230811DraftResourceMinute

Draft Minutes of the Resource Com­mit­tee Meet­ing Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and Vir­tu­ally 11 August 2023 3.35pm

Present Rus­sell Jones (Chair) Xan­der McDade Han­nah Grist Sandy Brem­ner (Board Con­vener) Derek Ross Elean­or Mackintosh

In Attend­ance Grant Moir, CEO Dav­id Camer­on, Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Catri­ona Strang, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies Janet Hunter (Act­ing Vice Chair) Lauren McCallum

Minutes from the pre­vi­ous con­fid­en­tial meet­ing for approval

1. The minutes from the meet­ing on the 25 June 2023 were approved.

Mat­ters arising not covered from pre­vi­ous meeting

1. No mat­ters arising

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. No declar­a­tion of interest

Budget Mon­it­or­ing

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO presen­ted the paper which sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of the first quarter of the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ fin­an­cial year and high­lighted the fol­low­ing: a) since the paper issue there has been sig­ni­fic­ant move­ment in peat­land grant offers being awar­ded by the Park Author­ity in sup­port of land man­agers’ works con­tracts. b) The pay remit dis­cus­sions are under­way with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, with the cost of any remit expec­ted to be covered under the exist­ing budget estim­ates. c) Over­all, budget mon­it­or­ing pos­i­tion for the peri­od is in line with expectations.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee had no dis­cus­sion or com­ments on the paper.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Resources Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to the officer’s recommendations.

2. Action Point Arising: none

2022/2023 Estim­ate Outturn

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO presen­ted the paper giv­ing an update on the estim­ated out­turn pos­i­tion for the ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ fin­an­cial year.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee had no dis­cus­sion or com­ments on the paper.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Resources Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the estim­ated out­turn pos­i­tion for the ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ fin­an­cial year

1. The Com­mit­tee agreed to the officer’s recommendations.

2. Action Point Arising: none

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Work­force Man­age­ment Strategy

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, presen­ted the work­force man­age­ment strategy which refreshes the strategy approved in Decem­ber 2018, and high­lighted the fol­low­ing as key points of change since the last strategy was approved: a) the reduc­tion in work­ing hours from 37.5 – 35 hours b) the rel­at­ive low staff turnover. c) 50% of staff joined the organ­isa­tion in the last two year with 19% of staff with the organ­isa­tion for more than 10 years. The staff pro­file shows a good mix of new and retained skills and exper­i­ence. d) Recruit­ment chal­lenges with a com­bin­a­tion of factors includ­ing con­tract length for some spe­cif­ic recruit­ments, more wide­spread dif­fi­culty secur­ing hous­ing and poor pub­lic trans­port lim­it­ing con­nec­tions to the office. The recruit­ment envir­on­ment is cur­rently par­tic­u­larly chal­len­ging with spe­cial­ist Plan­ning posts as there is a short­age of trained plan­ners com­ing from uni­ver­sity. Fur­ther­more, the cases with­in the author­ity are more com­plex than in a loc­al author­ity, where there are also more hier­arch­ic­al struc­tures and there­fore great­er oppor­tun­ity for career devel­op­ment. Hav­ing career grad­ing posts espe­cially with­in plan­ning spe­cial­ist roles has helped mit­ig­ate some of these chal­lenges — i.e. where the incum­bent is remu­ner­ated at band C at gradu­ate entry level and then after a peri­od of gain­ing requis­ite skills and exper­i­ence, is remu­ner­ated at band D. e) Cur­rently devel­op­ing the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment strategy and will bring back to the committee.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) A mem­ber asked if there are con­nectiv­ity issues for hybrid work­ers. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment con­firmed that all staff are provided with a laptop and mobile phone, and we have moved to Teams with ZScaler App which allows remote access to the work drive as if you were in the office. Trans­ition to Share­Point for doc­u­ment man­age­ment is mov­ing for­ward. Over­all there are no con­nectiv­ity lim­it­a­tions for hybrid work­ing. b) A mem­ber asked about the Share­Point and one drive trans­ition. Dav­id Camer­on, Head of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO con­firmed that the new inform­a­tion man­ager is in place and the migra­tion will be com­pleted in the next 12 months, with the ​‘Rdrive’ becom­ing a stat­ic archive. The trans­ition pro­ject is pri­or­it­ising col­lab­or­at­ive work­ing with­in and out­with the organisation.

