231124CNPABdPaper1CEOReport

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 1 of 14

For inform­a­tion

Title: CEO Report and Con­vener Update Pre­pared by: Grant Moir, Chief Executive

Pur­pose To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Nature and Cli­mate Change

1. Land­scape-scale part­ner­ships: Earli­er this year, the Park Author­ity con­vened meet­ings to coordin­ate land­scape scale col­lab­or­a­tion involving the pub­lic, private and char­it­able sec­tors with mutu­al object­ives for land and water man­age­ment in the upper Dee catch­ment and Angus Glens respectively.

   Col­lab­or­a­tion in the Dee catch­ment will bring togeth­er an Action Plan for man­age­ment in the catch­ment that would deliv­er at a land­scape scale across the mul­tiple, inter-related object­ives of water qual­ity, flow, flood resi­li­ence, abstrac­tion, improv­ing nat­ur­al cap­it­al and eco­sys­tem ser­vices, res­tor­a­tion and improv­ing biod­iversity, and sal­mon sur­viv­al. Sim­il­arly the Angus Glens part­ner­ship has object­ives to coordin­ate across three key themes of nat­ur­al cap­it­al, com­munity wealth-build­ing and vis­it­or ser­vices. Work start­ing in 2024 will focus on tak­ing a nat­ur­al cap­it­al based approach to land use decision making.

2. Peat­land res­tor­a­tion: Of the 15 pro­jects sched­uled for deliv­ery 2023 – 24, 13 are com­plete or have machines cur­rently work­ing on the ground. We are cur­rently on track to achieve the 2023 – 24 tar­get of 1300ha of peat­land under res­tor­a­tion. Con­tract­or capa­city has grown and is not cur­rently a lim­it­ing factor although it may become so again as the num­ber of pro­jects we aim to deliv­er con­tin­ues to increase. Landown­er enthu­si­asm remains high across the entire range of land man­age­ment object­ives and the 2024 — 25 pipeline of activ­ity rep­res­ents a fore­cast of more than 1500ha.

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 2 of 14

1. Moor­land man­age­ment: The Wild­life Man­age­ment and Muir­burn Bill con­tin­ues to work through Holyrood. The Stage 1 debate on this Bill is sched­uled for 29 Novem­ber. The Bill is likely to intro­duce a Licens­ing sys­tem for the shoot­ing of grouse, under­pinned by a Grouse Moor Man­age­ment Code. led by Nature Scot. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity sit on a Work­ing Group, led by Naturescot, to devel­op the Code. The East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship con­tin­ues to be a key vehicle for demon­strat­ing sus­tain­able moor­land man­age­ment. Cur­rent East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship pro­jects are to remove redund­ant deer fen­cing, to pro­tect aspen and to mon­it­or moor­land biodiversity.

2. Spe­cies recovery:

   a) Beaver- Over the last 9 months the Park Author­ity has under­taken extens­ive engage­ment on the pro­pos­al to bring beavers back to the Cairngorms. Fol­low­ing the sum­mer pro­gramme of six inform­al drop ins, landown­er meet­ings, press releases and social media cov­er­age, the six week form­al engage­ment has ended. 515 people respon­ded online, more than 100 people came to one of the six in per­son events and staff and part­ners con­duc­ted 37 site vis­its to farms and land managers.

   75.8% of respond­ents to the form­al engage­ment were sup­port­ive of bring­ing beavers back to the Cairngorms. Those who were not sup­port­ive had con­cerns regard­ing impacts on fish­er­ies and pro­duct­ive farm­land, and the applic­ab­il­ity of mit­ig­a­tion schemes, spe­cific­ally impacts on the flood bank. All con­cerns raised form­ally as part of the engage­ment formed part of the licence applic­a­tion. Any fur­ther issues raised inform­ally or after the con­sulta­tion ended have been passed to NatureScot. Park Author­ity staff con­tin­ue to work with NatureScot and meet reg­u­larly with land man­agers to inform an adapt­ive approach which cov­ers any emer­ging issues. The applic­a­tion was passed to NatureScot for their con­sid­er­a­tion on the 20 Octo­ber. A decision is expec­ted by the end of November.

