For Decision

Title: Cairngorms 2030: Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Hori­zons Fund Deliv­ery phase application

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030

Grant Moir, CEO

Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO & Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services

Pur­pose

This paper seeks approv­al to sub­mit the Cairngorms 2030 deliv­ery phase applic­a­tion to the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Hori­zons Fund (NLHF) as the main applic­ant and ​‘Account­able Body’ for the Cairngorms 2030 Programme.

The paper seeks approv­al of the Park Authority’s Deliv­ery Phase match fund­ing as a multi-year com­mit­ment to the Pro­gramme, togeth­er with approv­al of the Pro­gramme gov­ernance structure.

The paper sets out the level of staff resource alloc­a­tion expec­ted to be alloc­ated to Pro­gramme deliv­ery from with­in the Park Authority’s main staff group, to allow the board to con­sider the scale of staff deploy­ment to the Pro­gramme as part of the board’s remit to pro­mote the effi­cient, eco­nom­ic, and effect­ive use of resources.

The paper also asks the board to con­sider the Programme’s risk register, and wheth­er this suf­fi­ciently cov­ers the poten­tial Pro­gramme risks and their mitigation.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board Is asked to:

a. Approve the sub­mis­sion of the Cairngorms 2030 deliv­ery phase applic­a­tion to Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund, with the Park Author­ity as the account­able body for the bid.

b. Approve the Park Authority’s deliv­ery phase match fund­ing of £450,000 per annum from ²⁰²⁴⁄₅.

c. Note the ​‘in kind’ staff­ing con­tri­bu­tion equat­ing to £3,258,134 for the 5‑year deliv­ery phase (2024−2028÷9).

d. Approve the gov­ernance struc­ture for the Cairngorms 2030 programme.

e. Con­sider the risk register for the deliv­ery phase.

Stra­tegic context

1. The Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme sets out to achieve the over­arch­ing vis­ion that by 2030 The Cairngorms Nation­al Park will be an exem­plar of people and nature thriv­ing togeth­er in a rap­idly chan­ging world.

2. The Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme received £1.7 mil­lion from NLHF Her­it­age Hori­zons to com­plete the devel­op­ment phase from 7 July 2021 – 17 August 2023. The total devel­op­ment phase was delivered with­in the agreed £3.8 mil­lion budget, inclus­ive of the Park Authority’s and part­ners’ match fund­ing con­tri­bu­tions in addi­tion to the NLHF grant fund­ing. The devel­op­ment phase has there­fore already secured an inward invest­ment to the Cairngorms of £3.3 mil­lion, secured through the Park Authority’s match fund­ing cash con­tri­bu­tion of £0.3 million.

3. The devel­op­ment phase con­sisted of a pro­gramme of works to engage, empower, and inspire res­id­ents, busi­nesses, and vis­it­ors to tackle the joint cli­mate, nature, and pub­lic health emer­gen­cies. Its pur­pose was to add detail to the phase 1 NLHF pro­ject pro­pos­als; provide more accur­ate cost bases togeth­er with a more com­pre­hens­ive under­stand­ing of the poten­tial object­ives and any obstacles to their deliv­ery with­in the pro­jects con­trib­ut­ing to the over­all pro­gramme; and devel­op the know­ledge exchange programme.

4. The devel­op­ment phase focused on deliv­er­ing action research type activ­it­ies so that evid­ence-based plans can be cre­ated for the 5‑year deliv­ery phase.

5. 146 pub­lic con­sulta­tion activ­it­ies were delivered with over 4,000 people engaged. Our engage­ment con­sult­ants, Scot­In­form, eval­u­ated that the Park Authority’s com­mit­ment to engage­ment with loc­al com­munit­ies and broad­en­ing engage­ment reach was excep­tion­al. The con­sult­ant was not aware of any oth­er loc­a­tions In Scot­land with such a high volume of com­munity engage­ment. Part­ners, com­munit­ies of place and interest and land man­agers engaged most. One to one dis­cus­sions, work­shops, drop-in ses­sions and sur­veys were most com­mon tools used, along­side the Com­mon­place digit­al plat­form (incl. heatmap).

6. Devel­op­ment phase pro­gress was mon­itored and eval­u­ated by a Pro­gramme Board and Advis­ory Pan­el, which met quarterly. The Park Author­ity board was also provided with reg­u­lar updates through quarterly CEO updates to board meet­ings in addi­tion to spe­cif­ic reports, while the board’s Per­form­ance and Audit and Risk Com­mit­tees added to the gov­ernance and assur­ance pro­cesses in review­ing quarterly reports on the Cairngorms 2030 Programme’s pro­gress and risk management.

7. An NLHF Inter­im Review was held on 20 – 21 April 2023. The pur­pose of the review was to assess devel­op­ment phase pro­gress and read­i­ness for sub­mit­ting the second phase fund­ing applic­a­tion. NLHF feed­back was pos­it­ive with sev­er­al key recom­mend­a­tions on improv­ing our engage­ment activ­ity planning.

