231110ResourceCtteePaper4DRAFTSCFMinutes230914

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 4 10 Novem­ber 2023

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

DRAFT Minutes of the Staff Con­sultat­ive Forum

Held via MS Teams & In Per­son, Mor­lich Meet­ing Room, GoS Office 1:30pm, on Thursday 14 Septem­ber 2023

Present Adam Streeter-Smith Dav­id Camer­on Ed Swales James Lee Kate Christie Mari­aan Pita Nas­im Mehr­abi Pip Mack­ie Richard Hardy (Pro­spect)

Apo­lo­gies Derek Ross (Board Mem­ber) Rus­sell Jones (Board Member)

Item 1: Wel­come and Apologies

1. Dav­id Camer­on (DC) wel­comed everyone.
2. Apo­lo­gies were received from the above.

Item 2: Review of Minutes of 19 June 2023 Meet­ing and Mat­ters Arising

1. Minutes were agreed and action points were reviewed.

Item 3: Paper 1: Gender Diversity Policy

1. Kate Christie (KC) intro­duced the policy. She explained the fol­low­ing:- a. The policy was being tabled now because i) the LGBT Charter Action Plan which was con­sul­ted with and agreed by staff included the devel­op­ment of such a policy as one of the actions; ii) the Park Authority’s inter­ac­tions with the trans­gender com­munity is growing;

iii) the trans com­munity faced sig­ni­fic­ant and dis­pro­por­tion­ate dis­crim­in­a­tion and har­ass­ment as iden­ti­fied through the EqIA pro­cess; iv) the recent equal­it­ies and LGBT train­ing iden­ti­fied a lack of clar­ity in this area and uncer­tainty about how to inter­act, what to say etc b. The policy does not cre­ate a hier­archy of pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ics. In fact, the sec­tion on man­aging con­flict was spe­cific­ally added to the policy to note the rights of people with gender crit­ic­al beliefs, and this was reflec­ted also in the EqIA c. This policy will be one of a suite of equal­it­ies policies – some are still to be developed d. The Dig­nity at Work Policy was also a key policy that inter­acts closely with the Gender Diversity Policy, and we recog­nise the need to review this policy as well. The review will be brought back to the SCF

1. The fol­low­ing points were raised:

a. A mem­ber said that they had had sev­er­al rep­res­ent­a­tions made to them by staff which were in sup­port of the policy, and that it was par­tic­u­larly help­ful for man­agers to be clear about what was expec­ted of them in sup­port­ing employ­ees b. With regards the sec­tion on Beha­viour and Respect at Work, it was asked if set­ting out such expli­cit examples of beha­viours (that might prompt ref­er­ence to the Dig­nity at Work policy (DaW) might sug­gest a hier­archy of pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ics, and should the Gender Diversity Policy include ref­er­ence just to those beha­viours that might have a spe­cif­ic impact on trans­gender people only? Beha­viours which could relate to any of the pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ics could be adequately covered by the DaW policy. The pos­sib­il­ity of includ­ing the beha­viour examples in a guid­ance brief­ing to staff instead of spe­cify­ing in policy was sug­ges­ted as a poten­tial solu­tion. DC advised that giv­en that this was a new policy on a sens­it­ive and evolving sub­ject, and the need for man­agers and staff to have clar­ity and under­stand­ing about beha­viours in this con­text, it was use­ful to have all guid­ance in the one place without hav­ing to cross ref­er­ence between policies. He said that there had also been pos­it­ive feed­back from staff regard­ing the inclu­sion of the examples of beha­viours. On this basis it was agreed to retain the examples of beha­viours in the policy, whilst also ensur­ing the DaW policy adequately covered all beha­viours rel­ev­ant to all pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ics. It was fur­ther agreed that when advising staff about the adop­tion of this policy, there would be clear com­mu­nic­a­tions to

c. staff that there was no hier­archy amongst the pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ics – i.e. no pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ic was more import­ant than any oth­er. DC advised that the policy would be reviewed in 12 – 18 months time for refine­ments, which would include a review of the beha­viours sec­tion. d. KC advised that it was pro­posed to review the DaW policy with the involve­ment of our law­yers to ensure align­ment with oth­er exist­ing policies, and we hoped to bring this policy review back to the next SCF. e. The gloss­ary of terms being kept under review annu­ally to ensure that it was as up to date as pos­sible. f. Clear­er word­ing required regard­ing events organised/​sanctioned by the CNPA and those organ­ised by staff in a social set­ting e.g. as friends and the need for the cul­ture of the organ­isa­tion to be clearly set out. DC advised that this would be picked up in the Staff Hand­book cov­er­ing when are staff work­ing as a rep­res­ent­at­ive of the CNPA as opposed to their own voli­tion socially.

