240628FBPaper1CEOReport

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Paper 1 Form­al Board 28 June 2024

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For inform­a­tion

Title: CEO Report and Con­vener Update

Pre­pared by: Grant Moir, Chief Executive

Pur­pose

To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Nature and Cli­mate Change

1. Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund — There were 52 applic­a­tions for the £370,000 Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund. Decisions on the applic­a­tions will be made in due course and suc­cess­ful applic­ants will have until the end of March 2025 to com­plete the projects.

2. Peat­land res­tor­a­tion — The Peat­land ACTION team have star­ted work on the 16 pro­jects in the 2024 — 25 pipeline, to bring 1500ha under res­tor­a­tion. Three pro­jects are under­way or com­pleted, oth­ers have con­tract­ors appoin­ted or are in the ten­der­ing stages. Con­tract­or capa­city has grown with around six con­tract­ors cur­rently bid­ding for each tender. Some forestry con­tract­ors are now keen to broaden their port­fo­lio in response to cuts to the Forest Grant Scheme. Peat­land ACTION is host­ing webinars to help con­tract­ors through the bid­ding pro­cess, and we will organ­ise two ​‘new entrant’ pro­jects this year.

3. Farm­ing — The Cairngorms Future Farm­ing pro­ject (Cairngorms 2030) is work­ing with the 6 tri­al farm­ers to nar­row down the low car­bon and high nature farm­ing prac­tices they will tri­al. Three recently appoin­ted farm advisors will provide help and advice to deliv­er these options. One farm­er has pur­chased and star­ted using discs instead of a plough to break ground for bar­ley crops, the impacts of which will be mon­itored through tailored soil sampling to identi­fy changes in car­bon and soil structure.

4. Fresh­wa­ter sys­tems — The Dee Resi­li­ence Strategy group met at the end of May to form­al­ise a part­ner­ship with the com­mon goal of adapt­ing to the impacts of cli­mate change and biod­iversity loss in the upper catch­ment. The group is

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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work­ing towards a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the costs and rel­at­ive impacts of dif­fer­ent inter­ven­tions to inform a place based approach to policy align­ment and blen­ded finance.

The Park Author­ity has worked with the River South Esk Catch­ment Part­ner­ship on a suc­cess­ful £1.4 mil­lion Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund bid to deliv­er cli­mate change adapt­a­tion and nature res­tor­a­tion in the Angus Glens. Key themes include wood­land expan­sion, wet­land cre­ation and river res­tor­a­tion at a scale unseen before in Angus.

1. Deer man­age­ment — The Stra­tegic Land Man­age­ment Plan (SLMP) for the West Grampi­ans Deer Man­age­ment group, writ­ten as part of the Cairngorms 2030 devel­op­ment phase, has aggreg­ated his­tor­ic and planned hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion activ­ity across the five estates. The SLMP has iden­ti­fied an approx­im­ate budget alloc­a­tion over 5 years to deliv­er res­tor­a­tion tar­gets, linked to the poten­tial sources of fund­ing avail­able over and above stand­ard gov­ern­ment cap­it­al grants.

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Deer Incent­ive Scheme has been fur­ther developed with dis­cus­sions tak­ing place with the deer man­age­ment groups with­in the cairngorms nation­al park. Final details will be shared and pro­cesses in place before the start of the hind sea­son in October.

1. Cairngorms Nature pri­or­ity spe­cies — The Beaver Man­age­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion group has been estab­lished for those with beavers on their land to share inform­a­tion and inform the applic­a­tion of the Park Authority’s man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion plan. Mon­it­or­ing is suc­cess­fully identi­fy­ing beaver move­ments and no land man­age­ment issues have been repor­ted to date.

A Park wide per­eg­rine fal­con sur­vey is under­way. The Park Author­ity Rap­tor Officer is work­ing with Rap­tor Study Group volun­teers and inde­pend­ent con­tract­ors to sur­vey over 110 sites.

As part of the fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel emer­gency plan a trans­lo­ca­tion pro­pos­al for the Spey is being developed with the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive and spe­cial­ists. If approved this will see mus­sels moved from vul­ner­able or degraded loc­a­tions to high qual­ity hab­it­at in in the upper Spey catchment.

