For Dis­cus­sion

Title: Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project

Pre­pared By: Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or for Nature & Cli­mate Change

Pur­pose

This paper presents the latest deliv­ery updates on the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to review deliv­ery updates and consider:

a) pro­gress towards the project’s agreed purposes;

b) any stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on deliv­ery of the CNPA’s Cor­por­ate Plan and Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan;

c) any mater­i­al impacts on the CNPA’s stra­tegic risk management.

Per­form­ance Dashboard

Per­form­ance Meas­ure: Pro­gress towards the project’s agreed pur­poses	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Empower com­munit­ies to help ensure the sur­viv­al of caper­cail­lie through com­munity led con­ser­va­tion, by imple­ment­ing the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Con­ser­va­tion Strategy and devel­op­ing, agree­ing and imple­ment­ing action plans with addi­tion­al communities.	Green	Over­all, pos­it­ive pro­gress is con­tinu­ing to be made in the deliv­ery of Action Plans in place with the vis­it­or, moun­tain bik­ing, Deeside and Car­rbridge com­munit­ies, and more recently with the dog walk­ing com­munity in Badenoch and Strathspey.
Raise aware­ness and increase under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges facing caper­cail­lie through a vari­ety of means includ­ing social media activ­it­ies and events, a new online Engage­ment plat­form, volun­teer work, a pub­lic app, new resources for schools and genet­ics analysis.	Green	Volun­teers have donated over 3,300 hours to the pro­ject. On and off­line engage­ment con­tin­ues to grow. Learn­ing exper­i­ences have begun to be developed with RZSS for deliv­ery post pro­ject at the High­land Wild­life Park and the genet­ic ana­lys­is work is complete.
Work with landown­ers to imple­ment plans to improve and man­age around 9,000 hec­tares of hab­it­at across six estates for the bene­fit of caper­cail­lie; enable landown­ers to play their part in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion via a third-party grant scheme tar­get­ing land­hold­ings in caper­cail­lie areas.	Green	Hab­it­at improve­ment work con­tin­ues on Bal­mor­al, Seafield, Rothiemurchus, Aber­nethy and Tom an Uird Forest. Pred­at­or man­age­ment con­tin­ues on Seafield and Rothiemurchus. All work delivered through the pro­ject grant scheme is now complete.
Mon­it­or, test and eval­u­ate ideas through­out deliv­ery, apply­ing learn­ing from the pro­ject to refine activ­it­ies includ­ing hab­it­at improve­ment work, sur­vey tech­niques, pro­mo­tion­al activ­it­ies and the com­munity action plan­ning model.	Green	An inter­im eval­u­ation of all pro­ject activ­it­ies has been con­duc­ted and the find­ings reviewed by the project’s Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team, Pro­ject Board and NLHF. Work is ongo­ing to pre­pare for a final eval­u­ation of the pro­ject which will be avail­able in December.
Devel­op an innov­at­ive and rep­lic­able mod­el for com­munity-led spe­cies con­ser­va­tion that enables com­munit­ies to suc­cess­fully coex­ist with their nat­ur­al her­it­age, shar­ing the project’s find­ings intern­ally and extern­ally with UK organ­isa­tions, and fur­ther afield, to cre­ate a leg­acy of learning.	Green	The mod­el developed through ini­tial work with Car­rbridge and sub­sequently mod­i­fied through adapt­ive learn­ing con­tin­ues to be used effect­ively across the pro­ject, includ­ing, most recently, with the dog walk­ing com­munity. Plans are under­way to part­ner with the Cairngorms 2030 pro­ject to host a series of ​‘Shar­ing the learn­ing’ events this autumn. The events will see key learn­ings shared from both the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject and Cairngorms 2030’s devel­op­ment phase. The inten­ded out­come for the events is that learn­ing from the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject strengthens future com­munity-led action across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and beyond.

Stra­tegic Background

1. The most recent update to the Board on stra­tegic object­ives as set out in the agreed Cor­por­ate Plan was presen­ted at the March 2023 CNPA Board meet­ing. The Park Authority’s stra­tegic object­ives of rel­ev­ance to con­sid­er­a­tion of the deliv­ery of the pro­gramme report­ing presen­ted with this paper are:

a) Deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject dir­ectly impacts on the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan action to ​‘Deliv­er a work pro­gramme to sup­port caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in the Cairngorms, based on best avail­able evid­ence; and the asso­ci­ated Cor­por­ate Plan action to ​‘lead on a caper­cail­lie emer­gency plan and long-term strategy’.