8. The pro­gramme team has enhanced our pro­posed deliv­ery approach and will sub­mit the full draft pro­gramme to NLHF, reflect­ing Board mem­bers com­ments, for a final pre applic­a­tion doc­u­ment review on 27 June 2023.

9. The phase 2 NLHF fund­ing applic­a­tion will be sub­mit­ted on 17 August 2023, sub­ject to approv­al of this paper.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. There have been sig­ni­fic­ant changes in the policy land­scape since the round one NLHF Cairngorms 2030 applic­a­tion was sub­mit­ted. A cli­mate emer­gency and nature crisis have been declared. The UK has left the European Uni­on and its policy frame­work, and the COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic – and our col­lect­ive need to recov­er from its impacts – is at the fore­front of policy dis­cus­sion. There is also a deep­en­ing cost of liv­ing crisis and a policy object­ive for a ​‘Just Trans­ition’ to an eco­nomy that works for every­one, with the well­being of our cit­izens at its heart and respect­ing the pri­or­ity of adjust­ing eco­nom­ic oper­a­tions to act on cli­mate change.

2. Design of the pro­gramme aligns with United Nations sus­tain­able goals; will make a sig­ni­fic­ant region­al con­tri­bu­tion to the Scot­tish Government’s Nation­al Per­form­ance Frame­work; and has been already integ­rated into the 5‑year out­comes of the approved Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan to 2027.

3. The stra­tegic object­ives of the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme have been integ­rated into the Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan for 2023 to 2027 agreed by the Board at its meet­ing of 24 March 2023. The over­all dir­ec­tion of the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme deliv­ery is there­fore already an integ­ral part of the Park Authority’s agreed long-term object­ives and out­comes. The fin­an­cial pro­vi­sions cov­er­ing the Park Authority’s cash and staff con­tri­bu­tions to the Pro­gramme included with­in this paper have also been integ­rated into the stra­tegic fin­an­cial fore­casts agreed as part of the Cor­por­ate Plan to 2027.

4. The Park Author­ity has iden­ti­fied key stra­tegic fund­ing and part­ner­ship oppor­tun­it­ies, which will add sig­ni­fic­ant value to Cairngorms 2030. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment has agreed to invest 10% of the annu­al trans­port budget on Act­ive Travel, which will help deliv­er our trans­port net­work strategy. Fund­ing for nature res­tor­a­tion and cli­mate resi­li­ent com­munit­ies will also be increased in the com­ing years to meet the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ments net zero and just trans­ition targets.

5. The Park Author­ity is con­fid­ent of secur­ing addi­tion­al fund­ing dur­ing the deliv­ery phase. This will add sig­ni­fic­ant value to Cairngorms 2030 and allow us to expand our range of activ­it­ies and go bey­ond pro­gramme outcomes.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. Risk man­age­ment of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme has been under­taken through­out the devel­op­ment phase under the umbrella of the Park Authority’s exist­ing risk man­age­ment policies and pro­ced­ures. Our stra­tegic risk register estab­lishes an over­view of all stra­tegic risks recog­nised as pos­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant threat to achieve­ment of our organ­isa­tion­al object­ives, with mit­ig­a­tion actions estab­lished and imple­men­ted. A pro­gramme level risk register has been developed for the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme. The Board’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee has main­tained an over­sight of this pro­gramme risk register to give the board assur­ance any escal­at­ing pro­gramme risks which may have wider impact on the organ­isa­tion are picked up and appro­pri­ate action is taken.

2. The Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment strategy and asso­ci­ated stra­tegic risk register already cov­ers aspects of the Park Authority’s engage­ment in sig­ni­fic­ant extern­ally fun­ded pro­ject activ­it­ies. The cur­rent stra­tegic risk register includes the fol­low­ing risks of rel­ev­ance to the gov­ernance and stra­tegic risk man­age­ment of the Park Authority’s inter­ac­tion with the Cairngorms 2030 programme:

   a) Risk A9.3: addi­tion­al extern­ally fun­ded pro­jects strains staff work­load capa­city with increased risks of stress and reduced morale.

   b) Risk A11.1: role as Lead / Account­able body for major pro­grammes (e.g., Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment, Land­scape Part­ner­ship) has risk of sig­ni­fic­ant fin­an­cial claw­back should expendit­ure prove to be not eli­gible for fund­ing, while the Park Author­ity car­ries respons­ib­il­it­ies as employ­er for pro­gramme staff.

   c) A fur­ther rel­ev­ant stra­tegic risk was agreed by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee at its meet­ing in Novem­ber 2020: One off, high-pro­file incid­ents and / or voci­fer­ous social media cor­res­pond­ents have an undue influ­ence on the Authority’s pos­it­ive reputation.

