Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 7 8 Septem­ber 2023 Page 1 of 3

For Decision

Title: Board Mem­ber Fee Policy

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices on behalf of Resources Committee

Pur­pose

This paper presents a review of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Board Mem­ber Fee Policy under­taken by the Board’s Resources Com­mit­tee at its meet­ing of 25 July 2023. The paper seeks approv­al from the board of decisions taken by the Com­mit­tee on the man­age­ment of mem­bers’ time avail­able for Park Author­ity busi­ness and asso­ci­ated pay­ment of board fees.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Agree the increase in base level time input by Park Author­ity board mem­bers from 30 days each year to 32 days each year, with asso­ci­ated increase in fee payments.

b) Note that the spe­cif­ic top-up pro­vi­sions pre­vi­ously included in mem­bers’ fee alloc­a­tions for attend­ance at com­munity coun­cil meet­ings will be removed in reflec­tion of the increase in the base level of time input to be provided by all members.

c) Agree auto­mat­ic deduc­tions to fee pay­ments where attend­ance at Park Author­ity board and com­mit­tee meet­ings falls below 90% as a con­sequence of non-author­ised absences.

d) Note changes pro­posed to the time alloc­a­tions for Board Con­vener, Board Deputy Con­vener and Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Convener.

Inform­a­tion

1. The board’s Resources Com­mit­tee approved pro­pos­als on man­age­ment of board mem­bers’ time avail­ab­il­ity and pay­ment of board mem­bers’ fees brought for­ward by the then Con­vener, Xan­der McDade, at its meet­ing held 25 July. The full paper presen­ted to the com­mit­tee meet­ing is set out at Annex One to this paper.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 7 8 Septem­ber 2023 Page 2 of 3

1. Changes agreed by the Resources Com­mit­tee to cur­rent man­age­ment of board mem­bers’ time input to the Park Author­ity and con­sequent pay­ment of mem­bers’ fees are as set out in the recom­mend­a­tions for decision in this paper. The board are asked to approve the decision of the Resources Com­mit­tee to increase ​‘base’ time alloc­a­tions for mem­bers to 32 days each year, which will then be imple­men­ted with effect from 1 Octo­ber 2023.

2. The increase in the base num­ber of days for mem­bers is inten­ded to reflect a stand­ard alloc­a­tion of time for mem­bers’ involve­ment in com­munity engagement.

3. In terms of recom­mend­a­tion c) above, and to imple­ment the pro­pos­al set out at 2.3a of Annex One, it is pro­posed that the fol­low­ing pro­cess will be applied:

   a) The Clerks to the Board will mon­it­or attend­ance and noti­fy the Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener, Chief Exec­ut­ive and Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive in any instance where a mem­bers’ attend­ance appears to have fallen below 90% in a rolling 6 month peri­od. The Chief Executive’s and Deputy Chief Executive’s involve­ment in this pro­cess is to reflect their respons­ib­il­ity for payroll pro­cessing only, as any payroll instruc­tions must be author­ised by these seni­or man­agers. Neither the Chief Exec­ut­ive nor Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive have any role in determ­in­ing wheth­er any fee adjust­ments are to be made.

   b) Where that pos­i­tion is con­firmed by the Con­vener, the Clerks to the Board will noti­fy the mem­ber con­cerned of the pos­i­tion and of the fees to be deduc­ted in the month fall­ing at the end of the rel­ev­ant quarter: June, Septem­ber, Decem­ber, March.

   c) Fees deduc­ted shall equate to the assessed num­ber of days attend­ance below the expec­ted attend­ance of 90%. For example, if a mem­ber is expec­ted to provide 16 days over the pre­ced­ing six month peri­od, the require­ment for at least 90% attend­ance equates to 14.4 days of time input. Where actu­al attend­ance after adding in author­ised absences is cal­cu­lated as 13 days over the pre­ced­ing six months, the deduc­tion shall be cal­cu­lated as 1.4 days of fees due.

   d) Sub­ject to res­ol­u­tion of any points of cla­ri­fic­a­tion or cor­rec­tion arising from the noti­fic­a­tion of the pos­i­tion to the mem­ber con­cerned, the Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive will issue an appro­pri­ate payroll instruc­tion to amend fee payments.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 7 8 Septem­ber 2023 Page 3 of 3

Board Offices Attract­ing Increased Remuneration

1. The board is asked to note that the Resources Com­mit­tee agreed to sub­mit pro­pos­als to the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to seek approv­al to pro­posed changes in the levels of fees paid to the hold­ers of the Board Con­vener, Board Deputy Con­vener and Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener roles. Pro­posed changes are as follows:

   a) Board Con­vener: increase from 2 days per week to 2.5 days per week effect­ive from 1 August 2023 — the com­mence­ment of appoint­ment of the next

   b) Board Deputy Con­vener: increase from 1 addi­tion­al day per month to 2 addi­tion­al days per month effect­ive from 8 Septem­ber 2023 — the com­mence­ment of appoint­ment of the next Deputy Convener.

   c) Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener: reduc­tion from 12 addi­tion­al days each year to 10 addi­tion­al days each year to reflect new Plan­ning Com­mit­tee sched­ule, effect­ive from Novem­ber 2023 — the com­mence­ment of appoint­ment of the next Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Con­vener. The Resources Com­mit­tee agreed this pos­i­tion rather than the reduc­tion pro­posed in the paper sub­mit­ted to the Com­mit­tee as an appro­pri­ate time alloc­a­tion for this role.

2. All pro­pos­als sum­mar­ised above are sub­ject to con­sid­er­a­tion and approv­al by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment under estab­lished pro­cesses for over­sight of arrange­ments for board mem­bers’ fees with­in Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Bod­ies. This includes the dates from which any change may be imple­men­ted in addi­tion to the level of fee pay­ment asso­ci­ated with roles. The paper sup­port­ing the changes to time alloc­a­tions for these roles con­sidered and approved by the Resources Com­mit­tee is set out at Annex Two to this paper.

Dav­id Camer­on, davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk For Resources Committee