1. DC thanked every­one for the feed­back and the policy was adopted.

Item 4: Paper 2: Staff Register of Interests Policy

1. DC intro­duced the paper, explain­ing the key changes as being that a register was required only from staff at band C and above, ie. those who were most likely to engage with stake­hold­ers or assess bids and/​or budget alloc­a­tions; and that the exec­ut­ive team would pub­lish their registers on the web­site. Feed­back was provided as follows:

a. The level of detail staff are required to dis­close regard­ing oth­er remu­ner­a­tion. DC advised that the guid­ance usu­ally giv­en is if an employ­ee own shares of £25k or more in an indi­vidu­al com­pany it should be declared, so that there is clar­ity to level of fin­an­cial interest in one organ­isa­tion. Regard­ing more gen­er­ic trust funds, these may not be register­able, as the indi­vidu­al would not be act­ively influ­en­cing where the trust funds were inves­ted. For oth­er one off smal­ler com­pany interests who may tender for work, the employ­ee may not wish to be involved in the tender pro­cess. The advice is to ask for guid­ance. How­ever, the register is to ensure that there is trans­par­ency intern­ally and so staff can­not be accused of doing work in their own interest instead of in the interests of the CNPA.

1. DC thanked every­one for their input and feed­back. The policy was adopted.

Item 5: Paper 3: Hybrid Work­ing Policy

1. KC intro­duced the paper, explain­ing that it was broadly based on the Tri­al Hybrid Approach, and that there were no sig­ni­fic­ant vari­ations from that approach. Feed­back was provided as follows:

a. The guid­ance around hybrid work­ing being applied incon­sist­ently across the organ­isa­tion and teams – with some teams being reques­ted to have a high­er level of office pres­ence than oth­ers. KC advised that there may be some roles where there is more of a require­ment to be office based e.g. recep­tion / facil­it­ies. If any par­tic­u­lar team feels they are being treated unfairly in this regard then the HR team are happy to dis­cuss how to sup­port those staff and the wider organ­isa­tion. b. Feed­back that as any Flex­ible Work­ing Request for more than 50% home work­ing does not include a change to hours or loc­a­tion there would be no need to reis­sue staff with a revised con­tract. This could be dealt with via a let­ter of con­firm­a­tion. c. There being an issue of vis­ib­il­ity and avail­ab­il­ity for some man­agers under hybrid work­ing. KC advised that the policy applies to all staff includ­ing man­agers. It was advised that in sup­port­ing the policy the Resources Com­mit­tee reques­ted train­ing to be delivered cov­er­ing man­aging in a hybrid work­ing envir­on­ment. This train­ing was cur­rently being con­trac­ted and would take account of vis­ib­il­ity and avail­ab­il­ity. DC advised that vis­ib­il­ity and avail­ab­il­ity were 2 very dif­fer­ent things and should be kept as sep­ar­ate items. d. The pos­sib­il­ity for staff to feed­back to line man­agers through a 360 review regard­ing visibility/​availability. KC advised that Per­form­ance Devel­op­ment Con­ver­sa­tions should be a 2 way dis­cus­sion with staff able to bring this up. It was also advised that the Best Com­pan­ies sur­vey would be com­ing up which would look at Lead­er­ship and Line Man­age­ment and also provided the oppor­tun­ity for for staff to provide any oth­er com­ments anonym­ously. e. Incon­sist­ency across the organ­isa­tion regard­ing diary man­age­ment and schedul­ing of time out of the office. It was advised that this had also been dis­cussed at a recent ODS group meet­ing. KC advised that this could be picked up under the ODS Action Plan dis­cus­sions. f. The need for the Right to Dis­con­nect policy to be ref­er­enced. KC advised that this would be included in the links to oth­er policies section.

