elec­tion Process

1. The pro­posed elec­tion pro­cess will begin with the Prop­er Officer seek­ing nom­in­a­tions and seconds for both the roles of Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener sim­ul­tan­eously. Under busi­ness con­tinu­ity arrange­ments to allow for remote elec­tions, the board has agreed a peri­od of 10 work­ing days from the open­ing of the pro­cess for nom­in­a­tions and seconds to be submitted.

2. On close of the pro­cess, where there are two or more can­did­ates then the Prop­er Officer will arrange for can­did­ates per­son­al state­ments to be cir­cu­lated and for a bal­lot to be held.

3. The work­ing assump­tion is that bal­lots will be under­taken using an elec­tron­ic plat­form. The bal­lot will be open for 48 hours.

4. The bal­lot will use a single trans­fer­rable vote sys­tem as adop­ted in Stand­ing Orders.

5. Where the mem­ber elec­ted as Con­vener has also been nom­in­ated and seconded to stand as Deputy Con­vener, that mem­ber will be removed from the count of Deputy Con­vener votes and their second pref­er­ences redis­trib­uted to remain­ing can­did­ates, pri­or to the first count for this role. Where the remov­al of that mem­ber from the Deputy Con­vener elec­tion leaves only a single can­did­ate, then the remain­ing can­did­ate shall be declared elec­ted in accord­ance with Stand­ing Orders.

6. Once the elec­tion pro­cess for the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener is com­plete, the pro­cess set out at points 5 to 9 shall be repeated for the nom­in­a­tion and elec­tion of the Chairs of the fol­low­ing Com­mit­tees, with sub­sequent elec­tion counts held in the fol­low­ing order:

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a. Audit and Risk,

b. Per­form­ance and

c. Resources Committees.

1. Any Com­mit­tee Chair role with only a single val­id nom­in­a­tion will be declared on close of the nom­in­a­tion pro­cess irre­spect­ive of the order of bal­lot count­ing indic­ated at para­graph 10.

2. As with the pro­vi­sions for elec­tion of the Deputy Con­vener, where a mem­ber is nom­in­ated as a can­did­ate for a Com­mit­tee Chair and has already been elec­ted as a Com­mit­tee Chair under a pre­vi­ous count then they will be removed from sub­sequent counts and their second, and if neces­sary third, pref­er­ence votes redis­trib­uted amongst remain­ing can­did­ates pri­or to the first count for remain­ing roles.

3. The board pre­vi­ously asked the Prop­er Officer to research the pos­sib­il­ity of elec­ted offices being shared by two mem­bers. This mat­ter has been taken up with rel­ev­ant Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment offi­cials. While the board’s inten­tion to con­sider the pro­mo­tion of equal­it­ies and innov­a­tion in this regard has been recog­nised, it has been con­firmed that the option of role shar­ing is not accept­able at this time giv­en the sig­ni­fic­ant risks asso­ci­ated with split lead­er­ship and dis­join­ted communications.

4. There­fore, nom­in­a­tions and seconds will con­tin­ue to be sought from indi­vidu­al board mem­bers only for each elec­ted role.

5. The planned timetable for the elec­tion pro­cesses fol­low­ing on from the above pro­pos­als will there­fore be as fol­lows for the offices of Board Con­vener and Board Deputy Convener:

   a. Monday 12 June — open call for nom­in­a­tions and seconds for can­did­ates for offices of Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener if pro­cess is agreed by board on 9 June;

   b. Monday 26 June at noon — nom­in­a­tion pro­cess closes;

   c. Monday 26 June close of busi­ness — can­did­ate state­ments are cir­cu­lated where there are two or more can­did­ates for an office; res­ults announced where there is only a single can­did­ate for Con­vener, and in instance of a single can­did­ate for Deputy Con­vener res­ult announced, provided the single can­did­ate for Deputy Con­vener is not also stand­ing for Convener.

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d. Tues­day 27 June — elec­tron­ic ballot(s) opened where required.

e. Thursday 29 June — elec­tron­ic ballot(s) to close.

f. Fri­day 30 June — res­ult of ballot(s) announced.

1. The planned elec­tion pro­cess for Com­mit­tee Chairs will com­mence fol­low­ing the announce­ment of the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener elec­tions as follows:

   a. Monday 10 July — open call for nom­in­a­tions and seconds for can­did­ates for Com­mit­tee Chairs;

   b. Monday 24 July at noon — nom­in­a­tion pro­cess closes;

   c. Monday 24 July close of busi­ness — can­did­ate state­ments are cir­cu­lated where there are two or more can­did­ates for an office; res­ults announced where there is only a single can­did­ates for any role of a Com­mit­tee Chair

   d. Tues­day 25 July — elec­tron­ic ballot(s) opened where required.

   e. Thursday 27 July — elec­tron­ic ballot(s) to close.

   f. Fri­day 28 July — res­ult of ballot(s) announced.

Dav­id Cameron

26 May 2023

DavidCameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk