240308DraftMinutesPerformanceCttee

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Page 1 of 5

Draft Minutes of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own on Spey Hybrid 8 March 2024 at 2.30pm

Present Kenny Deans (Con­vener) John Kirk Chris Beat­tie Ann Ross

Steve Mickle­wright Sandy Brem­ner Elean­or Mackintosh

In Attend­ance Grant Moir, CEO Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change Catri­ona Strang, Clerk to Board

Apo­lo­gies None

Wel­come and introduction

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing of the Per­form­ance Committee.

Minutes of Pre­vi­ous Meetings

1. the minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 8 Decem­ber 2023 held in per­son, were approved.

Mat­ters Arising

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Page 2 of 5

1. Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ings: i. a) 11 Feb­ru­ary 2022 i. Para 19ii) — Report relat­ing to Vis­it Scot­land fund­ing to be brought to the Com­mit­tee. In Hand b) 9 June 2023 i. Para 16i) The Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change to feed­back to the fest­iv­al steer­ing group mem­bers com­ments on tim­ing. Com­pleted c) 8 decem­ber 2023 i. Para 16^d) an agri­cul­ture advis­ory group took place on Tues­day 5 March, sug­ges­ted revis­it cur­rent beaver rein­tro­duc­tion group and amend the terms of ref­er­ence to be a prac­tic­al, beaver mit­ig­a­tion group ii. Para 16l) dis­cus­sion took place on the pro­cess and les­son learnt. There were lots of dif­fer­ent oppor­tun­it­ies to engage, which is dif­fer­ent to how much those oppor­tun­it­ies were taken up. Recog­nise need to be thor­ough as pos­sible so as many people can engage, includ­ing using social media which has shown great­er engage­ment. Agri­cul­ture advis­ory group will enable early engage­ment in future.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. None Cairngorms 2030 deliv­ery phase incep­tion (Paper 1)

2. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030, intro­duced the paper which update the Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee on the risks under man­age­ment. This paper presents the deliv­ery phase incep­tion peri­od from Janu­ary to Feb­ru­ary 2024 and the planned devel­op­ment work to end April 2024.

3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: d) A mem­ber asked about the chal­lenges with Sus­trans Fund­ing. Head of Cairngorms 2030 con­firmed that Sus­trans is fun­ded by Trans­port Scot­land and they are a com­mit­ted part­ner with the pro­ject how­ever match fund­ing is not guar­en­teed as all fund­ing is approved by a com­mit­tee. e) A mem­ber asked if any oth­er part­ners were in the same situ­ation regard­ing fund­ing. Head of Cairngorms 2030 con­firmed that Sus­trans is the only fund­ing that is being applied for cur­rently but the Park Author­ity is aware that public

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Page 3 of 5

sec­tor part­ners only have one year fund­ing set­tle­ments and we will need to con­tin­ue to work closely with them on match fund­ing. f) The chair noted the work on recruit­ment of staff for the project

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

2. Action Point Arising: none. Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme (Paper 2)

3. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change presen­ted an update on the deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme. High­lighted that there has been an over­all budget reduc­tion at a nation­al level from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. There is a com­mit­ment to main­tain cur­rent levels of fund­ing in the Cairngorms for the ​‘24÷25 deliv­ery pro­file, allied to Cairngorm2030 match fund­ing. It is not known if this will be the case in future years. Budget reduc­tions could have a neg­at­ive impact on con­fid­ence in the sec­tor. The oppor­tun­ity presen­ted by a budget reduc­tion is to drive for­wards private invest­ment faster than it might oth­er­wise have happened.

4. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A mem­ber asked who would make decision on Green Fin­ance part­ner. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change con­firmed the Park Author­ity have a charter for respons­ible invest­ment in place for the agree­ment with Pal­la­di­um, and cri­ter­ia for private fin­ance pro­pos­als already agreed. The Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion has pub­lished prin­ciples for respons­ible invest­ment in nat­ur­al cap­it­al. b) A mem­ber asked about fund­ing ahead of ²⁴⁄₂₅ what con­cern should we have over the effect of 40% reduc­tion in fund­ing. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change stated that this year will be a test of any future mod­els for increas­ing private invest­ment and deliv­er­ing more value for money. c) A mem­ber asked about pro­cure­ment and if the charter would allow us to accept a green fin­ance deal and there­fore not com­prom­ise deliv­ery tar­gets and not expose the Park Author­ity to fin­an­cial risk. And what would hap­pen to the car­bon cred­its if sold, or the com­pany hold­ing them is sold. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change stated that due dili­gence is under­taken to ensure that any investor meets the cri­ter­ia set out in the eth­ic­al charter. There is no fin­an­cial risk to the

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Page 4 of 5

Park Author­ity. Car­bon cred­its is cur­rently a vol­un­tary mar­ket and not a trade­able com­mod­ity. d) A mem­ber asked about busi­ness con­fid­ence with con­tract­ors and reas­sur­ing them that the Park Author­ity is help­ing keep­ing momentum on going. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change stated that the large con­tract­ing com­pan­ies com­plet­ing works through­out Scot­land will get reas­sur­ance with nation­al level activ­ity from the cent­ral Peat­land ACTION team. The smal­ler con­tract­ors oper­at­ing in the Park have a com­mit­ment from the budget for the pipeline for ​‘24/’25. Bey­ond that, the Park Author­ity will con­tin­ue to demon­strate sup­port through oper­at­ing the new entrants’ scheme and invest­ing in capa­city build­ing in third parties. e) Grant Moir, CEO that a board busi­ness ses­sion will be tak­ing place on the 10 May around Green Finance

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

2. Action Point Arising: a) Grant Moir will ask board mem­bers to provide any key ques­tions or views and provide a simple pro­cess of how the peat­land fund­ing works for 10 May Board Busi­ness session.

2024 Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Items (Paper 3)

1. The chair asked Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO to pre­pare the paper with pro­posed agenda items for com­mit­tee busi­ness until Decem­ber 2024.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Mem­bers con­firmed that this was really help­ful and there is oppor­tun­ity to add agenda items. b) A mem­ber asked if the Cairngorm2030 pro­ject would be broken down Into Theme areas rather than updated the com­mit­tee with the whole pro­ject. The CEO wants to give the com­mit­tee a stra­tegic over­view of the pro­ject as we are at the start of deliv­ery, this may devel­op dur­ing the deliv­ery phase. Papers will also be presen­ted at the Audit and Risk committee.

3. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Page 5 of 5

1. Action Point Arising: none.

AOCB

1. Date of net meet­ing 14 June 2024 The meet­ing closed at 03.25pm