1. DC thanked every­one for their input and feed­back. The policy was adopted.

Item 6: Verbal Update: ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ Pay Award inc. Status Impacts for Leavers

1. DC advised that an update had been issued in July to all staff, set­ting out the Park Authority’s pro­posed dir­ec­tion of travel and inter­pret­a­tion of the SG Pay Strategy for our staff. The required approvals had now been received from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) spon­sor and the fin­ance pay policy teams. He advised that staff may be aware that SG staff have also now had a pay offer accep­ted, this was a 2‑year offer and var­ies to the pos­i­tion of the CNPA.
2. The inten­tion is to make form­al pay offer to staff for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ in line with update pre­vi­ously giv­en. There are two reas­ons for this, the CNPA have now received sign off for the award and can there­fore pro­ceed with the offer and, secondly, this doesn’t require the start of a new pay award pro­cess, which would fur­ther delay imple­ment­a­tion. DC con­firmed that if our budget pos­i­tion allowed flex­ib­il­ity to make fur­ther changes later in the year, we would con­sider that, but for now afford­ab­il­ity con­straints meant that we would make an offer based on our exist­ing mod­el­ling and pro­pos­als. The reps gen­er­ally accep­ted that the Park Authority’s pro­posed dir­ec­tion on staff pay was in keep­ing with the pay policy and know­ledge of our budget­ary pos­i­tion and gave gen­er­al sup­port for the proposals.
3. RH advised that the uni­on had met with the Deputy First Min­is­ter to dis­cuss the dir­ec­tion of travel for pub­lic sec­tor pay. At the moment the pro­cess was ongo­ing. How­ever, it was not wished to cre­ate a tiered sys­tem of staff who work for SG and those who work for oth­er pub­lic sec­tor organisations.

4. A rep raised dis­agree­ment with the organ­isa­tion­al pos­i­tion whereby leav­ers are not entitled to any pay award if they leave before the pay award had been imple­men­ted fol­low­ing form­al offer and agree­ment. DC advised that this has always been the organisation’s pos­i­tion for sev­er­al reas­ons; — firstly how could we apply a pay award that had not yet been agreed – what per­cent­age would we apply when there had not yet been form­al agree­ment; secondly, once a staff mem­ber leaves they get a P45 and are removed from the payroll sys­tem. We would have to recre­ate them as an employ­ee to imple­ment the pay award after they left which was not pos­sible to do as they are not an employ­ee at that point. This would also have pen­sions and tax implic­a­tions. DC said that when staff tender their resig­na­tion, they do so on the basis of their salary at the time they leave. So the pos­i­tion is that if someone is still act­ive on the payroll in the month when we pro­cess the agreed pay awards, they will receive back­dated pay. If they have already been P45’d out of the payroll, they will no longer be on the payroll and not

5. able to get any back­dated pay. He acknow­ledged that the pay award has been imple­men­ted late this year, but this did not change the organ­isa­tion­al pos­i­tion. It was recom­men­ded that going for­ward the pos­i­tion re date of pay award imple­ment­a­tion and impact on leav­ers should be made expli­cit to staff. DC agreed that this was an appro­pri­ate action point.