1. The latest review of the Stra­tegic Risk Register was con­sidered by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee at the Decem­ber 2022 meet­ing. Stra­tegic risks of rel­ev­ance to con­sid­er­a­tion of per­form­ance of the pro­grammes of work con­sidered by this paper are:

a) A9.3 Staff­ing: addi­tion­al extern­ally fun­ded pro­jects strains staff work­load capa­city with increased risks of stress and reduced mor­ale. b) 11.2 Stra­tegic Risk Resourcing: the end of major pro­gramme invest­ments (Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et, LEAD­ER) requires sig­ni­fic­ant ongo­ing staff­ing to man­age audit and leg­acy which the Author­ity finds dif­fi­cult to resource. c) A14.1 Repu­ta­tion: One-off, high-pro­file incid­ents and / or voci­fer­ous social media cor­res­pond­ents have an undue influ­ence on the Authority’s pos­it­ive repu­ta­tion. d) A27 Tech­nic­al: approaches to con­ser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of endangered spe­cies may be insuf­fi­cient to achieve asso­ci­ated stra­tegic outcomes

1. The pro­grammes of activ­ity under con­sid­er­a­tion here also fit with the pri­or­it­ies of the cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP), spe­cific­ally Object­ive A13 and the action to ​‘Deliv­er a work pro­gramme to sup­port caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in the Cairngorms, based on the best avail­able evidence’.

Per­form­ance Over­view: Deliv­ery Against Stra­tegic Expectations

1. Pos­it­ive pro­gress has been made against all of the project’s approved pur­poses. The quarterly report to Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (Annex 1) high­lights the pro­gramme is well advanced and on track to deliv­er pro­ject outcomes.

2. Cor­por­ate Plan and Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan actions and indic­at­ors pos­i­tion the activ­it­ies of the NLHF fun­ded pro­ject with­in the con­text of wider CNPA and part­ner work on land man­age­ment, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and rur­al devel­op­ment. This work is cap­tured in the NPPP 2022 – 27 action to ​‘Deliv­er a work pro­gramme to sup­port caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in the Cairngorms, based on the best avail­able evidence’.

3. The pro­ject has a role in help­ing to out­line a frame­work for the work pro­gramme ensur­ing the project’s leg­acy is embed­ded in the work of CNPA and part­ners. Activ­it­ies to inform CNPA stra­tegic plan­ning, strengthen inform­a­tion flow and sup­port adapt­ive pro­ject and leg­acy plan­ning include:

a) The CNPA vis­it­or man­age­ment and access teams are act­ively con­trib­ut­ing to the devel­op­ment of a spa­tial plan for caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion. Trans­ition­al plan­ning is in place to man­age the project’s leg­acy regard­ing access man­age­ment as part of the devel­op­ment of Act­ive Cairngorms. b) Mem­bers of the CNPA Access and Recre­ation team are involved in the project’s cur­rent work with the dog walk­ing com­munity which will see the devel­op­ment of a 5‑year pro­gramme of actions, rep­res­ent­at­ive of the dog walk­ing community’s views, for deliv­ery post-pro­ject led by CNPA. c) Insights and learn­ing from the project’s mod­el for com­munity-led spe­cies con­ser­va­tion and work with com­munit­ies has been integ­rated into the pro­gramme of engage­ment work in the deliv­ery phase applic­a­tion for Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030.

Per­form­ance Over­view: Risks Under Management

1. All pro­ject risks and issues, as iden­ti­fied in the quarterly pro­gress report, are either in a favour­able status or being man­aged closely at Pro­ject Board level with mit­ig­a­tion plans in place.

2. Staff­ing: the pro­ject is oper­at­ing with suf­fi­cient staff capa­city to achieve its object­ives and addi­tion­al staff­ing resource to fast track cur­rent work with the dog walk­ing com­munity has been agreed in prin­ciple at Pro­ject Board level and with NLHF.

3. Resourcing audit and leg­acy: The Pro­ject Board agreed in June 2022 that the pro­ject should seek an exten­sion to the ori­gin­al grant expiry (30 July 2023) in order to secure a firm leg­acy across all areas of work with­in the pro­ject. NLHF approved the exten­sion which will see the project’s activ­it­ies end in Decem­ber 2023 and the pro­ject form­ally end in Janu­ary 2024. No addi­tion­al fund­ing is required. The exten­sion will be fin­anced by the project’s cur­rent budget.