   More inform­a­tion on beaver eco­logy, key issues, FAQs and the full engage­ment report and landown­er responses can be found on the Park Author­ity webpage.

   b) Caper­cail­lie — The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age fun­ded Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject is draw­ing to a close and on track to achieve all its aims to raise aware­ness; build under­stand­ing; empower com­munit­ies; improve hab­it­at; and

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 3 of 14

provide resources to help secure a long-term future for caper­cail­lie in the UK. A com­pre­hens­ive eval­u­ation of the pro­ject is under­way to identi­fy impacts and learn­ing that will sup­port coordin­ated action in future as the focus now moves to the next phase of work for caper­cail­lie. As reques­ted by the Min­is­ter, the next phase of work for caper­cail­lie involves the Park Author­ity and NatureScot work­ing with stake­hold­ers to cre­ate a coordin­ated action plan. The plan, which will be in place by the spring, will take for­ward short-term emer­gency actions and longer-term actions to con­tin­ue secur­ing a future for caper­cail­lie in the UK.

Nature of Scot­land awards — ​‘Sav­ing the Pine hov­er­fly from extinc­tion’ has been short­l­is­ted for the Nature of Scot­land Awards Innov­a­tion Award. This is a part­ner­ship pro­ject between Roy­al Zoolo­gic­al Soci­ety Scot­land, RSPB Scot­land and Park Author­ity. Cairngorms pro­jects are well rep­res­en­ted, also short­l­is­ted: River Dee Trust- One Mil­lion Trees cam­paign; Rot­tal Estate- Restor­ing the Rot­tal Burn; Dee Dis­trict Sal­mon Fish­ery Board and River Dee Trust- Restor­ing the Dee Catch­ment; Mar Lodge — Reviv­ing the Glens, Bens, and Burns, and Cairngorms Con­nect pred­at­or research.

Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel

1. Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan: The Action Plan is presen­ted to the Board for approv­al at the Novem­ber meeting.

2. Paths and Long-dis­tance Routes:

   a) Spey­side Way – staff are in the pro­cess of secur­ing a con­tract­or to upgrade the exist­ing Spey­side Way north of Aviemore. The works include path resur­fa­cing, imple­ment­a­tion of drain­age repairs, fen­cing and ancil­lary works. The Spey­side Way which will remain open through­out the dur­a­tion of the work which should be com­plete before end of February.

   b) Com­munity Path Leaf­lets – staff have been work­ing to refresh the path leaf­let tem­plate in light of the new Nation­al Park brand­ing guidelines. Car­rbridge leaf­let will be pub­lished shortly, fol­lowed by Strath­don and Laggan.

   c) Octo­ber Storms — after the flood­ing at the begin­ning of Octo­ber and Storm Babet staff have been out assess­ing the impacts of the flood­ing and storms on paths and key pop­u­lar vis­it­or loc­a­tions to sup­port land man­agers. Whilst dam­age was

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 4 of 14

lim­ited there are detailed sur­veys and repairs to be under­taken over the com­ing months. A new pro­ced­ure note is being pre­pared for dis­cus­sion with Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Group to assist with storm recov­ery work.

1. Ranger Ser­vices: Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ranger Ser­vice patrols con­tin­ued until the end of Octo­ber when the sea­son­al rangers fin­ished. The spells of stormy weath­er and flood­ing in Octo­ber reduced levels of activ­ity and so patrols were gen­er­ally quiet. Rangers were deployed to assist with activ­ity such as path and safety inspec­tions fol­low­ing flood events. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity organ­ised the Annu­al Ranger Gath­er­ing of all Ranger Ser­vices at Glen­more Lodge in Octo­ber which was well atten­ded and focused on pro­mot­ing col­lab­or­a­tion. Look­ing for­wards, Ranger Ser­vice activ­ity is presen­ted in the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan for approv­al at the Novem­ber Board meeting.

2. Vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture: A num­ber of grant offers have been made to part­ners through the Vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture Improve­ment Pro­gramme with work anti­cip­ated to be under­taken on all of these over the next four months. Detailed sum­mary is presen­ted in the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan paper at the Novem­ber Board meet­ing. Tenders have been sought for a Spey access point study and con­di­tion sur­veys of the Old Log­ging Way and Meall a Bhua­chaille hill path.