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Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel

1. Land Reform (Scot­land) Act stat­utory duties — The Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF) met on the 5 June. Key top­ics dis­cussed included River Spey access and egress points with the LOAF advising on the devel­op­ment of the brief to identi­fy oppor­tun­it­ies to improve access for water borne users. The LOAF also advised on the draft guid­ance for land man­agers on the man­age­ment of water borne recre­ation and access.

2. Paths and long dis­tance routes Brae­mar to Kei­loch (Charters Chest Path) — Work com­menced on the path between the Queens Drive and the Old Bridge of Dee in the week begin­ning the 27 May. The sec­tion close to the A93 is anti­cip­ated to take four weeks to com­plete. Works on the path south of Cre­ag Choin­nich that will com­pli­ment this new path and provide a link in the long term aspir­a­tion to extend the Deeside Way are being led by the Brae­mar community

Old Log­ging Way — Fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of a route sur­vey earli­er this spring, the Access Team are work­ing with part­ners to devel­op a refur­bish­ment plan for sec­tions of the Old Log­ging Way to tackle drain­age and access­ib­il­ity issues.

1. Ranger ser­vices — Recruit­ment of sea­son­al rangers was com­pleted although two posts are now being read­vert­ised as the post hold­ers have secured oth­er posts with­in the Park Author­ity. Four train­ee rangers have also been appoin­ted, start­ing in late June. There has been a steady start to the sea­son in terms of vis­it­or num­bers but few­er issues than last year which reflects the fact that the weath­er has not been as pleas­ant as in May / June 2023. How­ever, even­ing patrols star­ted in June and did imme­di­ately start to pick up instances of camp­fires. Park Author­ity Rangers again sup­por­ted the ​“Lek it Be” cam­paign with dawn patrols around Lek sites. Juni­or Ranger activ­ity con­tin­ued with awards com­pleted by pupils at Spey­side High, Grant­own Gram­mar, Kin­gussie High, Alford Academy and Aboyne Academy.

2. Vis­it­or infra­struc­ture — The dead­line for expres­sions of interest for fin­an­cial sup­port for vis­it­or infra­struc­ture improve­ment pro­jects, in line with the Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Plan, was on the 31 May and staff are cur­rently assess­ing the responses with a view to work­ing with part­ners to secure high qual­ity infra­struc­ture projects.

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1. Volun­teer­ing and health walks — Volun­teer ranger train­ing was com­pleted in April with 25 new volun­teer rangers now fully trained and equipped and out on the ground. Volun­teer man­agers have also been con­tinu­ing work to increase the num­ber of health walks and a health walk lead­ers avail­able across the Park and a gath­er­ing bring­ing togeth­er 28 Health Walk lead­ers was held in May.

2. Youth action team — Hos­ted meet­ing with youth Loc­al Action Group (LAGs) from Fin­land and across Scot­land over 3 — 5 May 2024.

3. Act­ive and sus­tain­able trans­port — The full team is now in place with the Trans­port Man­ager and a Sus­tain­able Trans­port Officer both start­ing in late May. Fund­ing applic­a­tions to deliv­er fur­ther detailed design work on act­ive travel routes that were sub­mit­ted in Janu­ary were con­sidered by Sus­trans in spring 24. How­ever, although deemed suit­able for fund­ing sup­port, there is cur­rently insuf­fi­cient fund­ing to sup­port any new pro­jects so altern­at­ive fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies are being considered.

Plan­ning and Rur­al Development

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan — Pub­lic engage­ment on the evid­ence base for the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan has star­ted and will con­tin­ue on a range of top­ics over the sum­mer and into the autumn.

2. Plan­ning case­work — At the March Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ing, the Com­mit­tee approved the change of use of land to a beer garden at the Old Bridge Inn, Aviemore for a two year peri­od. At the fol­low­ing meet­ing in April, the Com­mit­tee approved a new cara­van / motorhome site in Dal­whin­nie and an exten­sion to the Grant­own on Spey Cara­van site for 16 stat­ic hol­i­day caravans.

3. Well­being eco­nomy — Work is con­tinu­ing to devel­op the Well­being Eco­nomy Action Plan. Officers have atten­ded the Well­being Alli­ance Scot­land (WEAII) cross party work­ing group.