3. These risks have been effect­ively man­aged over the course of the pro­gramme devel­op­ment phase and their risk pro­files are typ­ic­al. The stra­tegic risk register will con­tin­ue to be reviewed in accord­ance with the Park Authority’s approved Risk Man­age­ment Strategy, and in the spe­cif­ic con­text of the devel­op­ing con­text of the Cairngorms 2030 bid and planned deliv­ery. Spe­cif­ic stra­tegic risks will be incor­por­ated, and oth­er risks adap­ted as required with­in the Park Authority’s risk and oppor­tun­ity man­age­ment pro­cesses as the Park Authority’s man­age­ment of the pro­gramme evolves.

4. A risk register has been pre­pared for the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme to ini­ti­ate the risk and oppor­tun­ity man­age­ment pro­cess of that Pro­gramme. This spe­cif­ic pro­gramme risk and oppor­tun­ity register is set out at Appendix 8 to this paper. The Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme risk register will also devel­op and evolve with­in the Park Authority’s over­all approach to risk management.

5. The Park Author­ity Board has estab­lished an ​“open” to ​“eager” risk appet­ite for the deliv­ery of our object­ives and ambi­tions estab­lished in this Pro­gramme. This is con­sist­ent with the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of new oppor­tun­it­ies, devel­op­ment of innov­at­ive approaches and ​“step-change” object­ives estab­lished in the pro­gramme. The board’s risk appet­ite there reflects a will­ing­ness to accept some poten­tial losses in the pur­suit of excep­tion­al benefits.

Implic­a­tions

1. The fin­an­cial and staff­ing resource require­ments required by the Park Author­ity for our con­tri­bu­tion to Pro­gramme man­age­ment and deliv­ery have been incor­por­ated into our for­ward budget fore­casts as set out in our Cor­por­ate Plan, and also in asso­ci­ated stra­tegic budget fore­casts sub­mit­ted to our Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Spon­sor­ship Team. Resource implic­a­tions are afford­able with­in our cur­rent and expec­ted fund­ing levels.

2. As noted above, the risk man­age­ment and level of innov­a­tion of the Pro­gramme is con­sidered to be aligned with the board’s risk appet­ite for the Park Authority’s work of this nature.

3. In deliv­er­ing Cairngorms 2030, we will apply two core prin­ciples across all 20 pro­jects and the pro­gramme. These cross-cut­ting deliv­ery prin­ciples are inclu­sion and com­munity co-design, and both are essen­tial if sys­tem­ic change is to be adop­ted from the ground up. a) Inclu­sion: A com­mit­ment to widen­ing par­ti­cip­a­tion. b) Com­munity co-design: A com­mit­ment to empower­ing com­munit­ies to have more power and influ­ence over what mat­ters to them and to co-design the actions and pro­jects that they need.

Suc­cess measures

1. A mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation frame­work has been cre­ated by our SEFARI Fel­low­ship part­ner, The Uni­ver­sity of the High­land Islands (UHI – Perth). a) This frame­work iden­ti­fies a suite of pro­ject and pro­gramme indic­at­ors, which will be mon­itored through­out the life­time of the pro­gramme and repor­ted to the CNPA Board and through oth­er Pro­gramme gov­ernance struc­tures on an annu­al basis. b) A PHD stu­dent­ship will be launched by UHI – Perth and the Park Author­ity in year 2 of the deliv­ery phase to assist with pro­gramme know­ledge exchange and research.

Gov­ernance and Assurance

1. The gov­ernance of a pro­gramme of this scale is a key con­trib­ut­or to the suc­cess of pro­gramme deliv­ery. This sec­tion of the paper sets out the main ele­ments of the pro­gramme gov­ernance and assur­ance pro­cesses and provisions.

Park Author­ity Board Responsibilities

1. The role of the board is to provide lead­er­ship, dir­ec­tion, sup­port and guid­ance to ensure the Park Author­ity deliv­ers and is com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing its func­tions effect­ively and effi­ciently and in accord­ance with our aims.

2. The Park Authority’s board will retain respons­ib­il­ity for the lead­er­ship of the Pro­gramme as the Account­able Body and lead applic­ant for Cairngorms 2030. With­in this broad con­text, the Board car­ries the fol­low­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies of rel­ev­ance to the gov­ernance of the Park Authority’s inter­ac­tion with the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme: a) Pro­mot­ing the effi­cient, eco­nom­ic and effect­ive use of staff and oth­er resources by the Park Author­ity con­sist­ent with the prin­ciples of Best Value, includ­ing, where appro­pri­ate, par­ti­cip­a­tion in shared ser­vices arrange­ments. Amongst oth­er mat­ters, this will involve scru­tiny of the Park Authority’s resource deploy­ment across the organisation’s range of agreed stra­tegic out­comes, includ­ing the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme, in seek­ing to ensure achieve­ment of all agreed cor­por­ate plan objectives.

   b) Ensur­ing that effect­ive arrange­ments are in place to provide assur­ance on risk man­age­ment, gov­ernance, deliv­ery against agreed key per­form­ance indic­at­ors and sound sys­tems of intern­al con­trol. This work will typ­ic­ally be achieved through assur­ance pro­cesses under­taken by the board’s com­mit­tees, as has been the case dur­ing the Devel­op­ment Phase of the Programme.

   c) Ensur­ing that the board receives, and reviews reg­u­lar fin­an­cial inform­a­tion con­cern­ing the man­age­ment and per­form­ance of the Park Author­ity and is informed in a timely man­ner about any con­cerns regard­ing the activ­it­ies of the Park Author­ity. This will typ­ic­ally be achieved through reg­u­lar updates and per­form­ance man­age­ment reports to the board.

