240614ApprovedPerfCmteMinutes

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee 14 June 2024

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Minutes of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own on Spey Hybrid 8 March 2024 at 1.00pm

Present Kenny Deans (Con­vener) Sandy Brem­ner Steve Mickle­wright Ann Ross Chris Beat­tie John Kirk Elean­or Mackintosh

In Attend­ance Grant Moir, CEO Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or for Nature and Cli­mate Change Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Sarah Hen­shall, Head of Con­ser­va­tion Kar­en John­stone, 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, 26 April 2024 were approved with no amendments.

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Mat­ters Arising

1. Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ings: a) 11 Feb­ru­ary 2022

    i. Item 3.13a1 an accurate record of Visit Scotland funding 2023 / 24 will be
       brought to the Performance Committee in due course as external auditors are
       still working through records.
   

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. None

13.02pm Ann Ross joined the meeting.

Bring back beaver’s pro­ject (Paper 1)

1. Sarah Hen­shall, Head of Con­ser­va­tion, intro­duced the paper which presents the latest deliv­ery updates on the Bring­ing back beaver’s project.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Board mem­bers ques­tioned how often the board and pub­lic were get­ting updates

   on the beavers' movements. Sarah Henshall, Head of Conservation reassured the
   committee that there was a monitoring group in place to monitor when beavers
   are moving, and the Beaver Project Manager would inform landowners
   immediately if beavers were on their land.
   

   b) Ques­tions were raised about the impact of staff time and costs for this project

   and how this is being managed. The committee were reassured that this has only
   been flagged as a potential risk in the future, however, rangers, volunteers and
   future release site partners will help.
   

   c) A board mem­ber ques­tioned the longer-term plan for beavers. The Head of

   Conservation noted that they have a five-year license, solely focused on the Spey
   catchment.
   

   d) Board mem­bers ques­tioned what the beaver pop­u­la­tion is likely to reach and how

   this would be managed. The Head of Conservation confirmed that it was hard to
   give a fixed number, however, NatureScot have carried out modelling framework
   to try and establish how the population is likely to grow over time, based on
   established territories.
   

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e) A board mem­ber asked if beavers leave the Nation­al Park, who would be respons­ible for them. Head of Con­ser­va­tion high­lighted that we want the beaver pop­u­la­tion to expand with­in the catch­ment. There is a Nation­al Beaver Man­age­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion frame­work that NatureScot imple­ment that sets out how beaver’s will be man­aged out with the bound­ar­ies of the Nation­al Park.

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

2. Action Point Arising: none.

Cairngorms 2030: Q1 2024 (Jan – Mar) (Paper 2)

1. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030, intro­duced the paper which updates the Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee on the risks under man­age­ment with­in the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme. This paper presents the peri­od from Janu­ary to March 2024 and the planned work to the end of June 2024.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Grant Moir, CEO, added a com­ment related to the trans­port aspect; he will be

   meeting with Bettina Sizeland, Director in Transport Scotland and Dave Signorini,
   Director of Environment and Forestry, Scottish Government (SG) on 27 June to
   discuss Cairngorms 2030 funding.
   

   b) A board mem­ber ques­tioned the con­nectiv­ity of cycle paths between loc­a­tions in

   Badenoch and Strathspey asking when these will be going ahead. The CEO
   stated that routes and costings are in place, we are waiting for confirmation on a
   start date. Colin Simpson, Head of Visitor Service, stated that Dulnain Bridge and
   Grantown on Spey are community led projects, currently at stage four, the Park
   Authority will pick up from stage five.
   

   c) Com­ments were made on the inform­a­tion that has been repor­ted, with members

   feeling it was dated. The CEO stated that Cairngorms 2030 has been divided into
   three themes to come to committee in rotation: Transport, Community and Nature
   themes will be presented which will provide a forward look of plans within each
   theme. Board members highlighted that due to public perception, they would
   need to have an insight into what's coming up. The CEO responded to say that
   they will share a forward look with the board, giving members more of an insight.
   The Deputy CEO emphasised the importance of scrutiny of programme delivery,
   which formed the basis of the terms of reference for the Committee and ensured
   

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appro­pri­ate scru­tiny was giv­en to pro­gramme man­age­ment, risk and resource implic­a­tions, and deliv­ery. the Chair noted that a meet­ing had been arranged with the Deputy CEO and Head of Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme to agree the future cov­er­age of the pro­gramme by this Com­mit­tee. Mem­bers sup­por­ted this action. d) A board mem­ber raised a ques­tion regard­ing budget that was approved but deferred for a year. The CEO stated that SG has the same amount of act­ive travel budget between Trans­port Scot­land and Sus­trans: it’s who admin­is­ters this budget and alloc­a­tion pro­cesses that have changed. How­ever, the Park Author­ity is look­ing to secure funds for this year for the design phase of the pro­ject. This will be dis­cussed at the meet­ing on 27 June with Trans­port Scot­land referred to earlier.