4. Com­munity Action Plans — Com­munity Action Plans are cur­rently pro­gress­ing across the Park, with Marr Area Part­ner­ship sup­port­ing the com­munit­ies in Brae­mar and Strath­don, and Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey facil­it­at­ing the loc­al action plan­ning event in Kin­craig on 10 May.

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1. Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan — The Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship met on Wed­nes­day 5 June for their annu­al face to face meet­ing and vis­it. Based in Brae­mar this year, the day was a chance to bet­ter under­stand the oppor­tun­it­ies and chal­lenges for the vis­it­or eco­nomy in Roy­al Deeside, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on com­munity led tour­ism projects.

2. Vis­it­or and res­id­ents’ sur­veys — MEL Research have been con­trac­ted to devel­op, facil­it­ate and ana­lyse the vis­it­or and res­id­ents sur­vey fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful tender pro­cess. The vis­it­or sur­vey went live at the end of May 2024, with mar­ket research­ers car­ry­ing out face to face sur­veys at key coun­tryside sites, vis­it­or attrac­tions and vil­lage centres across the park, through­out the year. The res­id­ents sur­vey will go live online dur­ing July 2024, util­ising pro­mo­tion through Cairn Magazine and our social media chan­nels, but we are also look­ing at hard cop­ies and use of tab­lets at com­munity road­shows and high­land games to engage with loc­al residents.

3. Busi­ness Baro­met­er, real liv­ing wage update — The Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship (CBP) have just pub­lished find­ings from their quarterly Busi­ness Baro­met­er for the peri­od of Janu­ary – March 2024. Com­pared to the same time a year ago, slightly more busi­ness repor­ted a decrease in cus­tom­er num­bers and turnover than an increase. Expect­a­tions for the next 12 months were more pos­it­ive with around half of busi­nesses expect­ing increased levels of cus­tom­ers and turnover, but year on year levels of busi­ness con­fid­ence have decreased for the short, medi­um and longer term, most not­ably in rela­tion to the long term (next 24 months) peri­od. Ques­tions about busi­ness sup­port flagged that some busi­nesses were unaware of the sup­port avail­able to them from a range of stake­hold­ers and the CBP plan to increase their pro­mo­tion to mem­bers of the range of sup­port available.

4. Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment — The Cairngorms Trust, sup­por­ted by the Park Author­ity, has secured an ini­tial alloc­a­tion of £260,000 in fund­ing for com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment activ­it­ies and grant awards over the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year. This is a high­er start point than £225,000 awar­ded at the start of last year, although sig­ni­fic­antly lower than the final sum secured in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ of £406,000. The Cairngorms Trust met in early June to con­sider applic­a­tions which sig­ni­fic­antly over sub­scribed avail­able funds, with ini­tial awards cur­rently being communicated.

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A bid has been sub­mit­ted for addi­tion­al funds to bring total alloc­a­tion to £450,000, with a fur­ther bid of around £57,000 sub­mit­ted to sup­port the Cairngorms Youth Loc­al Action Group.

Mem­bers of the Cairngorms Trust are presently involved in dis­cus­sions to estab­lish a group to bet­ter rep­res­ent Loc­al Actions Groups in policy devel­op­ment and fund­ing dis­cus­sions around Com­munity Led Loc­al Development.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions

1. Act­ive Cairngorms — Our pro­gramme of spring vis­it­or man­age­ment com­mu­nic­a­tions has begun, with key mes­sages around ticks and lyme dis­ease, lamb­ing, ground nest­ing birds, lit­ter and camper­vans all sched­uled for the com­ing months. With­in this pro­gramme there is space for react­ive mes­sages, guided by the vis­it­or man­age­ment group, made up of ranger ser­vices and part­ner organ­isa­tions from across the Nation­al Park.

2. Cairngorms Nature — We worked in part­ner­ship with Roy­al Soci­ety of the Pro­tec­tion of Birds (RSPB) Scot­land and the Beaver Trust to sup­port the release of beavers to Insh Marshes, the final releases of this first ​‘beaver year’. Con­tent from the release (avail­able here) was pos­it­ively received, as was a wrap up blog from Beaver Pro­ject Man­ager Jonath­an Wil­let, shar­ing per­son­al reflec­tions and recom­mit­ting to our mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion work with landown­ers and man­agers (blog avail­able here).

