240227-Minutes

EAP Meet­ing

Held vir­tu­ally on the 27 Feb­ru­ary 2024

Present: Anita Howard Bo Mansell Fiona McIn­ally (CNPA) Fiona McLean Han­nah Grist (Chair) Heath­er Earn­shaw Heath­er Trench (CNPA) Kate Christie (CNPA) Kath­er­ine Will­ing (CNPA) Keith Turn­er Kev­in Hutchens Lili­ana Cor­ri­eri Lina Payne Linda Bam­ford Mari­ana Yarnold Shreo­shi Das

Apo­lo­gies: Becca Mayo Micah Daigeaun Joanna Rodgers Vanessa Alt­weck Stu­art Hall

1. Item one: Welcome

   • Han­nah wel­comed the group to the meeting.
   • It was agreed that there would be no March vir­tu­al meet­ing due to the face to face event. Pan­el mem­bers were advised if they have any ques­tions regard­ing the event to please con­tact Kate.
   • The pan­el were made aware that the Guid­ance for Staff Exper­i­en­cing Preg­nancy Loss dis­cussed at the Janu­ary meet­ing have been adop­ted and can now be found on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity web­site on the jobs land­ing page.
   • All those present in the meet­ing agreed to it being recorded.

2. Item two: Review of Minutes of Novem­ber 2023

   • The minutes were agreed, and it was asked that a note was made that Kev­in had sent through his report on the Scot­tish Coun­cil for Vol­un­tary Organ­isa­tions Gathering.

3. Item three: Vis­it­or Survey -

   • Heath­er Trench, Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Officer
   • Heath­er gave a present­a­tion on the res­ult of the sur­vey and asked pan­el mem­bers to con­trib­ute throughout.
   • The pan­el asked about the fre­quency of sur­vey tak­ing and wheth­er all sur­vey sites are used year-round. Heath­er explained that some sur­vey sites are not prac­tic­al dur­ing the winter or have a lim­ited num­ber of avail­able par­ti­cipants dur­ing the winter months. Heath­er explained there will be more sur­veys car­ried out through­out sum­mer or when there will be more par­ti­cipants to mit­ig­ate this.
   • The pan­el were asked which word­ing they would advise to be used in the equal­ity mon­it­or­ing sec­tion. The options giv­en were 1. ​“Do you con­sider your­self to be a trans per­son?” (C2030 ques­tion). 2. ​“Is the gender you identi­fy with the same as your sex registered at birth?” (Census ques­tion). The pan­el did not reach agree­ment on which option they pre­ferred. Some pan­el mem­bers pre­ferred option 1 as felt it avoided the par­ti­cipant need­ing to reflect on pri­or his­tory which may be dif­fi­cult or trau­mat­ic, it was reit­er­ated that that the par­ti­cipants are likely on hol­i­day. Some pan­el mem­bers pre­ferred option two and felt that more ques­tions should be asked on sex and gender as they felt both are import­ant. There was a sug­ges­tion to reword the ques­tion to ​‘Do you con­sider your­self to be a trans or non-bin­ary per­son’. Heath­er explained that the con­sult­ants felt this went against stone­wall advice. It was sug­ges­ted that this ques­tion should be taken back to the con­sult­ants to gath­er their opin­ion, as well as con­sid­er­ing what is done with this inform­a­tion as that may help to decide which option is used.
   • Dur­ing the dis­cus­sion on word­ing sur­round­ing gender in the equal­ity mon­it­or­ing ques­tions it was asked wheth­er under-fives would also be asked the same ques­tions. Heath­er explained that only adults would be sur­veyed but are asked to answer about the makeup of their fam­ily when they are part of the group vis­it­ing to under­stand the demo­graph­ics of those vis­it­ing the nation­al park.
   • There was a dis­cus­sion sur­round­ing wheth­er there should be thresholds to help determ­ine wheth­er the par­ti­cipant has low income. The pan­el sug­ges­ted that the cur­rent ques­tion may cause con­fu­sion in the stat­ist­ics as many par­ti­cipants may have a dif­fer­ent opin­ion on what low income is or may not identi­fy with or recog­nise low income.
   • The pan­el sug­ges­ted that a new sur­vey may be required which looks at those who have not come to the nation­al park and what pre­vents them from com­ing. It was noted by Heath­er that this is import­ant how­ever, may be out with the reach of this sur­vey and may be covered in oth­er groups research.
   • The pan­el sug­ges­ted changes or addi­tions to the sur­vey and equal­ity mon­it­or­ing ques­tions such as,
     1. Dis­ag­greg­at­ing the Gypsy / Trav­el­ler ques­tion as this group com­prises of mul­tiple eth­nic groups who do not all con­sider them­selves as white.
     2. For the ques­tion regard­ing wheth­er the par­ti­cipant iden­ti­fies as dis­abled, it was sug­ges­ted to use the word­ing dir­ect from the Equal­ity Act 2010.
     3. It was sug­ges­ted that caring respons­ib­il­it­ies should be added.
     4. It was sug­ges­ted adding a ques­tion on what could the park do to make the vis­it easier.
     5. It was sug­ges­ted to add a ques­tion on what mode of trans­port was used to reach the part of the park where they were surveyed.
     6. It was sug­ges­ted to remove words such as ​‘unspoilt’ as it was felt that this is not factful.
     7. It was sug­ges­ted to remove use of the BAME acronym.
     8. It was sug­ges­ted adding a ques­tions as to wheth­er any of the vis­it­ors used mobil­ity aids.
     9. It was sug­ges­ted that post­codes should be asked as it will help to give inform­a­tion on socio-eco­nom­ic status, how­ever, there was a mixed response from the pan­el. It was sug­ges­ted by oth­er mem­bers that as this inform­a­tion may be shared with busi­nesses that post­code inform­a­tion should not be asked.
   • The pan­el ques­tioned the pur­pose of the sur­vey as they felt that this heav­ily impacted what ques­tions should and should not be asked. The pan­el felt that if it was not a piece of data that was needed it should not be asked. Heath­er explained that it is used for lots of dif­fer­ent pur­poses such as mon­it­or­ing the Action Plans, Park Part­ner­ship Plans and Access Plans. Heath­er explained that Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity is keen on remov­ing bar­ri­ers to access which this sur­vey helps with and that this may be help­ful for loc­al busi­nesses. Heath­er explained that this means there is a lot to cov­er in a short peri­od of time with visitors.
   • Heath­er explained to the pan­el that they are try­ing to ensure the ques­tion­naire is not too intrus­ive, all the ques­tions are option­al, and they are aim­ing for the sur­vey to be 12 – 15 minutes. Heath­er explained that they are also con­sid­er­ing using an online ques­tion­naire. It was sug­ges­ted that the online sur­vey is cir­cu­lated to groups such as High­land Pride to help make sure groups that may be under­rep­res­ent in in-per­son inter­views are still represented.

4. AOBS

   • It was sug­ges­ted by a pan­el mem­ber that the Nation­al Park Author­ity encour­age the Scot­tish Youth Hostel Asso­ci­ation relaunch their grant scheme at a youth hostel in the Cairngorm Nation­al Park.

End of meet­ing Next meet­ing 30 April 2024