231124CNPAbdPaper6CommitteeAnnualReport

For inform­a­tion

Com­mit­tee Annu­al Reports

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy Chief Executive.

Pur­pose This paper presents the Annu­al Reports of the Audit and Risk, Per­form­ance, Gov­ernance and Resources Com­mit­tees to the Board.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Board is asked to note the Annu­al Reports to the Board from the: a) Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee b) Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee c) Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee d) Resources Committee

Back­ground In line with intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions and as an ele­ment of the remit of the Com­mit­tees, each Com­mit­tee sub­mits an annu­al report cov­er­ing its activ­it­ies and reflect­ing on its oper­a­tions over the course of the last year to the full bord. This paper presents the reports for those Com­mit­tees which have now com­pleted their annu­al cycle.

Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report

Exec­ut­ive Sum­mary The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee is required to report annu­ally to the full board on its activ­it­ies over the year, and on the reports presen­ted to the Com­mit­tee by the Authority’s intern­al and extern­al auditors.

Back­ground

1. This Annu­al Report is presen­ted on behalf of the Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee to cov­er the peri­od of its oper­a­tions from Septem­ber 2022 to Septem­ber 2023.

Over­view

1. The peri­od of this Annu­al Report cov­ers con­sid­er­a­tion of final accounts for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. The final­isa­tion of these accounts was delayed as a con­sequence of lack of extern­al audit staff resource at Grant Thornton, the Authority’s extern­al auditors.

2. The accounts and final audit report were reviewed at an added meet­ing of the Com­mit­tee on 13 Janu­ary 2023.

3. Respons­ib­il­ity for extern­al audit has now passed to Maz­ars as a new appoint­ment estab­lished by the Aud­it­or Gen­er­al for Scot­land, with effect from the audit of the ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ accounts.

4. The Com­mit­tee has been sup­por­ted over the dur­a­tion of this report­ing peri­od by Azets in the pro­vi­sion of intern­al audit ser­vices. The Com­mit­tee has con­tin­ued to have over­sight of the work of the Authority’s intern­al aud­it­ors and con­sidered reports issued by them in full.

5. The terms of ref­er­ence of the Com­mit­tee were broadly unchanged in the restruc­ture of the Cairngorms NPA board’s com­mit­tees agreed in June 2021. The Com­mit­tee has con­tin­ued to work to these terms of ref­er­ence over the dur­a­tion of this report­ing peri­od and met six times over the peri­od covered by this report.

6. The Com­mit­tee has had prob­lems over the course of the report­ing peri­od in secur­ing a quor­um for a num­ber of its meet­ings. The Com­mit­tee recog­nises that its

mem­ber­ship has been par­tic­u­larly impacted by turnover in mem­ber­ship. While the board has con­sidered the intern­al auditor’s sug­ges­tion that a reduced quor­um is con­sidered for meet­ings in line with many oth­er organ­isa­tions’ Audit and Risk Com­mit­tees, the board has instead agreed to imple­ment a sys­tem to sup­port nom­in­a­tion of sub­sti­tutes to meet­ings from with­in the board.

Key Activ­it­ies

1. In addi­tion to man­age­ment reports from the Authority’s Intern­al and Extern­al Aud­it­ors, con­sidered in fur­ther detail below, the Com­mit­tee con­sidered the fol­low­ing issues dur­ing the course of the year:

a) Risk man­age­ment: the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee has con­tin­ued to take a stra­tegic over­sight of the Authority’s risk man­age­ment strategy and reg­u­larly con­sidered the stra­tegic risk register. The Com­mit­tee has con­sidered the appro­pri­ate­ness of cov­er­age of the stra­tegic risk register sup­port­ing deliv­ery of the trans­ition­al plan for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ and com­mence­ment of the Cor­por­ate Plan for 2023 to 2027 in the peri­od, and scru­tin­ised adequacy of mit­ig­a­tion action, in peri­ods between full Board con­sid­er­a­tions of risk management.