The Beaver Trail at Rothiemurchus is now mostly installed, with just one pan­el left to go in. Feed­back to date has been pos­it­ive and Rothiemurchus have repor­ted good usage of the path by vis­it­ors. See fig­ure one below for a pho­to­graph of the inter­pret­a­tion in situ.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Paper 1 Form­al Board 28 June 2024 Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Beaver Trail Loch an Eilein Trail o specie Page 7 of 15

Fig­ure one — new Beaver Trail inter­pret­a­tion at Rothiemurchus A ded­ic­ated farm­ing news­let­ter was cre­ated at the end of May and cir­cu­lated to around 150 farm­ers and agri­cul­tur­al con­tacts with­in the Nation­al Park. The news­let­ter included updates on the new Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund, a screen­ing of regen­er­at­ive farm­ing doc­u­ment­ary Six Inches of Soil and an update on the Park Authority’s goose man­age­ment scheme. We plan to dis­trib­ute the news­let­ter three or four times a year from now on.

1. Pub­lic and stake­hold­er engage­ment — We con­cluded the con­sulta­tion on recre­ation­al fire man­age­ment with­in the Nation­al Park on 17 April. In total we received 1,664 responses (nearly 200 more than the Part­ner­ship Plan con­sulta­tion), 943 of which or 58% were from loc­al res­id­ents. The cam­paign was sup­por­ted by a ded­ic­ated post­card sent to every address in the Nation­al Park, an art­icle in Cairn magazine, mul­tiple press columns and inter­views, video con­tent and ded­ic­ated social media activity.

The draft con­sulta­tion on the third edi­tion of the Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan was com­pleted on 7 March, with a total of 427 responses (396 in Eng­lish, 31 in Gael­ic). This com­pares to a total of 36 responses received back in 2017. For more inform­a­tion see Paper 4 on the new Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan.

Recruit­ment con­cluded for a num­ber of Cairngorms 2030 comms and engage­ment roles. Josie Slade was appoin­ted as Engage­ment Officer in early March, man­aging a team of two Engage­ment Coordin­at­ors, Jo Rodgers and Fi Thompson (who took up their posts in mid to late April). Ros­a­lyn Wat­son also joined on 21 May as Com­mu­nic­a­tions Coordin­at­or. The team’s first pub­lic road­show event took place in Brae­mar on Wed­nes­day 1 May. Over 50 people turned up between 2pm and 7pm to hear more about pro­jects includ­ing active

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travel / trans­port improve­ments, a flood­plain ini­ti­at­ive, health walks and our schools programme.

We are cur­rently final­ising details of our ded­ic­ated vis­it­or and res­id­ents’ sur­veys for the com­ing year. The vis­it­or sur­vey is being delivered face to face from mid May until early 2025, with the aim of secur­ing 1,500 responses dur­ing that peri­od. A fur­ther 1,500 responses will be sought at the end of 2026 / early 2027 to give us a com­par­able sample to pre­vi­ous five yearly sur­veys, and these will be sup­ple­men­ted by an online com­pon­ent. The res­id­ents’ sur­vey is earli­er on in its devel­op­ment (likely go live in mid July), but once com­plete it will seek to cap­ture res­id­ents’ atti­tudes on a range of sub­jects covered in the Part­ner­ship Plan.

1. Cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions — Two stor­ies required a sig­ni­fic­ant amount of react­ive media work dur­ing this peri­od – pro­pos­als around a new nation­al park (which have led to a num­ber of inac­cur­ate reports about the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond), and the rela­tion­ship between land man­agers / farm­ers and the Park Author­ity. Our fire man­age­ment con­sulta­tion was also the sub­ject of some mis­in­form­a­tion activ­ity. Inter­views on these top­ics were arranged with Good Morn­ing Scot­land, The Times, Coun­try­file, Out of Doors and the Daily Record, with mul­tiple fac­tu­al cor­rec­tions issued. Sim­il­arly, two columns (in The Her­ald and The Strath­spey and Badenoch Her­ald) took sig­ni­fic­ant resource to cor­rect. This led to a form­al IPSO com­plaint and in turn saw a full apo­logy and cor­rec­tion printed.

We are liais­ing closely with col­leagues at Loch Lomond, NatureScot and Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to coordin­ate the approach to the devel­op­ment of new nation­al parks in Scot­land, some­thing which we will con­trib­ute case stud­ies / data to and also sup­port via our own chan­nels. One of the out­puts of this col­lab­or­a­tion was a piece on Land­ward show­cas­ing Scotland’s nation­al parks and the valu­able role they play for people and nature. The Badenoch and Strath­spey juni­or ranger group were joined by our rangers Will and Polly and High­Life Highland’s Saranne Bish for a day of pond dip­ping at the High­land Folk Museum. You can find the epis­ode on the iPlayer.

Kar­en Arch­er, our Press Officer of nearly 20 years, left on 20 March for a new role at High­Life High­land. Recruit­ment for a new Media Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager took place in late June and we are hope­ful that the team will be back up to a full com­ple­ment in six to eight weeks. How­ever, in the short term we have been work­ing at sig­ni­fic­antly reduced capacity.

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Oth­er news stor­ies over the peri­od include a piece on the £8 mil­lion being inves­ted in the Cairngorms by the Park Author­ity in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅, pro­mo­tion of the fire man­age­ment con­sulta­tion, a piece on keep­ing live­stock safe dur­ing lamb­ing, the return of the caper­cail­lie LekltBe cam­paign, the launch of a new sum­mer pro­gramme at the out­door demen­tia resource centre, and the approv­al of a new cara­van site at Dalwhinnie.

1. Web­site and social media — The web devel­op­ment pro­ject is pro­gress­ing accord­ing to sched­ule, with out­line ​‘wire­frame’ designs now con­firmed for the major­ity of pages across the site, the menu struc­ture com­pre­hens­ively tested, and the struc­ture of key sec­tions (such as site wide alerts) con­firmed. A sub­stan­tial amount of time has gone into the cre­ation of a ​‘con­tent find­er’ and smart search func­tion­al­ity, which will be used through­out the new web­site. This seeks to sim­pli­fy the pro­cess of find­ing con­tent bur­ied deep with­in the site struc­ture (at last count we had more than 15,000 pages), and we are explor­ing ways of using Al to speed up this pro­cess further.

The team have pre­pared a detailed social media report for 2023 to allow us to reflect on learn­ings and to guide our digit­al strategy going for­ward. By way of com­par­is­on, for the peri­od 15 Feb­ru­ary to 30 April 2024 versus the pre­vi­ous year, impres­sions have ris­en by 92% to 1.5 mil­lion, engage­ments are up 164% to 58,883 and video views are up nearly nine­fold at 224,348. This includes a spe­cif­ic focus on res­id­ents of the Nation­al Park, with reach and engage­ment rates rising sharply.

To sup­port our Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan con­sulta­tion (see ​‘Pub­lic and stake­hold­er engage­ment’ sec­tion below) and mark World Gael­ic Week, we partnered with Gael­ic influ­en­cer Som­hairle John­ston to reach a par­tic­u­larly engaged audi­ence. Somhairle’s con­tent (avail­able here) alone amassed over 30,000 impres­sions, 32,000 video views and 123 shares, clicks and comments.

1. Brand­ing and pub­lic­a­tions — The team are col­lab­or­at­ing with com­munity groups in Strath­don and Nethy Bridge to refresh Nation­al Park branded inter­pret­a­tion pan­els in both vil­lages. Com­munity path leaf­lets are also being refreshed for Strath­don and Dalwhinnie.

The sum­mer issue of Cairn is in the design pro­cess and will land on doormats through­out the Nation­al Park mid July. Art­icles will include an inter­view with volun­teer and part­ner ranger ser­vices in the Nation­al Park, a piece around

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farm­ing fund­ing and the new Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund, and an update on the new vis­it­or and res­id­ents’ surveys.

We are work­ing with the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship on a work­shop ses­sion with loc­al busi­nesses, aimed at explor­ing how a ​‘made in the Nation­al Park’ scheme might work in prac­tice. It is hoped we will get more clar­ity on what meas­ures will be work­able for small, medi­um and large scale busi­nesses in the Cairngorms.

