240809DRAFTResourcesCommitteeMinutes

Draft Resource Com­mit­tee Meet­ing Minutes Held as a hybrid meet­ing 09 August 2024 at 09.00am

Present Rus­sell Jones (Chair) Sandy Brem­ner Xan­der McDade Lauren McCal­lum (Deputy Chair) Dr Han­nah Grist Derek Ross

In attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Manager

Apo­lo­gies None

Wel­come and introduction

1. Rus­sell Jones, Com­mit­tee Chair, wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing of the Resources Committee.

Minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing for approval

1. The minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing on the 17 May 2024 were approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered from pre­vi­ous meeting

1. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment updated that the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment and People Strategy has been adop­ted and implemented.

ACTION	Status
Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meetings
17 May 2024
Paper 2
i. Com­mit­tee would like updates about the peat­land res­tor­a­tion grants and more inform­a­tion of the dif­fer­ent types of res­tor­a­tion undertaken.	Open
Paper 3
i. An update on the val­ues and cul­tures work to be brought to a future meeting.	Com­pleted
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”	Com­pleted
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.	In hand
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.	In hand
Paper 4
i. Fol­low up on lone work­ing, ensur­ing staff are fol­low­ing pro­ced­ures to be brought to a future meeting.	Com­pleted
Paper 5
i. Board mem­bers would like to see Eólas to read through the policies avail­able or have a hand­book avail­able for Board Mem­bers to read.	In hand

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. No declar­a­tions of interest were made.

Budget mon­it­or­ing (Paper 1)

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 June — month three of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer (CEO) and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices informed the Resources Com­mit­tee about recent inform­a­tion from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) regard­ing fin­an­cial changes to the Nature Res­tor­a­tion fund due to their budget con­trols. The com­mit­tee will be updated when fur­ther inform­a­tion is received. b) A board mem­ber ques­tioned if it was nor­mal for budget con­straints to hap­pen mid-way through a fin­an­cial year. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that this was nor­mal to have budget adapt­a­tions over the second and third quar­ters of the year due to SG con­sid­er­ing their over­all fin­an­cial pos­i­tion as well as polit­ic­al changes. c) A board mem­ber sought cla­ri­fic­a­tion around the pay rise being delayed and if this was reflec­ted in the report. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions noted that this was in the report and there was no alter­a­tion to that. The CEO con­firmed that they had budgeted more than may be required. d) Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices informed the com­mit­tee that they will be updated once they have more inform­a­tion pre­dict­ing the budget for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ and ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇, but this is not likely to be avail­able until Janu­ary 2025. e) A board mem­ber quer­ied if this would have an impact on the staff levels. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices reas­sured mem­bers that there would be no com­puls­ory redund­ancy of pos­i­tions, and they are pos­it­ive about staff secur­ity. It was noted that the Park Author­ity would have to be mind­ful of hav­ing a blend of per­man­ent and fix term con­tracts to allow long-term flex­ib­il­ity in staff­ing and budget man­age­ment, how­ever high­light­ing it was dif­fi­cult to attract staff to a rur­al area on a fixed term contract.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising i. Update com­mit­tee on the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ and ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ budget when an update from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment becomes available.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity equal pay audit (Paper 2)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment presen­ted the paper which sets out details of an equal pay audit, designed to scru­tin­ise all aspects of pay includ­ing pro­files of the dif­fer­ent grades and dir­ect­or­ates across the organ­isa­tion, as well as recruit­ment and pro­mo­tion, in order to high­light any areas where dir­ect or indir­ect dis­crim­in­a­tion may be impact­ing on equality.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) A board mem­ber ques­tioned if hav­ing more roles at a lower grade is bene­fi­cial to staff or if this has more of an equal­ity bene­fit. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment advised that the organ­isa­tion has a clear job eval­u­ation pro­cess which eval­u­ates posts, and not people. It was noted that hav­ing more roles at lower grades was not done from an equal­ity per­spect­ive, but rather was promp­ted by organ­isa­tion­al require­ments. b) A board mem­ber wondered if there was a policy in place to shape jobs for the future that were more appeal­ing to women, and there­fore would encour­age women into seni­or posts. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained that this is being worked on through a num­ber of inter­ven­tions; includ­ing by assess­ing the per­son spe­cific­a­tion for a role and scru­tin­ising and min­im­ising the essen­tial and desir­able require­ments; and high­light­ing on the web­site the vari­ety of our equal­ity policies, flex­ible work­ing policies and job share oppor­tun­it­ies to encour­age more women to apply. It was noted that the Park Author­ity will always hire the best can­did­ate for the job, not based on gender. c) A board mem­ber brought to the atten­tion of the com­mit­tee that in a small organ­isa­tion, min­im­um changes make big dif­fer­ences to stat­ist­ics. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices agreed, reas­sur­ing that the trend line is still pos­it­ive. It was noted that there is a high reten­tion rate, there­fore low oppor­tun­ity to replace which will also affect the stat­ist­ics. d) A board mem­ber raised con­cern about attract­ing women into new roles where there are little oppor­tun­it­ies for career pro­gres­sion due to a low turnover at dir­ect­or level. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that their inten­tion is to retain staff, provide train­ing and pro­gres­sions, keep­ing staff motiv­ated with high mor­ale. There is cur­rently work hap­pen­ing on a sur­vey for middle man­age­ment to learn how to improve and enrich their roles.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising: None