3. Volun­teer­ing and Health Walks: The Volun­teer gath­er­ing was held in Grant­own with reduced num­bers due to ongo­ing weath­er alerts. Dis­cus­sions focused on review the sum­mer sea­son, plan­ning the year ahead, and an updates on the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code and on wider issues to do with the man­age­ment of vis­it­ors. The net­work of volun­teers con­tin­ue to do an excel­lent job for the Park and are always look­ing to do more. Plans are being made to open recruit­ment for our next intake of Volun­teer Rangers in Decem­ber, ready for new mem­ber of the team to be on the ground in Spring. 12 new volun­teer Health Walk Lead­ers will be join­ing to man­age Health Walks across Badenoch and Strathspey.

4. Youth Action Team: Mem­bers of the Youth Action Team atten­ded the Euro­parc con­fer­ence in the Neth­er­lands. The Team also atten­ded the Scot­tish Rur­al and Islands Youth Par­lia­ment in Fort Wil­li­am where they played a star­ring role in present­ing the out­comes of the dis­cus­sion ses­sions to decision makers. Ten spe­cif­ic themes were iden­ti­fied as a focus for future activ­ity includ­ing need to sup­port young carers in rur­al areas we have 70 in Badenoch and Strath­spey alone. Ellie Moore from the Cairngorms was then selec­ted to present their work to the full Scottish

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 5 of 14

Rur­al Par­lia­ment in the fol­low­ing days and sat on a pan­el along­side Deputy First Min­is­ter where Cairngorms Nation­al Park was iden­ti­fied as a key part of Scot­land that has trail-blaz­ing repu­ta­tion for rur­al youth action.

1. Act­ive and Sus­tain­able Travel: Over 100 act­ive travel infra­struc­ture pro­jects in and between com­munit­ies have been iden­ti­fied through the Cairngorms 2030 devel­op­ment work. A stra­tegic plan that lays out the approach to deliv­ery to 2045 is cur­rently being pro­duced to be pro­nated to Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Board in March 2024. There will be sig­ni­fic­ant changes to the way act­ive travel fund­ing is going to be dis­persed by Trans­port Scot­land from 2024 onwards but we are still await­ing con­firm­a­tion of details. Plan­ning applic­a­tion for the Dul­nain Bridge to Grant­own on Spey path was sub­mit­ted late Oct and inten­tion is to com­mence con­struc­tion in ²⁴⁄₂₅.

Plan­ning and Rur­al Development

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan: The Com­mon­Place webpages and inter­act­ive online map that was used to pro­mote early engage­ment in the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan had received around 100 com­ments and around 100 reac­tions to con­tent by early Octo­ber. The site has received more than 2000 vis­it­ors and the social media posts that link to it has been seen nearly 70,000 times, with people act­ively enga­ging in it more than 5000 times – plans are in place to speak to sev­er­al com­munity groups soon in pre­par­a­tion for more stages of engage­ment in 2025.

2. Plan­ning Case­work: At the Septem­ber plan­ning com­mit­tee, mem­bers agreed to approve ambi­tious plans to ren­ov­ate and extend the Inver­cauld Arms Hotel in Brae­mar and to cre­ate a com­munity man­aged cara­van site in Tomin­toul. At the Novem­ber plan­ning com­mit­tee an applic­a­tion in prin­ciple for hous­ing at the Mac­Don­ald Resort in Aviemore and detailed applic­a­tions for a new dis­til­lery west of Lag­gan, a tem­por­ary con­struc­tion com­pound, new forest track and a com­munity path link near Brae­mar were approved.

3. Well­being Eco­nomy: The Cairngorms Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group met in late Septem­ber and dis­cussed the devel­op­ment of the Well­being Eco­nomy Action Plan. Fur­ther meet­ings of the steer­ing group and sub­group are sched­uled for Novem­ber and Decem­ber. The Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship Con­fer­ence was held on 6 Novem­ber and was well-atten­ded; key­notes speeches covered 20 years of the Nation­al Park and the use of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence. Craig Mills is due to take over as

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 6 of 14

new CEO of Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship in Janu­ary 2024 to fol­low Mark Tate who stands down in late November.

1. Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment: The Park Author­ity will be host­ing a com­munity event in Decem­ber for all com­munity coun­cils, asso­ci­ations and devel­op­ment trusts. The pur­pose is to devel­op a new way of shar­ing inform­a­tion with all com­munit­ies and to allow them to share good prac­tice with each oth­er, as well as provide a for­um for feed­back. This role was once partly ful­filled by the Asso­ci­ation of Cairngorms Com­munit­ies which is being closed down. New approaches will be found to ensure that that as many rep­res­ent­at­ives of com­munity groups can par­ti­cip­ate as possible.

2. Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan: Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has received offi­cial noti­fic­a­tion from Euro­parc that our re-applic­a­tion for the European Charter for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism in Pro­tec­ted Areas has been suc­cess­ful. The Nation­al Park will be re-accred­ited with the Charter until 2028. The Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship will dis­cuss the veri­fi­ers report and recom­mend­a­tions in mid- Novem­ber and Xan­der McDade (Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship Chair) will be attend­ing the awards cere­mony at the European Par­lia­ment in Brus­sels in late November.

3. Busi­ness and Vis­it­or Data: Staff are cur­rently ten­der­ing for the next Cairngorms Vis­it­or Sur­vey, along with a new addi­tion­al sur­vey of Nation­al Park res­id­ents. Going for­wards we plan to under­take two sep­ar­ate waves of research over the next five years to provide more rel­ev­ant information.

   The latest quarterly report from the Cairngorms Busi­ness Baro­met­er shows busi­ness con­fid­ence increas­ing com­pared with recent trends, with high­er vis­it­or num­bers, partly driv­en by over­seas vis­it­ors, and increased turnover. How­ever, sup­pli­er costs, staff­ing and par­tic­u­larly bur­eau­cracy con­tin­ue to be iden­ti­fied as bar­ri­ers to growth. The top­ic­al ques­tions in this sur­vey related to the poten­tial intro­duc­tion of a Vis­it­or Levy — while slightly more busi­nesses said they opposed rather than sup­por­ted the intro­duc­tion of the levy, opin­ions were fairly mixed, and atti­tudes var­ied accord­ing to how the rev­en­ue would be spent and who would be respons­ible for mak­ing such decisions.

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 7 of 14

Com­mu­nic­a­tions

1. Act­ive Cairngorms: We have been work­ing with the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship and the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject to help busi­nesses encour­age their cus­tom­ers to enjoy the Nation­al Park respons­ibly. The cam­paign con­sists of social media assets and a series of videos fea­tur­ing stan­dup comedi­an, author and reg­u­lar Cairngorms vis­it­or Ed Byrne. These have now been shared with Cairngorm Busi­ness Partnership’s mem­bers and stake­hold­ers, and will be rolled out digit­ally over the com­ing weeks. The cam­paign mater­i­als and land­ing page can be found here.

   Our third respons­ible access cam­paign with Ram­blers Scot­land came to an end on 31 August after an 18-week peri­od. Three ads ran in total tar­get­ing 16- to 25-year- olds based in Scot­land across Tik­Tok, Ins­tagram and Snapchat. In total the cam­paign achieved over 8.5m impres­sions, 2.9m views and an impress­ive 160,000 video com­ple­tions, almost all reach­ing young­er vis­it­ors we struggle to reach via oth­er means.

2. Cairngorms Nature: The six-week form­al engage­ment peri­od on beavers took place from 15 August to 25 Septem­ber. In addi­tion to drop-in events, the pub­lic were invited to com­ment via a ded­ic­ated online sur­vey, which attrac­ted around 500 responses, over two thirds of which were strongly in favour of return­ing beavers to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The pro­cess was sup­por­ted digit­ally by a total of 64 posts across the Nation­al Park and Cairngorms Nature social media chan­nels, achiev­ing a reach of over 80k, 33k video views and nearly 10k engage­ments, likes, reac­tions, shares and comments.

   PR activ­ity included the announce­ment of the form­al engage­ment peri­od, a remind­er for people to com­plete our online sur­vey and a sum­mary of responses ahead of the licence applic­a­tion being sub­mit­ted. Cov­er­age for the pro­ject has been extens­ive, with art­icles appear­ing in the Daily Mail, Tele­graph, Her­ald, Daily Record, Nation­al and Scot­tish Farm­er, and inter­views with Park Author­ity staff also fea­tur­ing across BBC and STV News.