b) Detailed Risk Ana­lys­is: the Com­mit­tee has con­tin­ued the prac­tice in the year of con­sid­er­ing more in depth ana­lys­is of key risks from seni­or man­age­ment. This prac­tice provides an oppor­tun­ity to explore key or increas­ing stra­tegic risks in more detail and eval­u­ate the adequacy of mit­ig­a­tion actions. The Com­mit­tee has con­sidered detailed ana­lys­is of the risks asso­ci­ated with the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­gramme as it moves through its Devel­op­ment Phase.

c) Risk Appet­ite: the Com­mit­tee con­sidered the out­come of the board’s risk appet­ite work­shop and will con­tin­ue to have over­sight of the integ­ra­tion of risk appet­ite into revised stra­tegic risk man­age­ment approaches, in advance of present­a­tion of a revised stra­tegic risk man­age­ment approach to the full board.

d) Assur­ance Map­ping: the Com­mit­tee worked with the intern­al aud­it­ors in con­sid­er­ing the Park Authority’s assur­ance map­ping frame­work, to assist with estab­lish­ing appro­pri­ate gov­ernance struc­tures with­in the organisation.

e) Account­ing Policy and Estim­ates: the Com­mit­tee reviews and agrees account­ing policies and con­siders any sig­ni­fic­ant estim­ates required in the final­isa­tion of the

annu­al accounts as part of its con­sid­er­a­tion of final accounts pri­or to their sig­na­ture by the Account­able Officer. There were no sig­ni­fic­ant vari­ations to account­ing policy required in the year, nor were any estim­ates causes of concern.

f) Gov­ernance State­ment: review and approv­al of this state­ment, pri­or to its inclu­sion in the annu­al accounts and pri­or to sig­na­ture by the Account­able Officer.

g) Fol­low up on extern­al audit: the Com­mit­tee has main­tained over­sight of the issues with extern­al audit resourcing and delays in timetable, com­mu­nic­at­ing with the Aud­it­or Gen­er­al for Scot­land on these mat­ters on behalf of the board.

h) Updates on pro­gress in imple­ment­ing pre­vi­ous audit recom­mend­a­tions: the Com­mit­tee has main­tained a twice yearly audit review of action taken on pre­vi­ous audit recom­mend­a­tions, sup­ple­men­ted from time to time by man­age­ment reports.

i) Con­sid­er­a­tion and agree­ment of for­ward audit activ­ity plans: the Com­mit­tee, has agreed a for­ward plan of intern­al audit activ­ity and has mon­itored pro­gress in suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of the intern­al audit plan for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ with a plan for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ agreed and cur­rently under delivery.

j) Let­ter of rep­res­ent­a­tion: the Com­mit­tee con­sidered the draft let­ter of rep­res­ent­a­tion from the Author­ity to Grant Thornton, the extern­al aud­it­or, pri­or to its sig­na­ture by the Account­able Officer as an appro­pri­ate reflec­tion of the Authority’s pos­i­tion for pre­par­a­tion of the accounts for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ and con­duct of the Authority’s fin­an­cial and wider con­trol pro­ced­ures over the course of the year.

k) Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Act (FOISA) and Data Sub­ject Access Requests (DSAR): the Com­mit­tee has provided over­sight of the Authority’s man­age­ment and hand­ling of inform­a­tion requests made under FOISA and DSAR reg­u­la­tions, includ­ing the out­come of a small num­ber of refer­rals made by applic­ant to the Scot­tish Inform­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er. With both an assur­ance and Best Value focus, the Committee’s over­sight of these mat­ters has provided con­firm­a­tion on behalf of the Board of the adequacy and effic­acy of arrange­ments imple­men­ted by man­age­ment to handle inform­a­tion requests and con­tinu­ally learn from exper­i­ence and out­comes of processes.