6. The uni­on advised that although the pay award does feel late it had been one of the quick­er pay rounds to be agreed. Usu­ally pub­lic sec­tor pay is set in Decem­ber, which included the pay policy pos­i­tion. How­ever, this last year the pay policy had not been set until April and there­fore the abil­ity for organ­isa­tions to speak to the spon­sor team etc couldn’t hap­pen until that point. There was an under­stand­ing why people might be upset by the late­ness of an offer com­ing through but this pay award had been pro­cessed and approved by SG quick­er than for many oth­er pub­lic sec­tor organ­isa­tions and was not the fault of CNPA as there had been con­sid­er­able delay across whole pub­lic sector.
7. If pay awards are going to be delayed in the future, the scope for the CNPA to imple­ment the pro­gres­sion award only was raised. This was some­thing oth­er organ­isa­tions had done with the Cost of Liv­ing award being imple­men­ted at a later stage once agreed. DC advised that this may be easi­er for oth­er organ­isa­tions to imple­ment due to hav­ing spe­cif­ic salary band incre­ment­al pro­gres­sion points. This was some­thing that CNPA did not have, and pay pro­gres­sion was an afford­ab­il­ity con­sid­er­a­tion from one year to the next, form­ing a part of the over­all pay pro­pos­als that had to be agreed by SG before we could imple­ment. How­ever, the pos­sib­il­ity of con­sid­er­ing imple­ment­ing the pay award this way would be kept on the radar.
8. DC advised that the next step was to get the form­al pay offer to staff which we hoped to do with­in the next few weeks. Should staff accept the offer, it would be imple­men­ted in the Octo­ber pay.
9. Ed Swales left the meeting.

Item 7: Dis­cus­sion: Health and Safety Update

1. There were no updates.

Item 8: Dis­cus­sion: Leadership

1. DC advised that there were still two live appoint­ments for Board Mem­bers and this pro­cess would be con­cluded with­in the next few weeks. The new Mem­bers would be look­ing to join the Board in November.
2. DC advised there would be an elec­tion for a Plan­ning Con­vener in November.

Item 9: Dis­cus­sion: Equalities

1. KC advised that there had been recruit­ment for new volun­teers to the Equal­ity Advis­ory Pan­el, with 8 applic­a­tions being received. KC and Board mem­bers, Fiona Mclean & Han­nah Grist were due to inter­view the applic­ants next week and make the appoint­ments. There were cur­rently 10 mem­bers on the EAP and there was no lim­it to the num­ber. KC advised that Han­nah Grist will also now attend the EAP in a Board capacity.

Item 9: AOB

1. There was no oth­er business.

The meet­ing con­cluded at 3pm.

Ref	Action	Respons­ible	Due Date
09.12.19 Para 6	Amend Terms & Con­di­tions: Any staff deal­ing with payroll to be con­sul­ted regard­ing hav­ing a spe­cif­ic con­fid­en­ti­al­ity clause inser­ted into their con­tract. 05.10.20: Ongo­ing 06.12.21: Ongo­ing 27.06.22: Ongo­ing 07.11.22: Ongo­ing 25.01.23: Ongo­ing 20.03.23: Update: Word­ing has now been provided by law­yers and dis­cus­sions are ongo­ing. 19.06.23: Still in discussion	KC	June 20
06.12.21 Para 19	Elec­tric Car Salary Sac­ri­fice Scheme Future updates to be brought back to SCF 27.06.22: Fin­ance team look­ing into and any pro­pos­al will be brought to MT 07.11.22: Still pro­gress­ing 25.01.23: Ongo­ing 20.03.23: Update: Sup­port had been received from NatureScot who had recently launched a sim­il­ar scheme. Any pro­pos­als would go to MT then be brought back to SCF 19.06.23: still progressing	KC	June 22
27.06.22 Para 12a	Staff Induc­tion Pro­cess Feed­back from staff sur­vey on induc­tion pro­cess to be presen­ted at SCF 25.01.23: Ongo­ing 20.03.23: Ongo­ing 19.06.23: Ongoing	PM	Sep 22
23.03.23 Para 25	Pigeon­holes Cur­rent sys­tem to be looked at and revised if neces­sary. 19.06.23: Ongoing	KC	June 23
14.09.23	Gender Diversity Policy
Para 5b	Policy to be reviewed in 12 – 18 months time Guid­ance brief­ing issued to staff inc. there being no hier­archy amongst the pro­tec­ted characteristics,	KC	Mar 25 Dec 23
Para 5c Para 5e	The Dig­nity at Work policy to be reviewed and brought back to SCF for dis­cus­sion Addi­tion to Hand­book re organ­isa­tion­al cul­ture and event organisation.		Mar 24
14.09.23 Para 9f	Hybrid Work­ing Policy Right to Dis­con­nect policy to be ref­er­enced in the links to oth­er policies section	KC	Oct 23