Park Author­ity Board Spe­cif­ic Decision Making

1. With­in the Board’s respons­ib­il­it­ies set out above, the fol­low­ing spe­cif­ic decision-mak­ing respons­ib­il­it­ies will rest with the Park Author­ity Board: a) Agree­ment of Cairngorms 2030 bid to Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund;

   b) Agree­ment of the pro­gramme out­comes and key per­form­ance indic­at­ors as they impact spe­cific­ally on the Park Authority’s stra­tegic object­ives and against which the effect­ive­ness of Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme deliv­ery will be assessed;

   c) Alloc­a­tion of the Park Authority’s fin­an­cial resources to Cairngorms 2030

   d) Agree­ment of the over­arch­ing gov­ernance arrange­ments for the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme as the lead applic­ant and Account­able Body;

   e) Determ­in­a­tion of risk appet­ite and stra­tegic risk impacts of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme as it poten­tially impacts the Park Author­ity, and determ­in­a­tion of asso­ci­ated mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures; and

   f) Determ­in­a­tion of any sig­ni­fic­ant, stra­tegic amend­ments to the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme as may be required by the lead applic­ant and account­able body from time to time.

2. These respons­ib­il­it­ies will be dis­charged through appro­pri­ate decision papers sub­mit­ted to meet­ings of the Board and any of the Board’s sub-com­mit­tees to which rel­ev­ant decision-mak­ing author­ity is delegated.

Park Author­ity Assur­ance Considerations

1. The Park Author­ity will main­tain assur­ance over a range of areas of poten­tial impact and risk on the Authority’s stra­tegic pos­i­tion. Key aspects of assur­ance require­ment are set out in this sec­tion, with rel­ev­ant ele­ments of the Authority’s gov­ernance struc­ture involved in each ele­ment of assur­ance indic­ated in brack­ets. In devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme, the assur­ance sphere for the Cairngorms NPA Board will be to ensure that the pro­gramme: a) Is main­tain­ing deliv­ery against its aims and object­ives as agreed with NLHF [Park Author­ity Board / Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee / Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team];

   b) Is con­tinu­ing to take appro­pri­ate oppor­tun­it­ies and deliv­er­ing pro­gramme aims and object­ives with­in the wider con­text of the Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate and Annu­al Oper­a­tion­al Plans [Park Author­ity Board / Rel­ev­ant sub-com­mit­tee / Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team];

   c) Is man­aging pro­gramme risks and oppor­tun­it­ies appro­pri­ately without cross-over risk impacts to the Park Author­ity [Park Author­ity Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee / Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team];

   d) Is man­aging pro­gramme resources appro­pri­ately without impact on the Park Authority’s agreed budgets and fin­an­cial pos­i­tion [Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team / Resources Committee];

   e) Is man­aging staff resource deploy­ment appro­pri­ately between sup­port of Pro­gramme deliv­ery and oth­er Cor­por­ate and Oper­a­tion­al Plan object­ives [Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team]; and

   f) Is liais­ing appro­pri­ately with key stake­hold­ers includ­ing NLHF [Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team / Park Author­ity Board/​relevant sub-committee]

2. There will con­tin­ue to be a Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme Board dir­ectly respons­ible for the over­sight and deliv­ery of the Pro­gramme. The Pro­gramme Board will con­sider the detail of the Programme’s deliv­ery, in line with best prac­tice prin­ciples for pro­gramme man­age­ment. Any points of escal­a­tion will be iden­ti­fied and com­mu­nic­ated to the Park Author­ity board and oth­er appro­pri­ate gov­ernance struc­tures by seni­or management.