Park Author­ity val­ues and cul­ture review (Paper 3)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices presen­ted the paper which sets out the out­comes of the staff-led review and refresh of the Park Authority’s val­ues and cul­ture with a revised set of principles.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) A board mem­ber ques­tioned if the val­ues and prin­ciples could apply to the board as well as staff. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices noted that these are for the whole organ­isa­tion, includ­ing board mem­bers; all mem­bers have been giv­en access to this paper. It was sug­ges­ted men­tion­ing the board mem­bers in the paper to make it clear they apply to all. Officers agreed to this. This will be high­lighted and cir­cu­lated to board mem­bers again once final­ised. b) A board mem­ber praised the work car­ried out com­ment­ing that they could drive decision mak­ing but ques­tioned what the next phase to devel­op these would be. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that the focus group would meet again to dis­cuss how to embed these into the organ­isa­tion­al strategies and work plans, launch these to staff and carry out sur­veys with bands D and E. Aims are for officers to align their beha­viours and their papers to these prin­ciples and policies going for­ward. Board mem­bers will be asked to adhere to these prin­ciples and will be fol­lowed up at their apprais­als with the Con­vener. c) A board mem­ber sug­ges­ted adding the word ​“actions” to the last para­graph — our next phase of work through our organ­isa­tion­al devel­op­ment and people strategy will be to seek appro­pri­ate ways to devel­op the cul­ture through appro­pri­ate beha­viours, policies and actions — mak­ing these more action focused. Officers agreed to adding this. d) A board mem­ber sug­ges­ted there should be a spe­cif­ic men­tion about anti-racism in the prin­ciples. Officers agreed with the state­ment, how­ever noted that they needed to be uni­ver­sal, and if one aspect is men­tioned spe­cific­ally, it can lead to miss­ing anoth­er. They instead sug­ges­ted that this could be part of a break­down under beha­viours then dir­ect­ing to the prin­ciples and policies with much more cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the anti-racist aspect of the Park Authority.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising i. Men­tion­ing the board mem­bers in the paper to make it clear these val­ues and prin­ciples refer to both staff and board mem­bers. ii. Add the word ​“actions” to the last para­graph — our next phase of work through our organ­isa­tion­al devel­op­ment and people strategy will be to seek appro­pri­ate ways to devel­op the cul­ture through appro­pri­ate beha­viours, policies and actions.”

Health and Safety meet­ing minutes (Paper 4)

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 noted the paper.

3. Action point arising i. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment noted more inform­a­tion would be brought to the com­mit­tee on the lone work­ing and acci­dent and incid­ent pro­ced­ure once all staff mem­bers are trained in the new system.

Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um minutes (Paper 5)

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.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained the minutes were from June not Feb­ru­ary as dis­played on the paper.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising: None

AOCB

1. None.

Date of next meeting

1. The pub­lic meet­ing ended at 10.02am

2. The next meet­ing will take place on 01 Novem­ber 2024

Motion for con­fid­en­tial ses­sion was made and approved to pro­tect con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of per­son­al data and of staff pay and con­di­tions pro­pos­als pri­or to form­al negotiations.

Resources Com­mit­tee action points:

ACTION	Status
09 August 2024
Paper 1
i. Update com­mit­tee on 25⁄26 and 26⁄27 budget when an update from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment becomes available.
Paper 3
i. Men­tion­ing the board mem­bers in the paper to make It clear these val­ues and prin­ciples refer to both staff and board mem­bers. Cir­cu­late with board mem­ber once finalised.
ii. Add the word ​“actions” to the last para­graph — our next phase of work through our organ­isa­tion­al devel­op­ment and people strategy will be to seek appro­pri­ate ways to devel­op the cul­ture through appro­pri­ate beha­viours, policies and actions.
Paper 4
i. Bring back more Inform­a­tion to the com­mit­tee on the lone work­ing and acci­dent and Incid­ent pro­ced­ure once all staff mem­bers are trained in the new system.