4. Leg­acy plan­ning is ongo­ing with an out­line leg­acy plan recently reviewed with Pro­ject Board and NLHF. Pro­ject staff are work­ing closely with col­leagues and part­ners to identi­fy where dif­fer­ent aspects of the project’s work will be accom­mod­ated both with­in CNPA and with part­ners; and where pro­ject activ­it­ies will come to a nat­ur­al con­clu­sion. Work to devel­op the leg­acy plan is also informed by plan­ning for deliv­ery of the NPPP 2022 – 27 action and the cre­ation of a frame­work for a future work pro­gramme, or ​‘Emer­gency Plan’.

5. Repu­ta­tion:

a) An Eval­u­ation Frame­work is in place for the pro­ject to under­stand the suc­cesses and chal­lenges involved in deliv­er­ing the pro­ject and to report on the extent to which the pro­ject has achieved its goals. The Frame­work has been updated in response to ensure it provides a thor­ough basis for effect­ively report­ing the out­comes and impacts of the work to oth­ers, intern­ally and extern­ally. b) The wider con­text of caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion remains a highly con­ten­tious and high-pro­file arena, attract­ing much com­ment and polar­ised opin­ion. Cur­rent dis­course is focused primar­ily on the out­comes of the NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Committee’s Feb­ru­ary 2022 report and the recom­mend­a­tion therein regard­ing pred­at­or man­age­ment. Pro­ject staff, with sup­port from Pro­ject Board mem­bers where rel­ev­ant, are con­tinu­ing to ensure the pro­ject scope and leg­acy is clearly com­mu­nic­ated in this con­text. c) The future work pro­gramme, or ​‘Emer­gency Plan’ will con­tain a leg­acy for the project’s work where there is over­lap in the wider con­text of activ­ity to sup­port caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion. The Pro­ject can play a cru­cial role in defin­ing the scope of, and frame­work for, the devel­op­ment of an Emer­gency Plan to ensure learn­ing is not lost and the leg­acy is secure. There is a risk that this fur­ther con­fuses mes­saging around the scope and remit of the pro­ject. d) The project’s genet­ic diversity research under­taken by RZSS is now com­plete. The aim of this work was to provide inform­a­tion that can under­pin any future decisions on the feas­ib­il­ity and desirab­il­ity of spe­cies rein­force­ment. The (draft) report includes inform­a­tion on the robust­ness of the Scot­tish pop­u­la­tion in terms of its genet­ic diversity and recom­mends that action to expand the gene pool will aid the long-term sur­viv­al of caper­cail­lie in the UK. Rein­force­ment is a com­plex issue, requir­ing fur­ther invest­ig­a­tion before any firm pos­i­tion can be taken.

1. Tech­nic­al: CNPA chairs the Scot­tish Caper­cail­lie Group and ensures align­ment of activ­ity with tech­nic­al experts on this group that are not dir­ectly involved in the pro­ject and leg­acy plan­ning. CNPA works closely with NatureScot in pro­gress­ing work on a Spa­tial Strategy, seek­ing tech­nic­al input and advice from part­ners, Cairngorms Nature Strategy Group mem­bers and advis­ory for­ums as and when necessary.

2. There is a risk that the CCP’s bot­tom-up, col­lab­or­at­ive approach that has proven very suc­cess­ful with groups to date (eg moun­tain bik­ing com­munity) is con­fused with, and there­fore under­mined by, a more top-down, instruct­ive approach to defin­ing and man­aging access mes­saging and refuges. CNPA is work­ing with NatureScot as part of the review of nation-wide access mes­saging to ensure les­sons learnt from the pro­ject inform nation­al campaigns.

Con­clu­sions: Per­form­ance Over­view and Mat­ters Mer­it­ing Stra­tegic Review

1. There are no mat­ters of stra­tegic sig­ni­fic­ance which mer­it escal­a­tion at this time in the opin­ion of seni­or man­agers lead­ing the Cairngorms NPA’s link­age to the areas of activ­ity covered by this paper and asso­ci­ated reports.

Andy Ford 25 May 2023 andyford@​cairngorms.​co.​uk