Intern­al Audit

1. The Com­mit­tee agree an annu­al intern­al audit work pro­gramme presen­ted by the intern­al auditor.

2. Over the course of the peri­od of this report, Azets have presen­ted eight man­age­ment reports to the Com­mit­tee. Their find­ings and con­sequent recom­mend­a­tions for action are graded accord­ing to the intern­al aud­it­ors’ assess­ment of the sig­ni­fic­ance of the under­ly­ing weak­ness to the effect­ive man­age­ment of the organisation.

3. Table One presents a sum­mary of the num­ber and degree of sig­ni­fic­ance of intern­al audit find­ings over the peri­od of this report and com­pares this with his­tor­ic levels. The defin­i­tions used for sig­ni­fic­ance of intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions have changed slightly with the change in intern­al audit pro­vider from KPMG to BDO. These defin­i­tions are giv­en after the table. The areas audited are also clas­si­fied in terms of over­all effect­ive­ness of the intern­al audit con­trol sys­tems reviews and these clas­si­fic­a­tions are also explained below the table.

Table One: Sum­mary of Intern­al Audit Findings

Intern­al Audit Study	Crit­ic­al	High	Mod­er­ate	Low
2011⁄12 Total (7 studies)	0	3	14	9
2012⁄13 Total (4 studies)	0	0	0	10
2013⁄14 Total (7 studies)	0	1	9	11
2014⁄15 Total (4 studies)	0	0	5	13
2015⁄16 Total (9 studies)	0	0	9	10
2016⁄17 Total (8 studies)	n/​a	0	11	11
2017⁄18 Total (3 studies)	n/​a	0	3	7
2018⁄19 Total (9 studies)	n/​a	1	6	10
2019⁄21 Total (9 studies)	0	5	16	21
2021⁄22 Total (5 studies)	0	4	10	2
2022⁄23 Total (6 studies)	2	9	11	5

The 2022⁄23 stud­ies were:	Very High	High	Mod­er­ate	Lim­ited
Peat­land Pro­gramme (Sep 22)	2	6	1	0
Per­form­ance Man­age­ment (Sep 22)	0	0	3	0
Work­force Man­age­ment (Sep 22)	0	1	1	0
LEAD­ER Admin­is­tra­tion (Sep 22)	0	0	1	1
Data Man­age­ment (Dec 22)	0	2	0	0
Payroll and Expenses (Mar 22)	0	0	5	4
Total for period	2	9	11	5

Key — Azets defin­i­tion of grades for man­age­ment action recom­mend­a­tions: I) Very High Risk Expos­ure: major con­cerns requir­ing imme­di­ate seni­or atten­tion that cre­ate fun­da­ment­al risks with­in the organ­isa­tion. m) High Risk Expos­ure: absence / fail­ure of key con­trols that cre­ate sig­ni­fic­ant risks with­in the organ­isa­tion. n) Mod­er­ate Risk Expos­ure: con­trols are not work­ing effect­ively and effi­ciently and may cre­ate mod­er­ate risks with­in the organ­isa­tion. o) Lim­ited Risk Expos­ure: con­trols are work­ing effect­ively, but could be strengthened to pre­vent the cre­ation of minor risks or address gen­er­al house-keep­ing issues.

1. The Com­mit­tee recog­nises that the risk pro­file of audit recom­mend­a­tions for action and improve­ment of intern­al con­trols has increased over the course of the year. This to a degree recog­nises the rel­at­ively new areas of ser­vice being under­taken by the Park Author­ity, such as tak­ing on full respons­ib­il­ity for the peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­gramme, togeth­er with sig­ni­fic­ant changes to our oper­at­ing envir­on­ment as the organ­isa­tion trans­itions to a hybrid work­ing envir­on­ment. Nine of the 27 recom­mend­a­tions raised over the last 12 month peri­od relate to the rel­at­ively new and devel­op­ing peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­gramme, high­light­ing the increased level of audit recom­mend­a­tions likely to be brought up in new or nov­el areas of oper­a­tions as opposed to in more mature oper­at­ing sys­tems. Both ​“very high risk” expos­ure recom­mend­a­tions on the peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­gramme were acted on imme­di­ately. Indeed, man­age­ment aware­ness of the devel­op­ing con­trol sys­tems in this area led to the request through the Com­mit­tee for the review of pro­cesses in place with­in the peat­land pro­gramme to sup­port man­age­ment con­sid­er­a­tion of sys­tems improvement.

