231110ResourcesCtteePaper1_2023-24BudgetMonitoring

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 1 10 Novem­ber 2023 Page 1 of 3

For dis­cus­sion Title: Budget mon­it­or­ing Pre­pared by: Louise Allen

Pur­pose This paper sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of the second quarter of the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ fin­an­cial year — 30 Septem­ber 2023.

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

Over­view

1. Appendix 1 provides a sum­mary of expendit­ure against the pro­filed budget for the first quarter of the year. Over­all, expendit­ure is well with­in budget: 29% lower than anti­cip­ated against the phased budget for this first half of the year.

Budget changes

1. A log of budget changes is shown in Appendix 2.

Staff and Board

1. Staff costs for the first half of the year were £2.54m. The full year budget (after budget adjust­ments) is £4.94m and includes a 5.5% pay award. The annu­al award was agreed in Octo­ber, and back­pay of £100k has been included in the costs to 30 Septem­ber, so that the value of £2.54m is a true rep­res­ent­a­tion of the costs of employ­ment for the first 6 months of ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

2. Factors con­trib­ut­ing to the repor­ted over­spend (£77k) include: a) lower than anti­cip­ated vacancy sav­ings — the ori­gin­al payroll budget included an estim­ated sav­ing of 5% as a con­sequence of delays between posts becom­ing vacant and sub­sequently being filled. In fact, the sav­ing achieved has been around 2% to date. b) staff costs recharged to pro­jects – recharges have been lower than those included in the budget cal­cu­la­tion: recharges to Cairngorms 2030 devel­op­ment phase

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 1 10 Novem­ber 2023 Page 2 of 3

pro­ject stopped in August; recharges to the Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment fund are avail­able to us at a lower rate than was anticipated.

1. There is a clear indic­a­tion of pres­sure on the budget for staff costs. Fur­ther dis­cus­sion of the full year fore­cast for remu­ner­a­tion is included in agenda items 8 and 9.

2. Board fees to date are under budget by £13k. This is a con­sequence of the Board not hav­ing been at full com­ple­ment across the report­ing period.

Pro­gramme management

1. All pro­gramme man­age­ment costs have been recovered from extern­al funds as expected.

Over­heads

1. The budget for over­heads has been phased evenly across the year. Cur­rently, costs are run­ning ahead of the budget.

2. Con­trib­ut­ors to this vari­ance include repairs and main­ten­ance (par­tic­u­larly to the fire detec­tion and alarm sys­tem), leg­al costs, power, and mileage These costs will be kept under review dur­ing the third quarter and expendit­ure plans man­aged accordingly.

Oper­a­tion­al plan

1. Over­all, expendit­ure on oper­a­tion­al plan activ­it­ies to the end of Septem­ber is under 10% of the total budget for the year.

2. More than half of the oper­a­tion­al plan budget is alloc­ated to peat­land res­tor­a­tion (£3.79m). Work on peat­land pro­jects has been slow to begin and con­sequently, the expendit­ure in the first half of ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ (£190k) rep­res­ents just 5% of the annu­al budget. Pro­jects are get­ting under­way, and com­mit­ments have been made to all but three of the inten­ded pro­jects. Tenders for these three remain­ing pro­jects are in pro­gress, how­ever, the delay in let­ting them, means that there is a risk the full budget alloc­a­tion for the year will not be spent; this is reflec­ted in the vari­ance of £400k shown in Appendix 1.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 1 10 Novem­ber 2023 Page 3 of 3

1. Expendit­ure on ​‘Nature and Cli­mate’ activ­it­ies is increas­ing gradu­ally, with the anti­cip­a­tion that the full budget will be used by the end of the year. An addi­tion­al award of £50k has been received from the Nature Chal­lenge fund, and plans for applic­a­tion of this addi­tion­al budget are in development.

2. Oper­a­tion­al plan activ­it­ies towards our ​‘Place’ aims include the devel­op­ment and improve­ment of path­ways. Grants have been com­mit­ted for all but £20k of this £350k budget for paths, but expendit­ure remains low, while we await claims against these awards.

3. Most of the under­spend on Com­mu­nic­a­tions (£73k) relates to the planned devel­op­ment of the new web­site. When the budget was set, the expect­a­tion was that spend on this pro­ject would start in the first quarter of the year. How­ever, the length of the pro­cure­ment pro­cess has pushed expendit­ure into the second half of the year.

4. At this half-way point in the year, the expect­a­tion is that, except for peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­jects, the budget for oper­a­tion­al plan activ­it­ies will be spent in full.

Sum­mary of the half year position

1. The key points arising from the review of the fin­an­cial pos­i­tion at the end of Septem­ber 2023 are: a) There is a clear indic­a­tion of pres­sure on the budget for staff costs. b) There are no con­cerns over the recov­ery of pro­ject costs. c) There is a risk that the budget for peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­jects will be under­spent at the year-end; the cur­rent estim­ate of this vari­ance is £400k. d) Oth­er expendit­ure on oper­a­tion­al plan activ­it­ies is expec­ted to be in line with budget.

Louise Allen louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk