230609PerfCtteePaper1PeatlandProgramme

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 09 June 2023

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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 and pro­gress to date in 2023 – 24.

Recom­mend­a­tions a) 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 | Rat­ing | Com­ment­ary | | — — — — — — - | — — — — — — - | — — — — — — - | | Fin­ance: max­im­ise use of £2.962 mil­lion cap­it­al fin­ance avail­able in ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ for peat­land res­tor­a­tion | Green | Over the course of ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ we returned a total of 900K to Scot­Gov as we fore­cast an under­spend through the year. At end March we had com­mit­ted £2.008mill in approved grants. Work on some pro­jects con­tin­ued up to and bey­ond the end of the fin­an­cial year so there are still claims out­stand­ing. On 12^th May £1.53mill had been paid out. The resource budget of £0.505mill was entirely spent. | | Fin­ance: impact on Cairngorms NPA budget man­age­ment | Green | No wider unplanned demands cur­rently made by pro­gramme on fin­an­cial resources. |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 09 June 2023

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Per­form­ance Meas­ure for	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Area of restored peat­land: 905 hec­tare tar­get 2022⁄23 (Res­tor­a­tion Area)	Green	Stat­ist­ics are still being final­ised but we cur­rently estim­ate 1080ha of peat­land have been brought in to res­tor­a­tion. This area exceeds tar­get and the achieve­ment of 1000ha+ is a not­able mile­stone for CNPA. In total we worked on 15 pro­jects across the Park in 2022⁄23. Five of those pro­jects were car­ried over from 2021⁄22. Elev­en were com­pleted by end March. A fur­ther 2 were com­pleted by end April with the areas restored in April being recor­ded as hec­tares against the 2023⁄24 tar­get. Two pro­jects have been deferred until later this year due to bird breed­ing con­straints and a failed contract.
Tar­get for 2023⁄24: 1300ha	Amber	There are 14 pro­jects in the pipeline for 2023⁄24. If they are all delivered, this pipeline exceeds the tar­get of 1300ha. Of the 14 pro­jects, two are part of a multi-year pro­gram and already tendered and awar­ded with a con­tract­or in place; 6 (totalling 618ha) are awar­ded, with con­tract­ors in place. And 8 are scoped and in devel­op­ment but not tendered or awar­ded yet. There are fur­ther agent-led pro­jects in devel­op­ment which could poten­tially come into con­sid­er­a­tion later in the year.
Pro­gramme risk profile	Amber	Six of 14 pro­jects have a con­tract­or in place. Eight remain to be awar­ded or tendered and con­tract­or interest remains to be seen.
Future fund­ing profile	Amber	We have been alloc­ated £3.63 mill cap­it­al budget in 2023⁄24. We estim­ate the cost of cap­it­al works in the pro­gramme for 2023⁄24 will be £2.9mill.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 09 June 2023

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Per­form­ance Meas­ure for	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Future deliv­ery profile	Green	It is expec­ted that the cap­it­al alloc­a­tion will be suf­fi­cient to accom­mod­ate any price fluc­tu­ations affect­ing pro­jects not yet tendered for. Landown­ers remain engaged with Peat­land Action and we have a pipeline of pro­jects bey­ond 2023⁄24. We have encour­aged estates to con­sider devel­op­ing agent-led pro­jects with less input from Peat­land Officers. This approach seems to be the best way to increase over­all capa­city. How­ever, this is a change in the way we work and a new sys­tem will take time to fully develop.

Tar­get for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃

1. In ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ we planned to deliv­er 905ha of peat­land res­tor­a­tion (Res­tor­a­tion Area). We cur­rently estim­ate we have brought 1080ha of peat­land into restoration.

Tar­get for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄

1. The tar­get for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ is 1300ha. Con­tracts for 618ha of res­tor­a­tion work across 6 pro­jects have already been awar­ded but fur­ther pro­jects in the pipeline. If all pro­jects in the pipeline are delivered this year, the total res­tor­a­tion fig­ure is expec­ted to go bey­ond the tar­get of 1300ha.

Fin­ance and staffing

1. Fin­an­cial sup­port from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment was £3.47m in ²⁰²²⁄₂₃. This com­prised £2.962m cap­it­al fund­ing and £0.505m resource fund­ing. Dur­ing the year we returned £900K to Scot­Gov. As of 31 March we have offered grant totalling £2.008m for pro­jects in ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ of which £1.53m has been claimed.

2. We have recruited a Train­ee Pro­ject officer who star­ted work in March and is already mak­ing a good con­tri­bu­tion to the team. We now have a full team which

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 09 June 2023

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is work­ing at capa­city with each Peat­land Officer respons­ible for 2 – 3 pro­jects per year.

1. In order to scale up the peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­gramme towards an annu­al tar­get of around 2000ha per year we need to increase private sec­tor input to pro­ject super­vi­sion and pro­ject design. We have encour­aged estates to con­sider devel­op­ing res­tor­a­tion pro­jects which are agent-led.

Land agents, private forest com­pan­ies and spe­cial­ist con­sultan­cies have all star­ted to increase their peat­land res­tor­a­tion expert­ise and we plan to work with them to help devel­op that resource. At this stage the fin­ance driv­ing agent-led pro­jects still comes from Peat­land Action, but green fin­ance options may devel­op if and when the price of car­bon rises.

1. Some con­tract­ors have expressed frus­tra­tion with the ten­der­ing pro­cess. Tender applic­a­tions via PCS require a con­sid­er­able amount of work and con­tract­ors who are repeatedly unsuc­cess­ful become under­stand­ably frustrated.

2. Cur­rently, we feel the num­ber of pro­jects we are con­sid­er­ing is matched by con­tract­or capa­city. How­ever, a con­tract­or who is suc­cess­ful in ten­der­ing for the last con­tract we award may have applied unsuc­cess­fully for around 10 pre­vi­ous con­tracts. This can put con­sid­er­able strain on some rel­at­ively small com­pan­ies and we are think­ing of ways to make this pro­cess easi­er to man­age the risk of los­ing con­tract­or interest.

3. The 2021/2022 Azets Intern­al Audit of the peat­land pro­gramme con­trols and pro­cesses iden­ti­fied nine improve­ment actions. One Grade 4 (Red) action, four Grade 3 (amber) actions and one Grade 2 (yel­low) action have been imple­men­ted, and one Grade 3 (amber) has been assessed as not a pri­or­ity and is not yet star­ted. The remain­ing actions under­way are:

α) A Ser­vice Level Agree­ment identi­fy­ing the roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies of CNPA, Peat­land Action grant applic­ants and con­tract­ors. This is in its final draft.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 1 09 June 2023

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b) A man­age­ment frame­work out­lining all con­trols, pro­cesses and doc­u­ment­a­tion from pre-applic­a­tion to pro­ject clos­ure is under review. This is a sig­ni­fic­ant, com­plex piece of work that will extend through­out 2023.

Colin McCle­an 12^th May 2023