2. The Com­mit­tee has noted a num­ber of high risk expos­ure recom­mend­a­tions in the more recent reports and will mon­it­or res­ol­u­tion of these mat­ters with­in agreed timetables.

3. In line with the Authority’s val­ues of trans­par­ency, the Com­mit­tee is made aware of all recom­mend­a­tions made by the intern­al aud­it­ors, through con­sid­er­a­tion of full man­age­ment reports fol­low­ing each audit review.

4. The Com­mit­tee has agreed man­age­ment responses to all recom­mend­a­tions made and con­tin­ues to mon­it­or pro­gress made. The intern­al aud­it­ors have also con­duc­ted fol­low-up reports and report back to the Com­mit­tee on their find­ings. The Com­mit­tee is aware of some lag in man­age­ment action against out­stand­ing audit recom­mend­a­tions, as a con­sequence of the pres­sure of work in under­tak­ing remedi­al work while at the same time devel­op­ing and sup­port­ing new sys­tems and the increas­ing scale of the organ­isa­tion. The most recent update report presen­ted pos­it­ive over­all move­ment in the num­bers of out­stand­ing audit actions to be addressed. The Com­mit­tee will con­tin­ue to mon­it­or the pos­i­tion closely to ensure appro­pri­ate resources are dir­ec­ted toward address­ing audit recommendations.

5. The Com­mit­tee has con­sidered the Intern­al Aud­it­ors’ Annu­al Report for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃. The intern­al auditor’s annu­al report for the year gives the fol­low­ing over­all opin­ion: ​“In our opin­ion, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has a frame­work of gov­ernance, risk man­age­ment and con­trols that provides reas­on­able assur­ance regard­ing the effect­ive and effi­cient achieve­ment of object­ives. We note how­ever a sig­ni­fic­ant num­ber of audit actions remain out­stand­ing from pre­vi­ous years, some of which are now aged”.

Extern­al Audit

1. The Authority’s accounts for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ received a clear, unqual­i­fied extern­al auditor’s report and opin­ion from Grant Thornton, our extern­al auditors.

2. The accounts and extern­al auditor’s report for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ were con­sidered and approved by the Com­mit­tee at its meet­ing on 13 Janu­ary 2023. The accounts were signed by the Chief Exec­ut­ive as Account­able Officer and passed to Audit Scot­land for sig­na­ture and onward sub­mis­sion to Aud­it­or Gen­er­al and Scot­tish Par­lia­ment. The accounts were cleared to be laid in Par­lia­ment on 20 Janu­ary 2023.

3. The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee con­sidered Grant Thornton’s draft report to those charged with gov­ernance on the audit of the ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ accounts at its meet­ing of 13 Janu­ary 2023. The report high­lighted two action points: con­sid­er­a­tion of poten­tial to sim­pli­fy the accounts and ledger struc­ture and explore the poten­tial to use account­ing soft­ware func­tion­al­ity more fully; and con­sid­er­ing appro­pri­ate gov­ernance and con­trol struc­tures around the Park Authority’s cyber risks. These actions were accep­ted by man­age­ment and the Com­mit­tee and was an action which man­age­ment were already progressing.

4. The extern­al audit report noted that the single action point noted in the pri­or year had been fully closed.

5. The extern­al audit report noted that com­plete draft fin­an­cial state­ments, includ­ing the Per­form­ance Report, Account­ab­il­ity Report and Gov­ernance State­ment, were provided with­in the agreed timescales.