Key Park Author­ity Assur­ance Mechanisms

1. Appendix 6 sets out the struc­ture pro­posed for the gov­ernance of the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme. The fol­low­ing mech­an­isms will be deployed as key ele­ments of the design of the assur­ance processes:

   a) The CEO as the Account­able Officer of the lead applic­ant will Chair the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme Board giv­ing dir­ect over­sight of Cairngorms 2030 lead­er­ship and link­ages back to the Authority’s governance.

   b) The Park Author­ity Board Deputy Con­ven­or will sit on the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme Board provid­ing a dir­ect, seni­or link­age between the Pro­gramme Board and the Park Author­ity Board’s stra­tegic over­sight of the inter­ac­tion between the Pro­gramme and the broad­er status of the Park Authority.

   c) Quarterly deliv­ery phase pro­gress reports will be presen­ted to the Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee from April 2024 with an annu­al per­form­ance report included in the Cor­por­ate Plan Per­form­ance Frame­work to the full Board.

   d) The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices will con­tin­ue line man­age­ment respons­ib­il­ity for the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme enabling dir­ect con­trol over the effect­ive and effi­cient deploy­ment of the agreed Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme gov­ernance and assur­ance frame­work across the Park Author­ity and pro­gramme. This assur­ance mech­an­ism retains a spe­cif­ic focus and sep­ar­ate stra­tegic respons­ib­il­ity for Pro­gramme deliv­ery from oth­er core deliv­ery respons­ib­il­it­ies held by oth­er Dir­ect­ors and has been suc­cess­fully deployed in pre­vi­ous multi-strand pro­gramme deliv­ery such as Cairngorms LEADER.

   e) Integ­ra­tion of Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme stra­tegic risk, fin­an­cial and deliv­ery report­ing with the Park Authority’s report­ing pro­ced­ures; and

   f) Deploy­ment of fur­ther spe­cif­ic assur­ance actions as iden­ti­fied in the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme assur­ance map set out at Appendix to this paper.

HH Pro­gramme Board

1. The Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme will con­tin­ue to be led by a Pro­gramme Board which mon­it­ors and guides the achieve­ment of the Pro­gramme object­ives, leads and scru­tin­ises the Project’s risk and oppor­tun­ity man­age­ment pro­cesses and mit­ig­a­tions, over­sees fin­an­cial con­trol and ensures that the Pro­ject meets and ful­fils the grant con­di­tions of all fun­ders. The Pro­gramme Board will con­sider any points of escal­a­tion high­lighted through con­stitu­ent pro­ject man­age­ment, where there may be sig­ni­fic­ant bar­ri­ers to or risks around achieve­ment of inten­ded out­comes and give lead­er­ship on res­ol­u­tion. This is in line with accep­ted best prac­tice on pro­gramme man­age­ment. The Pro­gramme Board will meet quarterly. The Pro­gramme Board will con­sist of rep­res­ent­at­ives from our main fund­ing and deliv­ery partners.

2. The Authority’s Chief Exec­ut­ive as Account­able Officer of the Park Author­ity as lead applic­ant and with per­son­al respons­ib­il­ity to account for the use of the resources made avail­able to the Park Author­ity will Chair the Pro­gramme Board. It is also pro­posed that the Deputy Con­ven­or will be a mem­ber of the Pro­gramme Board as an aspect of the wider gov­ernance and assur­ance processes.

Pro­gramme Advis­ory Panel

1. The Cairngorms 2030 stage 1 NLHF applic­a­tion was developed with the help and advice of a Pro­ject Advis­ory Pan­el. This pan­el will be retained and amal­gam­ated into the Pro­gramme Board (See Appendix 6 for mem­ber­ship list).

HH Pro­gramme Team

1. The Pro­gramme Team will over­see and man­age the deliv­ery of work iden­ti­fied and detailed in the applic­a­tion to NLHF.

2. The Pro­ject Team will meet monthly to: a) Over­see the deliv­ery of the activ­ity, the fin­an­cial and con­trac­tu­al admin­is­tra­tion there­of and the mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation. b) Ensure records of income and expendit­ure of the pro­ject activ­ity are mon­itored togeth­er with cash flow pro­jec­tions to meet the needs of fun­ders. c) Ensure accur­ate records of the activ­ity and per­form­ance man­age­ment are kept. d) Ensure the timely deliv­ery of any grant claims, achieve­ment and budget­ary inform­a­tion as required by the grant con­di­tions of all fun­ders. e) Ensure vari­ous intern­al report­ing and assur­ance require­ments of the Author­ity as lead applic­ant are met. f) Review and update the pos­i­tion with Pro­gramme risk man­age­ment and effect­ive­ness of agreed mit­ig­a­tions, includ­ing devel­op­ment and man­age­ment of an issues log and issues res­ol­u­tion pro­cess. g) Identi­fy and man­age pro­gramme and pro­ject change man­age­ment requests through appro­pri­ate gov­ernance processes.

Indi­vidu­al Pro­ject Teams

1. The Pro­gramme com­prises 20 sep­ar­ate, linked pro­jects each of which is delivered by a Pro­ject Man­ager work­ing with a pro­ject team. Indi­vidu­al pro­ject teams will be cre­ated to deliv­er the pro­jects as detailed in Appendix 4. The pro­ject teams will include staff from Park Author­ity and extern­al deliv­ery partners.