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

2. Action Point Arising: i. Chair of Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee and Deputy CEO to dis­cuss and make a plan for how best to share with the Board Mem­bers the for­ward look doc­u­ment to allow them to see what’s com­ing up.

Deliv­ery of stat­utory duties as con­ferred by the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (Paper 3)

1. Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel presen­ted the paper which updates mem­bers on deliv­ery of the Park Author­it­ies stat­utory duties under the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003. While activ­ity is delivered by officers with some report­ing to the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um, as a stat­utory func­tion it is also con­sidered appro­pri­ate that there is an ele­ment of Board over­sight and scru­tiny of related casework.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A board mem­ber raised a ques­tion of wheth­er com­mit­tee gets sight of case­loads and issues on an annu­al basis. Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices noted that they plan to bring over­view inform­a­tion to the com­mit­tee such as numer­ic­al ana­lys­is of cases and sum­mar­ies of types of cases dealt with.

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b) Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices gave the com­mit­tee an update on the access to the area of the Spey, and the report they had under­taken in Autum. This has now been recon­sidered and will go back out to gath­er more inform­a­tion over the com­ing weeks.

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

2. Action Point Arising: none

Cairngorms and Glen­more Strategy 2016 (Paper 4)

1. Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel presen­ted the paper which updates mem­bers on deliv­ery of the actions con­tained in the 2016 strategy and to con­sider the role the Park Author­ity should take to lead on coordin­ated deliv­ery of actions in the Cairngorm and Glen­more area in future.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A board mem­ber ques­tioned the slow pro­gress on park­ing man­age­ment between The High­land Coun­cil (THC) and Forestry and Land Scot­land (FLS). Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel stated that they would use a hol­ist­ic solu­tion such as bar­ri­ers and park­ing facil­it­ies. There has been dis­cus­sion about cla­ri­fy­ing leg­al and man­age­ment respons­ib­il­it­ies on the mat­ter and the leg­al times­cales for res­ol­u­tion of ques­tions has slowed the pro­cess down.

3. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action Point Arising: none

Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject (Paper 5)

1. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change presen­ted the paper which presents the final report on the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A board mem­ber com­men­ted on the pro­ject receiv­ing cri­ti­cism due to lack of sig­nage for those with dogs not on leads and hav­ing received com­ments from people who ended up being approached by the police. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of

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Nature and Cli­mate Change noted that the police may have stopped people regard­ing the Lek it Be cam­paign as they sup­por­ted this in the early morn­ings to stop people dis­turb­ing the Leks. There was also Peer to Peer work­ing in the dog walk­ing com­munity, and this is pos­sibly where the con­flict or mis­com­mu­nic­a­tion comes from. b) Board mem­bers felt there are high­er num­bers of ticks in the area. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change, respon­ded by stat­ing that ticks and pred­at­ors have been dis­cussed as part of this pro­ject and this goes into the Leg­acy Plan. Grant Moir, CEO men­tioned that we need to con­tin­ue to inform the pub­lic on tick risks, so they are aware how to check them­selves and what to look out for. c) Board mem­bers raised ques­tions about the capa­city to keep the Caper­cail­lie mes­sage out there and what is included in the Leg­acy Plan. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change stated that the Leg­acy Plan is the Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan, this will be dis­trib­uted at the Form­al Board in June. d) A board mem­ber men­tioned that they feel there has been a lot of money spent on Caper­cail­lie with little res­ult. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change noted that fund­ing strategy is laid out in the emer­gency plan, there is a sig­ni­fic­ant price tag, but they put pub­lic money into those actions with mul­tiple bene­fits and long-term benefits.

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

2. Action Point Arising: None

AOCB

1. Date of net meet­ing 20 Septem­ber 2024 The meet­ing closed at 14.19pm

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Action Points: Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee 14 June 2024 Page 7 of 7 ACTION Status Draft Minutes – 14 June 2024 In hand Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ings 11 Feb­ru­ary 2022 ii. Item 3.13a1 an accur­ate record of Vis­it Scot­land fund­ing ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ will be brought to the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee in due course as extern­al aud­it­ors are still work­ing through records. Paper 2 — Cairngorms 2030: Q1 2024 (Jan – Mar) At para 9c i. Chair of Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee, Kenny Deans and Deputy CEO, Dav­id Camer­on to dis­cuss and make a plan for how best to share with the Board Mem­bers the for­ward look doc­u­ment to allow them to see what’s com­ing up.