Stra­tegic Risk Management

1. The Authority’s stra­tegic risk register has con­tin­ued to be reviewed and revised as neces­sary through­out this report­ing peri­od by the Com­mit­tee and full Board, ensur­ing the Park Author­ity con­tin­ues to man­age its stra­tegic risk envir­on­ment while trans­ition­ing into a new Cor­por­ate Plan peri­od and revis­ing its approach to stra­tegic risk man­age­ment and risk appet­ite. The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee has con­tin­ued to review the cov­er­age and adequacy of the stra­tegic risk register in those quar­ters where it is not presen­ted to the full Board, and has incor­por­ated assur­ance over risk man­age­ment of the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme ensur­ing any stra­tegic risk implic­a­tions to the Park Author­ity as a whole are recog­nised and incor­por­ated in our risk man­age­ment framework.

Con­clu­sions

1. The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee con­siders that it has been suc­cess­ful in pro­gress­ing the Board’s gov­ernance and intern­al con­trol pri­or­it­ies dur­ing the peri­od covered by this annu­al report.

2. The Com­mit­tee wel­comes the work of the Authority’s fin­ance team in once again main­tain­ing a high qual­ity and pro­fes­sion­al fin­an­cial account­ing service.

3. The Com­mit­tee has engaged through the year with issues iden­ti­fied by the Authority’s intern­al and extern­al aud­it­ors, and also by the Authority’s officers. The Com­mit­tee has received full reports on issues raised; con­sidered recom­mend­a­tions made; and approved responses and actions. The Com­mit­tee has shaped and approved the over­all audit plan and guided the dir­ec­tion and approach of the intern­al aud­it­ors and their pro­gramme of work. The Com­mit­tee has also mon­itored deliv­ery against approved action plans.

4. Both the intern­al and extern­al aud­it­ors’ find­ings provide assur­ance to the Com­mit­tee and Board that the Authority’s intern­al con­trol and gov­ernance object­ives are being met effect­ively by management.

5. It is also reas­sur­ing for Com­mit­tee mem­bers to see once again that audit recom­mend­a­tions have typ­ic­ally been of a low or mod­er­ate risk level, while recog­nising the cov­er­age of some of the Park Authority’s new­er ser­vice areas has pushed the risk pro­file of recom­mend­a­tions high­er over the course of the last report­ing peri­od. It is accep­ted that there will always be a range of improve­ments than can be made to ser­vices and con­trols; that these con­trols must con­tin­ue to adapt to chan­ging oper­at­ing and stra­tegic envir­on­ments; and as such a num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions for improve­ment from intern­al audit will always be expec­ted. The Com­mit­tee warmly wel­comes the evid­ence of atten­tion to intern­al con­trol sys­tems by man­age­ment and gen­er­ally effect­ive con­trol sys­tems evid­enced by the annu­al intern­al audit reports.

6. The Com­mit­tee will con­tin­ue to address key, basic issues of intern­al con­trol and the devel­op­ment of appro­pri­ate pro­cesses with­in the Authority.

7. The Com­mit­tee will also seek to con­tin­ue to have over­sight of the Authority’s approach to and hand­ling of risk man­age­ment, and of wider aspects of cor­por­ate gov­ernance such as the approach to Best Value and value for money. In par­tic­u­lar, mem­bers will seek to ensure that les­sons are learned from oper­a­tion­al exper­i­ence and that wherever pos­sible reviews of work­ing prac­tices and learn­ing from them lead to improve­ments in our systems.

Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to Board for Peri­od August 2022 to Novem­ber 2023

Activ­ity in Period

1. The Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee was estab­lished fol­low­ing a review of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s board com­mit­tee struc­tures over the first quarter of ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. The Com­mit­tee form­al­ised the ​“Gov­ernance Group” of Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener and Com­mit­tee Chairs which pre­vi­ously met to sup­port man­age­ment of gov­ernance, stra­tegic devel­op­ment and board man­age­ment activities.

2. The Com­mit­tee met a total of four times up to and includ­ing the meet­ing of 18 August 2023.

3. The Com­mit­tee has sought assur­ance over the fol­low­ing key aspects of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s oper­a­tions over the course of the report­ing peri­od: a) Oper­a­tion of board com­mit­tees with­in their terms of ref­er­ence; b) Com­mu­nic­a­tion strategy and its imple­ment­a­tion; c) Com­mit­tee mem­ber­ships; d) Board com­plaints pro­ced­ure; e) Board devel­op­ment, eval­u­ation and train­ing; f) Board appoint­ment pro­cesses; g) Staff Register of Interest Assur­ance Pro­cesses; h) Board and events timetables; i) Work of the Cairngorms Youth Action Team.