c) A mem­ber asked about salary com­par­is­on to oth­er organ­isa­tion with­in the plan­ning team. Grant Moir, CEO con­firm that private organ­isa­tions can pay more than pub­lic bod­ies, it was noted that the authority’s plan­ning team is small and there is less scope for career pro­gres­sion. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment con­firmed it is a nation­al issue with less young people going into the plan­ning pro­fes­sion and we are look­ing at work­ing with uni­ver­sit­ies to take on a gradu­ate plan­ner. d) A mem­ber asked if we are act­ively tar­get­ing uni­ver­sity depart­ments in recruit­ment. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment noted that it is depend­ent on the role as some require spe­cif­ic tar­geted recruit­ment. For interns we’ve pro­moted roles through ​‘Adopt an Intern’ and they pro­mote these roles to the alumni of all the fur­ther and high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions in Scot­land. We have also been work­ing with schools both with­in and out­with the park area on CV’s and inter­view skills. e) A mem­ber noted pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sion about pro­vi­sion of tech­nic­al grade for the reten­tion of staff. Head of Organ­isa­tion Devel­op­ment con­firmed that this was not pos­sible with­in the job eval­u­ation sys­tem, which had 7 estab­lished grades and spe­cif­ic cri­ter­ia for eval­u­at­ing a job into that grade. The HR team and Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive con­tin­ued to give thought to how to pro­gress the Resources Committee’s request to con­sider the salary pos­i­tion to sup­port recruit­ment and reten­tion of tar­geted high-risk roles and would report back to the Com­mit­tee as soon as pos­sible. f) A mem­ber noted that there has been an increase in young people join­ing the organ­isa­tion. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment con­firmed that would con­tin­ue to focus on our Youth Employ­ment Strategy, whereby we have spe­cif­ic tar­gets to meet regard­ing appren­tice­ships, intern­ships and gradu­ate place­ments. g) A mem­ber asked what social media plat­forms were used for pro­mot­ing recruit­ment. Head of Organ­isa­tion devel­op­ment con­firmed that the organ­isa­tion pro­moted on X (formerly Twit­ter), Face­book, the Park Authority’s jobs web­site, and through spe­cial­ised recruit­ment agen­cies. It was noted that work is being under­taken to rebuild the web­site. h) A mem­ber asked if there were oth­er social media plat­forms that could be used like Tik­Tok or Linked­In. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment noted that Tik­Tok may not get to the tar­get audi­ence, while we do pro­mote oppor­tun­it­ies on Linked­In depend­ing on the position.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Board Is asked to: a) Note the strategy

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the strategy document.

2. Action Point Arising: none

Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um Minutes

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, intro­duced this paper and noted that this is a stand­ard item that comes to the com­mit­tee to provide over­sight of the meet­ing and of our engage­ment with staff.

2. The chair noted that typ­ic­ally two mem­bers of Resources Com­mit­tee are nom­in­ated to attend the SCF meet­ing, and we are still required to identi­fy two mem­bers to do this.

3. The Con­vener con­firmed this had been cir­cu­lated to board mem­bers for note of interest and will be resolved in the next week.

4. Minutes were noted no fur­ther discussions/​actions.

Health & Safety Com­mit­tee Meet­ing Minutes

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment intro­duced this paper, explain­ing that the Board have over­all respons­ib­il­ity for the health and safety of staff, and it was there­fore con­sidered appro­pri­ate for them to have over­sight of the H&SC meet­ing minutes.

2. Minutes were noted no fur­ther discussions/​actions.

AOCB

1. Vice chair for com­mit­tee — if mem­bers can con­sider if they would like to be vice chair and note their interest and this will be rat­i­fied at the next committee.

2. Date of next meet­ing: 10 Novem­ber 2023

The meet­ing ended at: 16:19