   In late August, we worked closely with col­leagues from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, NatureScot and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Nation­al Park Author­ity to announce a new £550,000 Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund. The announce­ment was the centrepiece of Lor­na Slater MSP’s vis­it to the Nation­al Park and was covered by

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 8 of 14

out­lets includ­ing STV, The Scots­man, Aber­deen Live and Scot­tish Farm­er. We also sup­por­ted Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment on the launch of the nom­in­a­tions pro­cess for new nation­al parks, includ­ing an inter­view on STV with Sandy Bremner.

We took part in Scot­tish Government’s annu­al Cli­mate Week at the end of Septem­ber, attempt­ing to break down some of the jar­gon around net zero through an inter­view with our Peat­land Oper­a­tions Man­ager Emma Stew­art. The piece explains clearly what we mean when we talk about net zero and high­lights its poten­tial impact on the Nation­al Park, demon­strat­ing how our work con­trib­utes to broad­er, nation­al ambi­tions around tack­ling the nature and cli­mate crisis.

1. Pub­lic engage­ment: We con­tin­ued our tour of major shows and games this sum­mer at the Grant­own Show in August and the Lon­ach Gath­er­ing later in the month. Across the two events we engaged with more than 500 people and loc­al chil­dren made hun­dreds of seed bombs to take home with them. Over the next 12 months we will con­tin­ue to attend select shows across the Nation­al Park, with the Bal­later Winter Fest­iv­al next on the list on 25 Novem­ber. We are also organ­ising an inform­al drop-in style event in Grant­own for early January.

   Fol­low­ing their suc­cess­ful vis­it back in May, we were delighted to wel­come back Black Scot­tish Adven­tur­ers in late August, this time to explore the east of the Nation­al Park. We worked closely with part­ner ranger ser­vices in Bal­mor­al and Glen Tanar to sup­port the vis­it, which saw around 90 adven­tur­ers come to the area, many for the first time. Glen Tanar’s Head Ranger Eric Baird even pro­duced a short video to mark the occa­sion see https://​www​.ins​tagram​.com/​p​/​C​w​N​s​E​A​C​oGeo/

   Linked to our Cairngorms 2030 cli­mate learn­ing and edu­ca­tion pro­ject and inspired by our 10^th Anniversary Orch­ards pro­ject, we have been work­ing with Alford Academy and Grant­own Gram­mar to cre­ate new orch­ards on their school grounds, with the help of pupils them­selves. Weath­er-depend­ing, work is likely to take place over the next few months.

2. Cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions: Work has star­ted on a new Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, in line with our pub­lic sec­tor Gael­ic lan­guage duty. We have agreed a set of key pri­or­it­ies with Bòrd na Gàidh­lig to increase the use of Gael­ic, the learn­ing of Gael­ic and pro­mote a pos­it­ive image of Gael­ic, with a draft plan likely to go out for a six-week pub­lic con­sulta­tion in early

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 9 of 14

1. Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion will be paid to how the Park Author­ity can use its influ­ence to encour­age part­ners to adopt Gael­ic in their every­day work.

Plans for a 20^th anniversary pod­cast series were thwarted due to an unex­pec­ted price hike from our pre­ferred sup­pli­er; how­ever, hav­ing approached a num­ber of par­ti­cipants we decided to explore altern­at­ive ways of mark­ing the occa­sion. With lim­ited notice, award-win­ning Scot­tish poet John Glenday – who has writ­ten extens­ively about the Cairngorms, as well as work­ing across the High­lands in his day job as an addic­tions coun­sel­lor – has agreed to write a poem inspired by the people and nature of the Nation­al Park. The poem is due to be com­pleted in mid-Novem­ber, with the res­ults being filmed shortly after (nar­rated by a 20 year old born in the Nation­al Park).

In the wake of dev­ast­at­ing wild­fires across the globe, we worked with the Press and Journ­al to pub­lish an opin­ion piece with Grant Moir on how we can tackle the nature and cli­mate crisis here in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Oth­er media stor­ies included the pro­mo­tion of our Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan con­sulta­tion, two new afford­able hous­ing devel­op­ments being approved, tour­ist accom­mod­a­tion in Brae­mar and Tomin­toul get­ting the go-ahead, and a piece from Grant Moir to mark the 20^th anniversary of the Nation­al Park.