Pro­ject implementation

1. Pro­ject man­agers will imple­ment their agreed pro­ject plans with­in times­cales agreed by the Pro­gramme Board. Where there are a range of Part­ners (and / or con­tract­ors) in the imple­ment­a­tion of activ­it­ies, Pro­ject Teams and their Pro­ject Man­agers will be instru­ment­al in coordin­at­ing and ensur­ing they deliv­er their work to the required stand­ards, to the agreed budget and timescales.

Park Author­ity assur­ance map

1. Boards and exec­ut­ive man­age­ment need to bal­ance the flow of inform­a­tion to avoid being swamped by inform­a­tion, with gain­ing adequate assur­ance over the effect­ive deploy­ment of sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gramme activ­it­ies and gain­ing con­fid­ence that pro­gramme deliv­ery is as inten­ded. Assur­ance cov­ers broad ele­ments of both tak­ing expec­ted oppor­tun­it­ies and not hav­ing adverse impacts in the short or long term on the core busi­ness and fin­an­cial pos­i­tion of the core organ­isa­tion. Assur­ance maps help identi­fy the key busi­ness pro­cesses and mech­an­isms through which assur­ance can be gained by those respons­ible for gov­ernance on: the effect­ive deploy­ment of con­trols; man­age­ment of oppor­tun­ity and risk; and ulti­mate deliv­ery of agreed stra­tegic objectives.

2. While key assur­ance mech­an­isms have been detailed in the pre­ced­ing sec­tion there are a range of more detailed pro­cesses which con­trib­ute to the assur­ance pro­cesses around any large-scale oper­a­tion such as the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme. The assur­ance map for the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme is set out at Appendix 8 to give more inform­a­tion on key areas where we expect the Park Authority’s Board and Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment to require assur­ance and where with­in the gov­ernance struc­ture each area of assur­ance will primar­ily be achieved.

Sup­port­ing information

Part­ners

1. The pro­ject has received sig­ni­fic­ant sup­port from a wide range of pub­lic, private and third sec­tor organ­isa­tions. A full list of part­ners is included in Appendix 2. Part­ners in the pro­ject are either provid­ing deliv­ery sup­port, match fund­ing, staff time and/​or let­ters of support.

Pro­jects

1. There are 20 pro­jects being pro­posed in the deliv­ery phase. A pro­ject over­view is included at Appendix 1, the aims and object­ives for the bid are set out at Appendix 3 and a full list of pro­posed pro­jects is detailed in Appendix 4. a) Cairngorms future farm­ing b) Cli­mate resi­li­ent catch­ments c) Green invest­ment plan d) Land­scape and com­munit­ies e) Nature recov­ery f) Peat­land res­tor­a­tion g) Wood­land expan­sion h) Cli­mate con­scious com­munit­ies i) Cli­mate learn­ing and edu­ca­tion j) Com­munity arts and cul­ture k) Com­munity man­aged cli­mate grants I) Effect­ive com­munity engage­ment m) Act­ive com­munit­ies n) Chan­ging travel beha­viours o) Cycle friendly Cairngorms p) Sus­tain­able trans­port q) Out­door demen­tia resource centre r) Pub­lic health and the out­doors s) Well­being eco­nomy t) Know­ledge exchange and research

Aims

The Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme has the fol­low­ing aims: a) To be an inter­na­tion­al show­case for inclus­ive and equit­able land use change b) To mit­ig­ate cli­mate emer­gency, improve biod­iversity, con­nect land­scape change and com­munity aspir­a­tions. c) To enhance eco­lo­gic­al and eco­nom­ic well­being through trans­form­a­tion­al, col­lab­or­at­ive change. d) To inform and change atti­tudes and beha­viours to deliv­er net zero and biod­iversity tar­gets. e) To empower people to take respons­ib­il­ity for decisions effect­ing change in their envir­on­ment and see the bene­fits of the changes flow to their com­munit­ies. f) To place act­ive and sus­tain­able travel at the heart of a green­er future lead­ing to a fairer and regen­er­at­ive loc­al economy.

Object­ives

The Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme will pur­sue the fol­low­ing object­ives: a) Cairngorms Nation­al Park will tri­al new mod­els for land use and land man­age­ment, and pion­eer new col­lab­or­a­tions to engage with nature. b) Cairngorms Nation­al Park will con­trib­ute to net zero and biod­iversity tar­gets through land­scape scale enhance­ments to wood­lands, peat­lands, river catch­ments, uplands and farm­lands. c) People’s health and live­li­hoods will be improved through the devel­op­ment and pro­mo­tion of the well­being eco­nomy in the CNP. d) People and busi­nesses will be more know­ledge­able about cli­mate and car­bon, and will have changed their beha­viour to deliv­er net zero and biod­iversity tar­gets. e) People will be more involved in their community’s gov­ernance and prac­tic­al activ­ity. f) Cairngorms Nation­al Park will be a rur­al exem­plar for sus­tain­able and act­ive travel embra­cing tech­no­logy and design innov­a­tion to reduce trans­port-related car­bon emissions.

Out­comes

The Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme will deliv­er the fol­low­ing out­comes: a) Cairngorms 2030 pro­motes equal­ity, diversity and inclu­sion among its par­ti­cipants. b) As a res­ult of Cairngorms 2030, people have great­er well­being. c) Cairngorms 2030 will empower people to take cli­mate action. d) With­in Cairngorms 2030, a great­er num­ber and range of people are volun­teer­ing. e) As a res­ult of Cairngorms 2030, a wider range of people feel more con­nec­ted to her­it­age. f) Through Cairngorms 2030, people feel the Cairngorms is a bet­ter place to live, work and vis­it. g) Through Cairngorms 2030, a great­er num­ber and range of people have improved skills and live­li­hoods. h) Cairngorms 2030 con­nects com­munit­ies through sus­tain­able, act­ive travel. i) With­in Cairngorms 2030, new mod­els of best prac­tice are piloted and reviewed at a loc­al level. j) Cairngorms 2030 will cre­ate new and stronger part­ner­ships and net­works loc­ally, nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally. k) Cairngorms 2030 will lead to an over­all net reduc­tion in green­house gases. 1) As a res­ult of Cairngorms 2030, nature will be big­ger, bet­ter and more joined up. m) Through Cairngorms 2030, pro­gress is made towards a well­being eco­nomy. n) Through Cairngorms 2030, part­ners are inspired to make changes to policies and prac­tices. o) With­in Cairngorms 2030, col­lab­or­at­ive work­ing con­nects her­it­age, well­being, and com­munit­ies to tackle cli­mate change. p) As a res­ult of Cairngorms 2030, CNPA is a more resi­li­ent organisation.

Staff­ing

1. The deliv­ery phase will employ 21 posts dir­ectly through the Park Author­ity (see Appendix 5) and 3 fur­ther posts employed by part­ners 2 x Alzheimer Scot­land, 1 x Sus­trans Scot­land (50% match) The Pro­gramme will also be sup­por­ted by a num­ber of Park Author­ity staff as an ​‘in kind con­tri­bu­tion’: we will estab­lish the fin­an­cial value of the Park Authority’s addi­tion­al staff sup­port as a non­cash ele­ment of resources con­trib­ut­ing to the Programme’s deliv­ery. This is set out in Appendix 6.

Equal­it­ies

1. The Park Author­ity Equal­it­ies Pan­el was engaged through­out the devel­op­ment stage. As such, equal­it­ies, diversity, and inclu­sion have been included as a main audi­ence tar­get with­in Cairngorms 2030 with widen­ing par­ti­cip­a­tion embed­ded as a pro­ject deliv­ery prin­ciple. High­lights from the devel­op­ment phase include the open­ing of the Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre at Bad­aguish, all abil­it­ies design stand­ards included with­in sus­tain­able travel pro­jects, tar­geted out­door recre­ation­al pro­mo­tion with Scot­tish Black Adven­tur­ers and changes to the Park Author­it­ies train­ing and recruit­ment polices to widen participation.

Timetable

1. The bid must be sent to NLHF on 17 August 2023. It is expec­ted that Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity will hear in Decem­ber 2023 wheth­er the applic­a­tion is suc­cess­ful or not. If suc­cess­ful, the deliv­ery phase will be from Janu­ary 2024 – Decem­ber 2028.

Fin­ance

1. The 5‑year deliv­ery phase total budget is £37,360,886 with an NLHF con­tri­bu­tion of £10,386,378. These costs are indic­at­ive and sub­ject to change.

No	Pro­ject	Cap­it­al	Activ­ity	Oth­er	DELIV­ERY TOTAL
1α	Well­being Economy	£0	£27,000	£0	£27,000
1b	Pub­lic Health and the Outdoors	£0	£0	£12,000	£12,000
1c	Demen­tia Activ­ity Centre	£22,800	£470,662	£22,000	£515,462
2α	Cli­mate Learn­ing and Education	£0	£48,000	£0	£48,000
2b	Effect­ive Com­munity Engagement	£0	£660,000	£0	£660,000
2c	Com­munity Arts & Culture	£0	£99,000	£0	£99,000
3α	Cli­mate Con­scious Communities	£0	£48,000	£0	£48,000
3c	Com­munity Man­aged Grant Scheme	£0	£12,000	£1,000,000	£1,012,000
4b	Green Invest­ment Plan	£0	£119,750	£0	£119,750
5α	Wood­land expansion	£4,000,000	£0	£0	£4,000,000
5b	Peat­land Restoration	£12,000,000	£0	£0	£12,000,000
5c	Cli­mate Resi­li­ent Catchments	£1,402,560	£14,400	£90,000	£1,506,960
5d	Nature Recov­ery	£1,440,000	£300,120	£0	£1,740,120
5e	Cairngorms Future Farming	£489,120	£150,940	£0	£640,060
5f	Land­scape and Communities	£20,040	£145,008	£0	£165,048
6h	Cycle Friendly Cairngorms	£701,400	£48,000	£100,800	£850,200
6i	Act­ive Travel Communities	£6,805,549	£151,200	£105,600	£7,062,349
6j	Sus­tain­able Transport	£186,000	£231,000	£22,800	£439,800
6k	Travel beha­viour change	£12,000	£60,600	£23,400	£96,000
7	Research and Know­ledge Exchange	£24,000	£340,800	£0	£364,800
	Sub­total	£27,103,469	£2,926,480	£1,376,600	£31,406,549
	Staff­ing	£0	£5,304,337	£0	£5,304,337
	Con­tin­gency	£0	£0	£400,000	£400,000
	Infla­tion	£0	£0	£250,000	£250,000
	Sub­total	£0	£5,304,337	£650,000	£5,954,337
	TOTAL	£27,103,469	£8,230,817	£2,026,600	£37,360,886