Organ­isa­tion­al Development

1. Work­force Man­age­ment — Staff com­menced the reduced 35 hours work­ing week from 1 April. This now brings the Park Authority’s con­trac­tu­al hours in line with the major­ity of the pub­lic sec­tor. The Hybrid Work­ing Policy default pos­i­tion of 50:50 office base: home work­ing is now well estab­lished, with the major­ity of staff being office based on Tues­days to Thursdays. Whilst Mondays and Fri­days are quieter, there are still typ­ic­ally 25 – 30% of the staff com­ple­ment office based on these days.

2. Staff­ing update Since March 2024 a) Staff leav­ing the organ­isa­tion were i. Kar­en Arch­er, Press Officer – resig­na­tion ii. Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place — retire­ment. iii. Liz Hende­r­son, Infra­struc­ture Man­ager — resig­na­tion iv. Matt Wat­son, Peat­land Actin Pro­gramme Man­ager — resig­na­tion b) Staff join­ing the organ­isa­tion through the extern­al recruit­ment pro­cess were i. Chris Mack­ie joined as C2030 Know­ledge Exchange Coordin­at­or. Fixed term C2030 post ii. Fi Thom­son and Joanna Rodgers joined as C2030 Com­munity Engage­ment Officers. Fixed terms C2030 posts. iii. Kar­en John­stone joined as Clerk to the Board, repla­cing Catri­ona Strang iv. Bo Mansell joined as C2030 Sus­tain­able Trans­port Officer. Fixed term C2030 post V. Elean­or Mac­Don­ald joined as C2030 Sus­tain­able Trans­port Officer. Fixed term C2030 post. vi. Colin Bry­ans joined as Seni­or Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) new post

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vii. Jeff Pyrah joined as Seni­or Plan­ning Officer (For­ward Plan­ning) – new post viii. Ros­a­lyn Wat­son joined as C2030 Com­mu­nic­a­tions Coordin­at­or. Fixed term C2030 post ix. The fol­low­ing Sea­son­al Rangers were appoin­ted: • Becki Red­mond (returned from 2023 sea­son) • Danny O’Brien (returned from 2023 sea­son. Ori­gin­ally joined as a Train­ee Ranger in 2021, and has served as a Sea­son­al Ranger since 2022) • Fiona McClure (returned from 2023 sea­son) • Hec­tor Bry­den – first sea­son • Tom Fre­driks­son (returned from 2023 sea­son. Ori­gin­ally joined as a Train­ee Ranger in 2022) • Sarah Lawth­er (returned from 2023 sea­son) • Tony Seive­wright (returned from 2023 sea­son. Ori­gin­ally joined in 2021 and has served every sea­son since then) • Emily Als­ford – first sea­son • Em Wilkin­son – first sea­son • Craig Fraser (returned from 2023 sea­son. Ori­gin­ally joined in 2020 sea­son and has served every sea­son since then) • Rhona Garry – first sea­son • Niall Doherty – first sea­son c) Exist­ing Staff changes were i. Andy Smith was appoin­ted to the new post of GIS Officer ii. Dot Har­ris was appoin­ted to the post of C2030 Admin­is­tra­tion Officer iii. Gav­in Miles was appoin­ted to the post of Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place, repla­cing Murray

1. Youth employ­ment — The Park Author­ity is cur­rently in the pro­cess of appoint­ing four Train­ee Rangers. There were over 50 applic­ants for these roles, which is a sig­ni­fic­ant amount for a part time three month post. This is a key career pipeline for Ranger roles, and two of the cur­rent Sea­son­al Ranger com­ple­ment star­ted their Ranger careers with the Park Author­ity as Train­ee Rangers.

2. Equal­it­ies — The Park Author­ity have recently adop­ted a new policy ​“Sup­port­ing Staff through Preg­nancy Loss”, which has been added to our suite of equalities

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Paper 1 Form­al Board 28 June 2024

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policies. The Park Author­ity also achieved LGBT Charter accred­it­a­tion at Found­a­tion level.

1. Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment — The Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment and People Strategy has recently been adop­ted, fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion with Seni­or Man­age­ment Team, the Resources Com­mit­tee and staff, and informed by inform­a­tion gathered through the Best Com­pan­ies staff sur­vey, and staff away days. This strategy has been designed to give our staff the frame­work and sup­port to deliv­er our ambi­tions across the themes of Nature, People and Place. The strategy encom­passes 6 themes around Infra­struc­ture (includ­ing facil­it­ies and IT); Inform­a­tion and Data Sys­tems; Staff Skills; Staff Well­being and Resi­li­ence; Lead­er­ship; and Communications.

As part of the work devel­op­ing the Strategy, we con­trac­ted an extern­al facil­it­at­or to help us review our Organ­isa­tion­al Val­ues and Cul­ture. This work will be dis­cussed with the Board in due course as the val­ues are developed with the staff group.

1. Fin­ance a) Res­ults for April and May are with­in budget expect­a­tions and con­form to the pat­tern of spend exper­i­enced in the first quarter of ²⁰²³⁄₂₄: actu­al spend on oper­a­tion­al plan activ­it­ies equates to 2% of the annu­al budget. It is too early in the year to observe mean­ing­ful trends, but invest­ig­a­tion of payroll costs for April and May indic­ates that the budget provided will be suf­fi­cient, provid­ing the annu­al award is made with­in the budgeted level. b) Com­mit­ted spend (meas­ured through grant offers and requis­i­tions) is build­ing and we expect to see the value of com­mit­ments at a healthy level by the end of the first quarter. c) Expendit­ure on the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme has com­menced. The first quarterly claim has been sub­mit­ted and was paid promptly. No issues were raised by Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF). d) There has been no sig­ni­fic­ant expendit­ure to date against the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ peat­land res­tor­a­tion budget. Most of the ini­tial expendit­ure on peat­land res­tor­a­tion is expec­ted to con­trib­ute to the final­isa­tion of pro­jects con­trac­ted in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

Grant Moir, CEO

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Paper 1 Form­al Board 28 June 2024

Con­vener Update Page 13 of 15

Title: Pre­pared by: Sandy Brem­ner, Convener

Pur­pose

To high­light to Board Mem­bers and Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Man­age­ment Team and staff the meet­ings and events the Board Con­vener has been attend­ing since the last Form­al Board meeting.

1. Nation­al Farm­ers Uni­on Scot­land (NFUS) — Hos­ted a vis­it by the Pres­id­ent and Policy Dir­ect­or of NFU Scot­land, includ­ing a vis­it to one of the six farms tak­ing part in the Cairngorms 2030 pilot pro­jects. We dis­cussed oppor­tun­it­ies for even closer cooper­a­tion to help farm­ers and crofter who work in the Nation­al Park and agreed a series of actions to help address chal­lenges facing the sector.

2. Con­ven­tion of the High­lands and Island — Atten­ded the Con­ven­tion and con­trib­uted to dis­cus­sion on the need to devel­op ambi­tious new strategies for the deliv­ery of afford­able hous­ing. Met sep­ar­ately with the then Deputy First Min­is­ter, Shona Robison, to under­line the poten­tial for strategies to address the afford­able hous­ing crisis, as dis­cussed pre­vi­ously with the Hous­ing Minister.

3. Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion — Met the Commission’s Chair and Chief Exec­ut­ive to dis­cuss a range of issues includ­ing the new post ded­ic­ated to ensur­ing com­munity bene­fit from the devel­op­ing area of Green Fin­ance, the chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies regard­ing Scotland’s afford­able hous­ing crisis, and the implic­a­tions of future changes in land related legislation.

4. Brae­mar — Atten­ded a com­munity engage­ment day, dis­cuss­ing issues with res­id­ents, com­munity lead­ers and land man­agers, includ­ing work to restore the Dee’s upper catch­ment, hous­ing and trans­port issues in the area, and pro­jects involving loc­al schools.

5. Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Link (SEL) — Met with SEL’s Chair, Chief Exec­ut­ive and Board, fol­lowed by an even­ing ses­sion with Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) Board mem­bers and staff, dis­cuss­ing a range of issues includ­ing the import­ance of coordin­at­ing inform­a­tion about work which bene­fits both nature and people.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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1. Loch Lomond and Trossachs Nation­al Park (LLT­NP) — Met monthly with the LLT­NP Con­vener to dis­cuss com­mon issues, strategies and oppor­tun­it­ies for fur­ther collaboration.