1. Web­site and social media: Work has now star­ted on devel­op­ing a new web­site for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, a pro­cess which is expec­ted to take around 12 months. The ini­tial stages have included a series of work­shops with key tar­get audi­ences to bet­ter under­stand their needs; a detailed ana­lys­is of the per­form­ance of the exist­ing web­site, includ­ing its envir­on­ment­al effi­ciency; a design review; and explor­ing which con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem the web­site should be built on. Whereverly have also spoken to vari­ous key part­ners (includ­ing the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship) and staff mem­bers to bet­ter under­stand how the site should link in with pre-exist­ing con­tent hos­ted else­where. The team vis­ited the Nation­al Park last month, head­ing out to Tomin­toul to see the new afford­able hous­ing, the loc­al inform­a­tion centre and new Glen­liv­et bike trails. Fur­ther vis­its are planned over the com­ing months.

   We were audited recently by the web­site access­ib­il­ity mon­it­or­ing team at the UK Gov­ern­ment Digit­al Ser­vice, part of the Cab­in­et Office. Whilst the site per­formed well over­all, they found some access­ib­il­ity issues. We were giv­en 12 weeks to fix these

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 10 of 14

issues and, whilst the ser­vice were pre­pared to wait until our new web­site is live, we decided to make the recom­men­ded changes now to ensure an access­ible exper­i­ence for all. Learn­ings from this pro­cess will also be fed into our new web­site devel­op­ment project.

The inter­act­ive map for the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan is now closed for com­ments. The Com­mon­place site has received over 2,000 vis­it­ors so far and there were 41 con­tri­bu­tions to the map over the ini­tial con­sulta­tion peri­od. A cam­paign to pro­mote the con­sulta­tion had a reach of 53,525, includ­ing 1,372 likes / reac­tions and 885 link clicks and 38 comments.

1. Brand­ing and pub­lic­a­tions: The fourth issue of Cairn magazine hit door­steps in the middle of Novem­ber. In addi­tion to the usu­al mix of com­munity and con­ser­va­tion news, the magazine fea­tured art­icles about the 20^th anniversary of the Nation­al Park, HRH The King’s vis­it to Scalan, breed­ing suc­cess for birds of prey in the Nation­al Park, and an inter­view with the Gor­don fam­ily to mark the 200^th anniversary of the Lon­ach High­land and Friendly Soci­ety. A plain text ver­sion of the pub­lic­a­tion has also been cre­ated for screen read­er users, in line with advice from our Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Panel.

   Work­ing closely with the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship and loc­al pho­to­graph­er Ed Smith, we have cap­tured a series of ​‘stock images’ for busi­nesses signed up to the brand charter scheme. These images are designed to be used on part­ner web­sites, pro­mo­tion­al mater­i­al and social media chan­nels, and are entirely free for charter hold­ers to use.

   We are work­ing with vari­ous part­ners on inter­pret­a­tion pro­jects across the Nation­al Park. This includes Roy­al Zolo­lo­gic­al Soci­ety of Scot­land on their new wild­life dis­cov­ery centre at the High­land Wild­life Park, Bal­mor­al Estate on their new vir­tu­al lek install­a­tion, Vis­itScot­land on new pan­els for the Bal­later iCentre, and Anagach Woods Trust and Castle Roy Trust on new inter­pret­a­tion pan­els in those two locations.

Organ­isa­tion­al Development

1. Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan­ning: Fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion with staff, we have now adop­ted a Hybrid Work­ing policy, whereby the default pos­i­tion is that staff can work 50% of their con­trac­tu­al hours

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 11 of 14

office based, and 50% home based, with requests for more time home based requir­ing a pro­cess of applic­a­tion, approv­al and con­tract review. Staff are cur­rently work­ing to 36 hour / week con­trac­tu­al terms, with the aim of redu­cing to 35 hours / week from April 2024. The Best Com­pan­ies Staff Sur­vey, launched in Novem­ber will sup­port the review of the phased reduc­tion in con­trac­tu­al work­ing hours. All pub­lic sec­tor organ­isa­tions are expec­ted to be mov­ing to 35 hours/​week con­trac­tu­al hours.