Review of Activ­it­ies and Commentary

1. The Com­mit­tee has con­tin­ued to embed its role with­in the Park Authority’s Com­mit­tee struc­ture over this second year of its operations.

2. The Com­mit­tee had a num­ber of changes in mem­ber­ship over the course of the peri­od covered by this report, reflect­ing the wider peri­od of change in the mem­ber­ship of the full board over this time and also the num­ber of consequential

elec­tions held for a num­ber of Con­vener and Com­mit­tee Chair roles. As the cur­rent mem­ber­ship of the Com­mit­tee is rel­at­ively new, this annu­al report is more a fac­tu­al record of the activ­it­ies of the Com­mit­tee over the peri­od, rather than a qual­it­at­ive eval­u­ation of the work of the Committee.

1. The Com­mit­tee is open to for attend­ance by any board mem­ber where mem­bers have an interest on any spe­cif­ic mat­ter under discussion.

2. The Com­mit­tee has iden­ti­fied two addi­tions or points of cla­ri­fic­a­tion required to its terms of ref­er­ence over the course of this report­ing peri­od. The pro­posed addi­tions were:

a) Sup­port the Con­vener in identi­fy­ing an appro­pri­ate sub-group of the board, with max­im­um of four mem­bers includ­ing the Con­vener, to advise on mat­ters of pay, terms and con­di­tions, appoint­ment and any oth­er con­trac­tu­al mat­ters relat­ing to the Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and any oth­er staff fall­ing with­in the Scot­tish Government’s Seni­or Appoint­ments Pay Processes.

b) To over­see and provide assur­ance to the Board on the devel­op­ment of the Park Authority’s com­mu­nic­a­tions strategy and on the imple­ment­a­tion of actions plans and achieve­ment of the stra­tegic out­comes of that com­mu­nic­a­tion strategy. [This amend­ment cla­ri­fies the report­ing line for com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­ity which had pre­vi­ously been handled under the aspect of the terms of ref­er­ence: over­see and provide assur­ance to the Board on imple­ment­a­tion of stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant cor­por­ate pro­grammes of work not fall­ing with­in the remit of oth­er Com­mit­tees, such as busi­ness con­tinu­ity plan­ning and sig­ni­fic­ant IT or organ­isa­tion­al devel­op­ment programmes.]

1. Part of the Committee’s role is to con­sider the sched­ule of busi­ness for the full board. There have been no instances of need for escal­a­tion of con­cerns around any items of busi­ness con­sidered by the Com­mit­tee to the full board. Some minor mat­ters have been made known to oth­er com­mit­tees to enhance coordin­ated assur­ance over organ­isa­tion­al performance.

2. Time­tabling of com­mit­tees con­tin­ues to be tested to find the cor­rect time alloc­a­tion for the Com­mit­tee amongst a range of oth­er board busi­ness com­mit­ments and recog­nising that many mem­bers are only able to attend Park Author­ity board and com­mit­tee meet­ings on Fridays.

Con­clu­sions

1. As a Com­mit­tee primar­ily com­pris­ing new mem­bers, this annu­al report is a rel­at­ively fac­tu­al state­ment of busi­ness con­duc­ted over the peri­od in question.

2. The Com­mit­tee will con­sider its role and con­tri­bu­tion to the Park Authority’s gov­ernance and assur­ance frame­work over the com­ing year.

Resources Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to Board for Peri­od August 2022 to Octo­ber 2023

Activ­ity in Period

1. The Resources Com­mit­tee was estab­lished fol­low­ing a review of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s board com­mit­tee struc­tures over the first quarter of ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. The Com­mit­tee com­bined many of the respons­ib­il­it­ies of the pre­vi­ous Fin­ance and Deliv­ery and Staff­ing and Recruit­ment Committees.