2. The King’s Found­a­tion — Vis­ited rur­al devel­op­ment and skills train­ing pro­jects at Dum­fries House estate and met with staff and trust­ees in advance of fur­ther ini­ti­at­ives to help fur­ther CNPA goals.

3. The Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (EnFor) Meet­ing with Dir­ect­or EnFor to review CNPA devel­op­ments over the past year and look ahead to the chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies of ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

4. EnFor Chairs — Atten­ded the inaug­ur­al meet­ing of the EnFor Chairs For­um, dis­cuss­ing issues raised by the ongo­ing Pub­lic Ser­vice Review, and ini­ti­ated dis­cus­sion on the issue of Stra­tegic Com­mu­nic­a­tions across pub­lic bodies.

5. Cairngorms Trust — Met with the Chair, Trust­ees and bene­fi­ciar­ies of the Trust at a stake­hold­er meet­ing in Bal­later to review deliv­ery of a range of pro­jects across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, and dis­cuss how the CNPA can help gen­er­ate even great­er aware­ness of the Trust’s work to sup­port nature and communities.

The Trust has repor­ted a wor­ry­ing trend in the num­ber of applic­a­tions for fund­ing it has been forced to reject because the recent loss of loc­al author­ity part fund­ing has res­ul­ted in a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in applic­a­tions for 100% sup­port. In oth­er words, the total num­ber of pro­jects which can be sup­por­ted by the Trust has had to be reduced. There is par­tic­u­lar con­cern about the impact on the well­being of chil­dren in some schools where there have been applic­a­tions for pro­ject fund­ing. The Trust is keen for this situ­ation to be highlighted.

1. Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil — Atten­ded the Marr Area Com­mit­tee of Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil, out­lining the main func­tions of the Park Author­ity and Board, our cur­rent areas of deliv­ery, and how we are tack­ling some of the key chal­lenges facing people and nature in the area. Our Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place dealt with spe­cif­ic plan­ning issues.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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1. Dee resi­li­ence strategy work­shop — Atten­ded all day work­shop to devel­op strategies to reduce the cata­stroph­ic impacts for nature and people of increas­ingly dam­aging flood and drought events on the River Dee. Led by CNPA, involving the River Dee Trust, Dee Dis­trict Sal­mon Fish­er­ies Board, Dee Catch­ment Part­ner­ship, Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil, a rep­res­ent­at­ive of upper catch­ment Com­munity Coun­cils, NatureScot, Scot­tish Water and Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Pro­tec­tion Agency.

2. UK Nation­al Parks — Atten­ded the Nation­al Parks UK Chairs For­um, dis­cuss­ing the work of Nation­al Parks at a time of polit­ic­al change, latest devel­op­ments in lead­er­ship on nature recov­ery, and fur­ther oppor­tun­it­ies to sup­port the people who live and work in the UK’s Parks.

3. Board Mem­ber Appoint­ment — Took part in a series of pre­par­at­ory meet­ings, cul­min­at­ing in inter­views to provide recom­mend­a­tions to the Min­is­ter regard­ing the appoint­ment of a new mem­ber of the CNPA Board.

4. Cairngorms Hous­ing Part­ner­ship — Met with a rep­res­ent­at­ive of the Part­ner­ship to review pro­gress in the pro­vi­sion of afford­able hous­ing in the Nation­al Park and next steps.

5. Brae­mar Castle — Atten­ded the reopen­ing of the castle fol­low­ing a com­munity- led £1.6 mil­lion res­tor­a­tion pro­ject, meet­ing trust­ees and staff, dis­cuss­ing future tour­ism opportunities.

6. Juni­or Rangers — Met with some of the latest cohort of Cairngorms Nation­al Park Juni­or Rangers, dis­cussed with them their work and aspir­a­tions, and presen­ted cer­ti­fic­ates mark­ing com­ple­tion of their activities.

7. Gen­er­al — In addi­tion to oth­er meet­ings with stake­hold­ers, and indi­vidu­al meet­ings with CNPA Board mem­bers, par­ti­cip­ated in the appoint­ment of the CNPA’s new Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place.

Sandy Brem­ner, Board Convener