Annex 2

Title: Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener & Plan­ning Con­vener Alloc­a­tions Review

Pre­pared by: Xan­der McDade, Con­vener, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 7 Annex 2

8 Septem­ber 2023

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1. Back­ground

a) Three Board roles cur­rently attract a high­er day alloc­a­tion than oth­er Board mem­bers. These are the Board Con­vener, the Board Deputy Con­vener and the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Convener.

b) Cur­rently the Con­vener is alloc­ated two days a week to per­form their duties, with the Deputy Con­vener alloc­ated an addi­tion­al day a month and the Plan­ning Con­vener also alloc­ated an addi­tion­al day a month.

c) These alloc­a­tions have been in place since the early days of the Nation­al Park and have not been routinely reviewed and were not part of the 2019 or 2017 Board Fees Reviews.

2. Alloc­a­tions Review

2.1. Con­vener Allocation

a) The Board Con­vener receives two days per week to under­take their duties. Although this is broadly sim­il­ar to oth­er NDBPs of the same size in fin­an­cial terms they usu­ally have Boards with mem­ber­ships roughly half the size of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and that do not meet as regularly.

b) Even adjust­ing for the excep­tion­al time demands presen­ted by the COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic and the addi­tion­al work required for the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan over the past few years the role gen­er­ally demands more than two days a week. Whilst it will nev­er be an exact time each work, 2.5 days a week is likely to closer reflect the time com­mit­ment required whilst con­tinu­ing to reflect it is a part-time role and the size of the organ­iz­a­tion. The addi­tion­al 0.5 day would recog­nizes the great­er time com­mit­ment required to meet par­tic­u­larly with stake­hold­ers who are

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crit­ic­al to Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan deliv­ery, but also the time to sup­port a lar­ger Board.

c) Although Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment rules on Board Fees allow the Con­vener to be paid a high­er daily rate than oth­er Board Mem­bers, the CNPA cur­rently pays the Con­vener the same day rate as all oth­er Board Mem­bers. Whilst this could be one way to increase the Con­vener remu­ner­a­tion to bet­ter reflect the work­load and addi­tion­al respons­ib­il­it­ies, it is pro­posed that it would be more appro­pri­ate to seek an increase in the num­ber of days alloc­ated to a more real­ist­ic number.

d) To ensure the widest range of Board Mem­bers are able to put them­selves for­ward for addi­tion­al respons­ib­il­ity roles such as Con­vener, it is import­ant that the alloc­a­tion reflects the work­load involved. A park for all must reflect that pos­i­tion at all levels.

2.2. Deputy Con­vener Allocation

a) In more recent years the Deputy Con­vener has been giv­en a more inclus­ive role in sup­port­ing the Con­vener which has led to an increase in their work­load bey­ond the fairly lim­ited role of purely step­ping in for the Con­vener when they are unavail­able. This more part­ner­ship like approach has res­ul­ted in an increase in the num­ber of meet­ings they are attend­ing such as Min­is­teri­al Vis­its, nation­al meet­ings and reg­u­lar stake­hold­er meetings.

b) This approach has been suc­cess­ful and it is expec­ted that it is likely to con­tin­ue and there­fore con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to reflect­ing the extra work the Deputy Con­vener role is under­taken cur­rently on a vol­un­tary basis.

c) An increase to two extra days a month (from 8^th Septem­ber 2023) instead of one extra day a month would be a more accur­ate reflec­tion of the time com­mit­ment involved and ensure that those serving in this role are not being expec­ted to per­form sig­ni­fic­antly more hours than they are remu­ner­ated for.

2.3. Plan­ning Con­vener Allocation

a) His­tor­ic­ally there were twelve Plan­ning Com­mit­tees a year and this cor­res­pon­ded with the addi­tion­al twelve days the Plan­ning Con­vener received a year to under­take their work. When the num­ber of Plan­ning Com­mit­tees were reduced to ten, the num­ber of days was not reduced to cor­res­pond with the reduc­tion and it was left at twelve. This year the num­ber of Plan­ning Com­mit­tees has been further

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reduced to eight to cor­res­pond with lower Plan­ning applic­a­tions com­ing before the Committee.

b) It would seem appro­pri­ate that the next Plan­ning Con­vener (from Novem­ber 2023) should receive eight addi­tion­al days a year to cor­res­pond with the num­ber of Plan­ning Committees.

Recom­mend­a­tion

The Com­mit­tee is asked to consider:

a) if it wishes to make a request to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to change the Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener and Plan­ning Con­vener alloc­a­tions as part of the annu­al Board Fees sub­mis­sion being pre­pared for sub­mis­sion to government.

b) Any changes would be pro­posed to take effect from 1^st August 2023 in respect of the Con­vener, 8^th Septem­ber 2023 in respect of the Deputy Con­vener and 1^st Novem­ber 2023 in respect of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener and would not affect cur­rent post holders.