2. The Com­mit­tee met on five times up to and includ­ing the meet­ing of 11 August 2023.

3. The Com­mit­tee has sought assur­ance over the fol­low­ing key aspects of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s oper­a­tions over the course of the report­ing peri­od: a) Staff pay response to the cost of liv­ing crises and sup­ple­ment­ary pay award effect­ive from 1 Octo­ber 2022; b) Staff pay award with effect from 1 April 2023; c) Scru­tiny of the busi­ness case for realign­ment of pay bands F and G against sec­tor bench­marks; d) Devel­op­ment of ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ budget; e) Budget mon­it­or­ing for both ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ and ²⁰²³⁄₂₄; f) Draft fin­an­cial out­turn pos­i­tion for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃; g) Deliv­er­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Equal­ity Duties, includ­ing scru­tiny of the Park Authority’s Equal Pay Audit; h) Staff engage­ment, includ­ing Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um dis­cus­sions; i) Evol­u­tion of staff terms and con­di­tions, par­tic­u­larly around the devel­op­ment of 35 hour work­ing week pro­pos­als; j) The Right to Dis­con­nect Charter; k) Health and Safety oper­a­tions; I) Staff Turnover and staff absence monitoring.

4. The Com­mit­tee also con­tin­ued dis­cus­sion around the poten­tial for devel­op­ing com­mer­cial income and the committee’s future con­sid­er­a­tion of this aspect of the Authority’s activ­ity toward the end of this report­ing peri­od. This area of activ­ity has

not been explored extens­ively while the Park Author­ity con­tin­ues to focus on the poten­tial to secure sig­ni­fic­ant inward grant fund­ing and private fin­ance in sup­port of its activities.

Review of Activ­it­ies and Commentary

1. Over­all, the com­mit­tee feels it has been suc­cess­ful in dis­char­ging its remit and per­form­ing an appro­pri­ate and valu­able ele­ment of the Park Authority’s gov­ernance and assur­ance pro­cesses. Appro­pri­ate areas of over­lap with oth­er com­mit­tees on per­form­ance and risk man­age­ment have been recog­nised and min­im­ised, with mat­ters passed on between Committee’s with­in their remits as necessary.

2. The Com­mit­tee had a vari­able mem­ber­ship over the course of the year, reflect­ing the sig­ni­fic­ant turnover in board mem­ber­ship in the peri­od. Com­mit­tee Chair and Vice Chair also changed in the period.

3. The Com­mit­tee covered a wide range of sub­ject areas over the course of the peri­od of this report, as illus­trated by the sum­mary of top­ics covered at point 3, provid­ing the board with assur­ance over the man­age­ment and con­trols exer­cised with­in these areas of the Park Authority’s operations.

4. The Com­mit­tee has not iden­ti­fied any changes required to its terms of ref­er­ence over the course of this report­ing period.

5. There have been no instances of need for escal­a­tion of con­cerns to the full board, while some minor mat­ters have been made known to oth­er com­mit­tees to enhance coordin­ated assur­ance over organ­isa­tion­al performance.

Con­clu­sions

1. The oper­a­tion of the Resources Com­mit­tee has provided an import­ant and effect­ive ele­ment of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s gov­ernance and assur­ance sys­tems. The Committee’s focus on the com­bin­a­tion of fin­an­cial and staff resource man­age­ment provides for a com­pre­hens­ive scru­tiny of the man­age­ment of these areas, while allow­ing for mem­bers to provide integ­rated stra­tegic dir­ec­tion and sup­port in the for­ward plan­ning of these key resources.

2. The Com­mit­tee believes there are no sig­ni­fic­ant changes needed in the Committee’s oper­a­tions over the com­ing year. Com­mit­tee mem­bers will con­tin­ue to work with seni­or officers to evolve and adapt report­ing struc­tures as required.

