240517DraftResourceMinute

Cairngorms Draft Resources Com­mit­tee Minutes Nation­al Park Author­ity 17 May 2024 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 1 of 6

Draft Minutes of the Resource Com­mit­tee Meet­ing Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and Vir­tu­ally 17 May 2024 at 02.30pm

Present Rus­sell Jones (Chair) Dr Fiona McLean (sub­sti­tute for Dr Han­nah Grist) Xan­der McDade

Sandy Brem­ner (Board Con­vener) Lauren McCal­lum (Deputy Chair) Derek Ross

In Attend­ance Grant Moir, CEO Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies Dr Han­nah Grist

Minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing for approval

1. The minutes from the meet­ing on the 26 Janu­ary 2024 were approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered from pre­vi­ous meeting

1. None

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. No declar­a­tions of interest were made. Cairngorms Draft Resources Com­mit­tee Minutes Nation­al Park Author­ity 17 May 2024 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 2 of 6

Budget Mon­it­or­ing

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions, presen­ted the paper which sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of April — month one of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year. Louise high­lighted at this early stage in the year the pos­i­tion on payroll and staff salar­ies against budget is a key point of assess­ment. The month one fig­ures for actu­al costs are slightly below the phased budget pos­i­tion provid­ing some early con­firm­a­tion of the accur­acy of budget estim­ates for this sig­ni­fic­ant area of expenditure.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) The chair of Resources Com­mit­tee thanked the Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions for her papers. b) Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO updated the Resources Com­mit­tee that there had just recently been a change in budget for the Com­munity Lead Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) com­munity devel­op­ment grant. This was for £258,000 inclus­ive of devel­op­ment and £57,000 of this is for staff costs.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising: none

Estim­ated Outturn

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which estim­ated out­turn pos­i­tion for the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ fin­an­cial year.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Com­mit­tee mem­bers sought cla­ri­fic­a­tion about the under­spend on the Peat­land res­tor­a­tion sites. Grant Moir, the CEO cla­ri­fied that the final costs of restor­ing a site depend on the nature of the work required: ditch block­ing costs less than the res­tor­a­tion of bare peat and a site may come in less expens­ive than anti­cip­ated depend­ing on the pro­por­tion of ditch block­ing work involved. b) Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions also com­men­ted that ini­tial budgets are set based on a grad­ing of com­plex­ity. The peat­land res­tor­a­tion has come in under budget owing to the pro­jects under­taken being less com­plex than anticipated.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper. Cairngorms Draft Resources Com­mit­tee Minutes Nation­al Park Author­ity 17 May 2024 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 3 of 6

4. Action point arising: i. Com­mit­tee would like updates about the peat­land res­tor­a­tion grants and more inform­a­tion of the dif­fer­ent types of res­tor­a­tion undertaken.

Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment and People Strategy 2024 – 2027

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment presen­ted the paper which sets out an over­view of the many changes that have taken place with­in the organ­isa­tion since the last Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy of 2019, and how these changes have informed the emer­ging Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment and People Strategy (ODPS), which is designed to give our staff the frame­work and sup­port to be able to deliv­er our ambi­tions around nature, people and place

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Board mem­bers approved of adding the word ​“people” to the title of the strategy as it feels very per­son­able, and people focused. They reques­ted that feed­back on the out­comes of the val­ues and cul­ture comes back to the board at an appro­pri­ate time. b) A board mem­ber reques­ted the addi­tion of ​“extern­al stake­hold­ers” to the word­ing in the sec­tion about the over­arch­ing vis­ion of the ODPS. That being “…sup­ports staff to achieve excel­lence in their work, their beha­viour and their rela­tion­ships with each oth­er and extern­al stake­hold­ers”. This was agreed by officers.

Lauren joined 02.54pm c) A board mem­ber raised con­cerns about the value and word­ing of some of the ques­tions and res­ults in the sur­vey. The Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment replied that they have no capa­city to amend or change the ques­tions as this is pre­scribed by Best Com­pan­ies who design the Staff Sur­vey. She explained that the sur­vey does also include the oppor­tun­ity for staff to give open ended responses to sev­er­al ques­tions e.g. ​“what is great about the organ­isa­tion and what would you like to change about the organ­isa­tion”. These com­ments will be scru­tin­ised, and a report provided in due course. d) A board mem­ber noted the res­ults were really pos­it­ive across the major­ity of factors, with good res­ults in staff and man­age­ment rela­tion­ships. How­ever, they noticed there were some issues with work­load and bore­dom, what about their motiv­a­tions? Request­ing more back­ground on this at anoth­er stage. Cairngorms Draft Resources Com­mit­tee Minutes Nation­al Park Author­ity 17 May 2024 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 4 of 6