Deliv­ery phase costs: Part­ner contributions

1. The Park Author­ity is con­fid­ent of secur­ing addi­tion­al part­ner match fund­ing con­tri­bu­tions in excess of £1 mil­lion from oth­er pub­lic bod­ies. Exact con­tri­bu­tions will be con­firmed in due course.

Next Steps

1. Sub­ject to Board approv­al CNPA to sub­mit NLHF applic­a­tion on 17 August 2023. a) NLHF will assess the applic­a­tion in Novem­ber 2023. b) NLHF fund­ing award decision expec­ted in Decem­ber 2023. c) Offi­cial per­mis­sion to start the deliv­ery phase expec­ted Janu­ary 2024.

Appendix 1: Cairngorms 2030 overview

Cairngorms 2030 vision:

By 2030 The Cairngorms Nation­al Park will be an exem­plar of people and nature thriv­ing togeth­er in a rap­idly chan­ging world

1. What does our vis­ion mean?

   a) The Cairngorms Nation­al Park – the largest Nation­al Park in the UK, cov­er­ing parts of Aber­deen­shire, Moray, High­land, Angus, and Perth and Kinross and home to one-quarter of the UK’s rare and endangered species.

   b) An exem­plar – pro­ject pro­cesses and out­comes will be eval­u­ated and shared loc­ally to glob­ally, the pro­ject act­ing as a beacon for sim­il­ar large scale trans­form­a­tion across the world.

   c) People and nature thriv­ing togeth­er – we are all a part of nature. Our mis­sion is to work with nature with­in the lim­its of the planet’s resources and eco­lo­gic­al ceil­ing. It is about ensur­ing that we give more back to the liv­ing sys­tems than we take out.

   d) A rap­idly chan­ging world we live in a rap­idly chan­ging world with the cli­mate crisis at the heart of change and dir­ectly link­ing to the nature crisis, COV­ID type pan­dem­ics and the cost-of-liv­ing crisis. We need a health­i­er course for the future, a green recov­ery, and have a respons­ib­il­ity to do things dif­fer­ently and go bey­ond net zero.

2. How will our vis­ion look? In prac­tice, our vis­ion will be delivered through 20 pro­jects across four Cairngorms 2030 themes.

   a) Restor­ing and enhan­cing land­scapes – trans­form­ing the way land is man­aged and used with­in the Nation­al Park to bene­fit nature.

   b) Empower­ment – empower­ing com­munit­ies to shape the future of their loc­al area.

   c) Trans­form­ing trans­port – trans­form­ing the way people move around the Nation­al Park to reduce emis­sions, pro­tect our nat­ur­al her­it­age, and improve health.

   d) Health and well­being – fos­ter­ing health­i­er, hap­pi­er com­munit­ies with well­being at their heart.

Appendix 2: Part­ner organisations

Cairngorms 2030 Partners

	Part­ner organ­isa­tions	Theme	Pro­ject
1	Aber­deen­shire Council	All	Pro­gramme Wide
2	All the Elements	All	Effect­ive Com­munity Engagement
3	Alzheimer Scot­land	People	Demen­tia Activ­ity Resource Centre
4	Back­bone	All	Effect­ive Com­munity Engagement
5	Badenoch & Strath­spey Com­munity Plan­ning Partnership	People	Pro­gramme Wide
6	Badenoch Access Forum	Place	Act­ive Communities
7	Black Scot­tish Adventurers	All	Effect­ive Com­munity Engagement
8	Black Scot­tish Professionals	All	Effect­ive Com­munity Engagement
9	Bumble­bee Con­ser­va­tion Trust	Nature	Cairngorms Future Farming
10	Cairngorm Moun­tain	Place	Sus­tain­able Transport
11	Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership	All	Pro­gramme Wide
12	Cairngorms Cre­at­ive Directory	People	Com­munity Arts & Culture
13	Cairngorms Youth Action Team	All	Effect­ive Com­munity Engagement
14	CivTech	Research	Pro­gramme Wide
15	CNPA Equal­it­ies Panel	Pro­gramme	Effect­ive Com­munity Engagement
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