1. Staff­ing update: Since September:

   a) Staff who left the organ­isa­tion were:

   i. All Seasonal Rangers ended the season in October. Trainee Rangers ended their
      season in September.
   

   ii. Elly Mil­ne, Payroll, Accounts and Fin­ance Officer left for per­son­al reas­ons iii. Jocasta Mann, CCP Comms Officer, left for career devel­op­ment to join another

      organisation, prior to the end of her fixed term contract
   

   iv. Kirsty Part­ridge, Rur­al Devel­op­ment Officer, left for career devel­op­ment to join

      another organisation, prior to the end of her fixed term contract
   

   d) Extern­al appoint­ments, fol­low­ing a com­pet­it­ive extern­al recruit­ment pro­cess were as follows:

   i. Gavin Hosie joined on a fixed term contract as Cairgorms National 2030 Green
      Health Link Worker, job sharing with Louise Emslie
   

   e) Intern­al recruitment:

   i. Calum Guy and Craig Fraser appointed as Payroll, Accounts and Finance Officers
   

2. Youth Employ­ment:

   a) Graduate/​Internship/​Trainee posts:

   i. Joyce Aranuwa appointed to short term Climate Change Internship
   

   ii. We are in the pro­cess of recruit­ing a Con­tent Cre­ation Intern

3. Equal­it­ies: a) Fol­low­ing a recruit­ment cam­paign, The Park Author­ity appoin­ted sev­en new mem­bers to the Equal­ity Advis­ory Pan­el. The mem­bers joined their first Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el meet­ing in Octo­ber, where the web­site con­tract­ors delivered an

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 12 of 14

enga­ging and inform­at­ive work­shop on the new web­site, seek­ing the Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Panel’s views on accessibility.

b) The Park Author­ity adop­ted sev­er­al equal­it­ies policies, includ­ing the Gender Diversity Policy, Neurodi­versity Policy and Reas­on­able Adjust­ments Pass­port Policy. These policies were adop­ted fol­low­ing extens­ive con­sulta­tion with staff, the Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el and the intern­al Equal­ity, Diversity and Inclu­sion Advocacy Group. The HR Team were invited to speak at a Neurodi­versity in the Work­place con­fer­ence, where the Park Author­ity was recog­nised as being a pro­gress­ive organ­isa­tion with regards to its approach to equalities.

1. Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment: The devel­op­ment of the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy is pro­gress­ing well, with action plans being developed for each of the key themes, cov­er­ing Infra­struc­ture, Inform­a­tion and Data Man­age­ment, Staff Skills and Devel­op­ment, Staff Resi­li­ence and Well­being, Val­ues and Cul­ture, and Com­mu­nic­a­tions. The Best Com­pan­ies Sur­vey res­ults will also feed in to the evolving Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy, togeth­er with feed­back from a recent All Staff Gathering.

2. Fin­ance: a) Peat­land resource fund­ing of £104k, which was anti­cip­ated in the annu­al budget, but was then sub­sequently unavail­able, has been rein­stated. b) The rise in interest rates and new oppor­tun­it­ies for cash flow man­age­ment have enabled us to place funds on an interest-bear­ing depos­it account, which is likely to yield earned interest of up to £40k. c) Over the past few months, we have exper­i­enced pres­sure on over­head budgets, par­tic­u­larly staff remu­ner­a­tion. How­ever, addi­tion­al sources of funds are likely to provide suf­fi­cient flex­ib­il­ity to allow us to achieve a break-even pos­i­tion at year- end. d) Cap­it­al expendit­ure on peat­land res­tor­a­tion is expec­ted to under­spend on avail­able fund­ing; the remainder of the oper­a­tion­al plan is set to deliv­er to budget expectations.