e) A board mem­ber men­tioned the import­ance of staff liv­ing in the park and ques­tioned the dif­fi­culties around recruit­ment and hous­ing in the area. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment noted the import­ance of staff liv­ing in the Nation­al Park com­munit­ies and explained that our Hybrid Work­ing Policy does not allow for per­man­ent home work­ing con­tracts, except in the cir­cum­stances of short term intern­ship con­tracts. As such our recruit­ment con­tin­ued to have an emphas­is on staff liv­ing in com­munit­ies with­in and around the Park. f) Dis­cus­sions were had around the new 35 hours work week and the effect this is hav­ing on staff and their work­load and pro­ductiv­ity. It was stated that there was a flex­ible work­ing policy in place to ensure staff are not over work­ing and man­agers mon­it­or this. In addi­tion, staff have reg­u­lar Per­form­ance Devel­op­ment Con­ver­sa­tions with their line man­agers, and work­load should be dis­cussed at these meet­ings g) A board mem­ber ques­tioned how indi­vidu­als are rewar­ded for going above and bey­ond to pro­gress in the organ­isa­tion or per­son­ally? Officers stated that we have a good mix of staff with some work­ing above and bey­ond the expect­a­tions of their roles, but also that it was equally accept­able that some staff simply do enough to deliv­er the require­ments of the role. A mem­ber com­men­ted staff should only be expec­ted to carry out their con­trac­ted hours and that should be val­ued and any­thing over that is their per­son­al choice as many people may have caring or oth­er com­mit­ments mean­ing they can­not work above and bey­ond. Officers stated that the organ­isa­tion main­tains a good train­ing budget, encour­aging employ­ees to under­take train­ing both on exist­ing skills and to devel­op new skills to allow them to work towards their future roles, advert­ising jobs intern­ally first. A Board mem­ber sug­ges­ted that there are pos­it­ive employ­ment stor­ies, which togeth­er with the sup­port for train­ing, and per­son­al devel­op­ment should be shared with the pub­lic as a good news story, this to be dis­cussed with Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment. h) A board mem­ber ques­tioned what train­ing staff had for deal­ing with the pub­lic. It was high­lighted, there was lots of train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies pub­lished on Eólas, our intranet, and also that we have an excel­lent online train­ing portal, ELMS, which cov­ers a large vari­ety of train­ing. Officers repor­ted that we had arranged spe­cif­ic train­ing recently for cer­tain pro­jects, on ​“deal­ing with dif­fi­cult people”, and ​“safe and sound” train­ing is delivered for rangers to enhance their skills when deal­ing with the pub­lic and know­ing when to step back from a situ­ation, among many more.

1. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper. Cairngorms Draft Resources Com­mit­tee Minutes Nation­al Park Author­ity 17 May 2024 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 5 of 6

2. Action points arising: i. An update on the val­ues and cul­tures work to be brought to a future meet­ing. ii. A change in the word­ing in the paper to ​“sup­ports staff to achieve excel­lence in their work, their beha­viour and their rela­tion­ships with each oth­er and extern­al stake­hold­ers” iii. Issues raised on approaches to staff motiv­a­tion in the con­text of the sur­vey res­ults, more back­ground on this to come back to the Board. iv. Good employ­ment stor­ies, train­ing, and per­son­al devel­op­ment to be shared with the pub­lic as a good news story, this to be dis­cussed with Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement.

Health and Safety Com­mit­tee Minutes

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, intro­duced this paper and noted that this is a stand­ard item that comes to the Com­mit­tee to provide over­sight of the meet­ing and of Health and Safety mat­ters generally.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ment: a) A board mem­ber raised a ques­tion regard­ing lone work­ing, ensur­ing all staff know the policy and have the cor­rect equip­ment. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment stated that we are in the pro­cess of upgrad­ing approach and com­mu­nic­a­tions around lone work­ing and aim to deliv­er work­shops for staff on lone work­ing options once the upgrade is com­pleted. Board mem­bers reques­ted a fol­low up ensur­ing staff were fol­low­ing procedures.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising: i. Fol­low up on lone work­ing, ensur­ing staff are fol­low­ing pro­ced­ures to be brought to a future meeting.

Draft Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um Minutes

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, intro­duced this paper and noted that this is a stand­ard item that comes to the Com­mit­tee to provide over­sight of the meet­ing and of Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um mat­ters gen­er­ally. Cairngorms Draft Resources Com­mit­tee Minutes Nation­al Park Author­ity 17 May 2024 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 6 of 6

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ment: a) Lots of pos­it­ive feed­back for the Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment on the pro­gress­ive policies being put in place such as Preg­nancy Loss and Neurodi­ver­gence. A board mem­ber reques­ted to see all policies avail­able, which the Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment con­firmed are all online as we have moved away from hav­ing paper cop­ies of the staff hand­book. It was high­lighted the Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Development’s policy devel­op­ment has been recog­nised extern­ally and she has been invited to speak at sev­er­al nation­al con­fer­ences on key policy topics

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising: i. Board mem­bers would like to see Eólas to read through the policies avail­able or have a hand­book avail­able for Board Mem­bers to read.

AOCB

1. None.

Date of next meet­ing: 9 August 2024

Motion for con­fid­en­tial ses­sion to be set out will be to pro­tect con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of staff pay and con­di­tions pro­pos­als pri­or to form­al negotiations.

Meet­ing con­cluded at 15.38