3. The Com­mit­tee is grate­ful to the sup­port of officers provided over the year, for full and clear papers and effect­ive, help­ful engage­ment at our meetings.

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to Board for Peri­od August 2022 to Octo­ber 2023

Activ­ity in period

1. The Com­mit­tee met four times up to and includ­ing the meet­ing of 8 Septem­ber 2023 in the peri­od covered by this report.

2. The Com­mit­tee has sought assur­ance over the per­form­ance of the fol­low­ing pro­grammes and major pro­jects where the Park Author­ity is either lead deliv­er body, or holds sig­ni­fic­ant respons­ib­il­ity as a lead applic­ant and / or account­able body for fund­ing deployed: a) Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject; b) Cairngorms Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) and Cairngorms Trust deliv­ery; c) Foot­path Main­ten­ance; d) Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme; e) Cairngorms 2030 Her­it­age Hori­zons Pro­gramme; f) Cairngorms Nature Fest­iv­al; g) Review of terms of ref­er­ence of Com­mit­tee and for­ward scope of Committee’s coverage.

Review of Activ­it­ies and Commentary

1. As a rel­at­ively new com­mit­tee in the Park Authority’s gov­ernance struc­ture, mem­bers have con­tin­ued to embed their role with­in the over­all scope of the com­mit­tee and assur­ance struc­ture and sought to min­im­ise areas of over­lap. Key areas of the Cairngorms NPA man­aged and part­ner led activ­it­ies have been iden­ti­fied for report­ing with a tem­plate report­ing struc­ture final­ised and main­tained over the course of the peri­od. Use of exist­ing reports sub­mit­ted to pro­ject boards and oth­er struc­tures has been max­im­ised to min­im­ise addi­tion­al report­ing bur­dens on staff.

2. The Com­mit­tee had a chan­ging mem­ber­ship over the course of the year, includ­ing changes to Chair. As the cur­rent mem­ber­ship of the Com­mit­tee is rel­at­ively new, this annu­al report is more a fac­tu­al record of the activ­it­ies of the Com­mit­tee over the peri­od, rather than a qual­it­at­ive eval­u­ation of the work of the Committee.

3. There have been no instances of need for escal­a­tion of con­cerns to the full board, while some minor mat­ters have been made known to oth­er com­mit­tees to enhance coordin­ated assur­ance over organ­isa­tion­al per­form­ance. Gen­er­ally, per­form­ance reports have been pos­it­ive. Activ­ity on sig­ni­fic­ant pro­grammes and pro­jects has gen­er­ally secured agreed object­ives with minor devi­ations noted, as has been more fully rep­res­en­ted in cor­por­ate per­form­ance report­ing to the full board.

4. The Com­mit­tee has agreed a planned scope of activ­ity for the com­ing year, cov­er­ing the fol­low­ing areas of the Park Authority’s activ­it­ies: a) Cairngorms 2030 – quarterly update; b) Peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­gramme; c) Caper­cail­lie pro­ject clos­ure and leg­acy; d) Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment and Cairngorms Trust; e) Cairngorms Nature Action Plan Deliv­ery (includ­ing cov­er­age of Beaver pro­ject; Wild­cat pro­ject; and wood­land res­tor­a­tion); f) Ranger Ser­vices; g) Oth­er one-off reports on key pro­ject activ­it­ies as iden­ti­fied by mem­bers from time to time.

Con­clu­sions

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee has oper­ated over the peri­od to provide the ele­ments of gov­ernance and assur­ance sys­tems as set out in the terms of ref­er­ence for board com­mit­tees. This has been rein­forced by intern­al audit reports on per­form­ance man­age­ment con­duc­ted in the pri­or report­ing peri­od and repor­ted to the Audit and Risk Committee.

2. Cur­rent mem­bers believe they have a clear focus for the year ahead and have scoped the for­ward agenda for the Com­mit­tee accordingly.

3. The Committee’s mem­bers have expressed their grat­it­ude for the sup­port of officers provided over the year; for full and clear papers; and for effect­ive, help­ful engage­ment at meetings.