Grant Moir Novem­ber 2023

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 13 of 14

Title: Con­vener Update Pre­pared by: Sandy Brem­ner, Convener

30.I met with a wide range of stake­hold­ers since my last report, and have represented

the Board and chaired a series of meetings to discuss delivery of the National Park
Authority's priorities. These have included the following:

1. Hous­ing: I have writ­ten to Hous­ing Min­is­ter Paul McLen­nan, under­lin­ing the crit­ic­al impacts of afford­able hous­ing short­ages on the Nation­al Park’s abil­ity to deliv­er some of its core func­tions, request­ing a meet­ing to dis­cuss future options.

2. Nature Scot: Met with NatureScot’s new Chair, Pro­fess­or Colin Gal­braith, and Chief Exec­ut­ive Francesca Osowska, for an intro­duct­ory dis­cus­sion on the chal­lenges and sig­ni­fic­ant oppor­tun­it­ies ahead. We agreed on the bene­fits of reg­u­lar Chairs meetings.

3. Euro­parc 2023: Took part in the inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence on nation­al parks, con­trib­ut­ing to dis­cus­sions includ­ing devel­op­ing legis­la­tion for nature res­tor­a­tion, the import­ance of involving com­munit­ies in policy devel­op­ment, the pros and cons of spe­cies rein­tro­duc­tion, and the need to provide com­munity-sens­it­ive lead­er­ship in tack­ling the crises of biod­iversity loss and cli­mate change.

4. New Nation­al Park: Helped launch the Scot­tish Government’s con­sulta­tion to des­ig­nate at least one new Nation­al Park, with media engage­ment includ­ing an inter­view for STV News and cov­er­age by the BBC.

5. Busi­ness: Chaired a meet­ing with lead­ers of the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, dis­cuss­ing sup­port for busi­ness, hous­ing issues, the pro­posed Vis­it­or Levy, and oth­er areas of com­mon interest. CBP rep­res­ent­at­ives expressed sup­port for the format and we agreed to con­tin­ue with reg­u­lar meet­ings on a focused agenda.

6. Scalan: Atten­ded with the Deputy Con­vener the form­al open­ing by His Majesty the King of the Scalan Mills con­ser­va­tion pro­ject and high­lighted the Nation­al Park’s sup­port for a range of pro­jects delivered as part of the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Partnership.

Form­al Board Paper 1 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 14 of 14

1. Cairngorm Busi­ness Part­ner­ship: Took part in the Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership’s annu­al con­fer­ence in Aviemore, includ­ing dis­cus­sions on a range of chal­lenges to busi­ness and com­munity interests, the poten­tial impact and oppor­tun­it­ies of a pro­posed Vis­it­or Levy, and the major imped­i­ments to busi­ness posed by the acute short­age of afford­able housing.

2. Nation­al Parks Part­ner­ship: Par­ti­cip­ated in the Nation­al Parks Part­ner­ships AGM, with a focus on future fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, private sec­tor fin­ance, and the devel­op­ment of new mod­els for the deliv­ery of invest­ing in nature.

3. Deer Management/​Forestry: Met with land man­agers and rep­res­ent­at­ives of NatureScot and Scot­tish Forestry, at Glen Tanar Estate, to dis­cuss the chal­lenges of deer man­age­ment, forestry devel­op­ment and related issues, in the con­text of a mixed-use com­mer­cial estate, and how spe­cif­ic chal­lenges might be overcome.

4. Tour­ism: Had a wide-ran­ging meet­ing with the Chair and Chief Exec­ut­ive of Vis­it­Ab­er­deen­shire, dis­cuss­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for fur­ther inform­a­tion-shar­ing, and joint work­ing on the oppor­tun­it­ies and chal­lenges facing the sec­tor. We agreed to meet as a group twice annu­ally, in addi­tion to oth­er engage­ment through­out the year.

5. Busi­ness Policy: Met with the Chief Exec­ut­ive of the Scot­tish Cham­bers of Com­merce, Dr Liz Camer­on, and dis­cussed the options for stra­tegic solu­tions to achiev­ing busi­ness, com­munity and nature-res­tor­a­tion goals, includ­ing the need for a bold approach to the pro­vi­sion of afford­able housing.

6. Com­munity Coun­cil: Met the Chair of Nethy­bridge Com­munity Coun­cil and dis­cussed com­munity con­cerns and oppor­tun­it­ies, includ­ing the long-term trends in hous­ing avail­ab­il­ity, and the eco­nom­ic and social impacts on the area.