240920Paper2PeatlandActionProgramme

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 2 20 Septem­ber 2024 Page 1 of 4

For dis­cus­sion Title: Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme Pre­pared by: Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Management

Pur­pose

1. This paper presents an update on the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ and con­sid­er­a­tion of plans for the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ pipeline of activity.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Note the pro­gress against pro­gramme tar­gets for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ b) Note the plans for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. The Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme will deliv­er Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) tar­gets for a min­im­um of 38,000 hec­tares (ha) of peat­land under res­tor­a­tion by 2045, 80% of all drains restored by 2035, and all erosion fea­tures restored by 2050. Peat­land Action fund­ing is a sig­ni­fic­ant com­pon­ent of the match fund­ing for Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme. As one of the five Peat­land ACTION deliv­ery part­ners, the res­tor­a­tion work delivered by the Park Author­ity plays an import­ant part in reach­ing the Scot­tish Government’s tar­get of 250,000 ha of peat­land being restored by 2030.

Per­form­ance dashboard

Per­form­ance Meas­ure for 2024⁄25	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Fin­ance: max­im­ise use of £3 mil­lion cap­it­al fin­ance and £580,000 resource fin­ance avail­able in 2024⁄25 for peat­land restoration	Amber	In addi­tion to the 2024⁄25 grant of £3 mil­lion, cap­it­al resource for 2024⁄25 includes £500,00 accrued from the 2023⁄24 budget ie a total budget of £3.5 mil­lion. Grant alloc­a­tions cur­rently total £2.5 mil­lion with a fur­ther £300,00 of res­tor­a­tion in early devel­op­ment ie a

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 2 20 Septem­ber 2024 Page 2 of 4

Per­form­ance Meas­ure for 2024⁄25	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Fin­ance: impact on the Park Authority’s budget management	Green	pro­jec­ted cap­it­al expendit­ure short­fall of £700,000.Recruitment into vacan­cies in the peat­land team is cur­rently sub­ject to restric­tions asso­ci­ated with spend­ing con­straints. As restric­tions con­tin­ues, there is a lim­ited risk of a short­fall in resource expendit​ure​.No wider unplanned demands are likely to be made by the pro­gramme on fin­an­cial resources. Match fund­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme are pro­filed across the lifespan of the C2030 pro­gramme and risk of impact on C2030 match fund­ing is deemed low.
Res­tor­a­tion tar­get 2024⁄25: 1500ha Res­tor­a­tion Area	Green	Two pro­jects are already com­plete. Con­tract­ors have been appoin­ted for a fur­ther 11, most of which are now under­way. We are cur­rently on track to reach our tar­get for hectares.
Pipeline for 2025⁄26:	Green	Demand for peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­jects remains high. Work devel­op­ing the pipeline for 2025⁄26 is sched­uled to take place over the next few months. This is depend­ent on recruit­ment to some extent.
Pro­gramme risk profile	Amber	Con­tract­or capa­city has increased with new com­pan­ies attrac­ted into peat­land res­tor­a­tion. Con­fid­ence amongst estab­lished con­tract­ors to invest fur­ther in peat­land res­tor­a­tion has been affected by the reduc­tion in over­all Peat­land ACTION funding.Staff capa­city to con­cur­rently deliv­er the cur­rent pro­gramme, increase capa­city in the private sec­tor and devel­op a 2025⁄26 pipeline of activ­ity will be affected by the abil­ity to fill

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 2 20 Septem­ber 2024 Page 3 of 4

Per­form­ance Meas­ure for 2024⁄25	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Future fund­ing profile	Amber	vacan­cies and the 2025⁄26 budget allocation.Reductions in the nation­al Peat­land ACTION budget for 2024⁄25 saw an approx­im­ately 40% reduc­tion from the pre­vi­ous year’s alloc­a­tion. The fund­ing set­tle­ments for future years is unclear.
Future deliv­ery profile	Amber	Landown­ers remain engaged with Peat­land ACTION and we are con­fid­ent of devel­op­ing a sub­stan­tial poten­tial pipeline of pro­jects for 2025⁄26.Beyond this, con­fid­ence and engage­ment through­out the sec­tor will be depend­ent on future fund­ing announcements.

²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ deliv­ery progress

1. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment announced in Decem­ber 2023 that the total fund­ing for Peat­land ACTION would be reduced from £34 mil­lion to £20.6 mil­lion. The five Peat­land ACTION deliv­ery part­ners pro­posed budgets were con­sidered against cri­ter­ia which included max­im­ising hec­tares achieved while min­im­ising the aver­age cost per hec­tare restored. These cri­ter­ia influ­enced the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ pro­gramme to focus on lower cost and lower risk ditch block­ing pro­jects, whilst retain­ing an ele­ment of the high alti­tude and com­plex erosion work which the Cairngorms peat­land ACTION team spe­cial­ises in.

2. Two pro­jects com­menced in March 2024 and were com­pleted by August. Hec­tares have still to be meas­ured but are sig­ni­fic­ant and these hec­tares will count towards the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ tar­get of 1500ha. Expendit­ure on these pro­jects of around £0.5 mil­lion was accrued against the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ budget and will not count against expendit­ure in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

3. Con­tract­ors have been appoin­ted through ten­der­ing for a fur­ther 11 pro­jects, most of which now have machines or hand labour teams on the ground. These pro­jects are with­in the capa­city of staff to deliv­er and are cur­rently all well placed to deliv­er sig­ni­fic­ant hec­tares and expenditure.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 2 20 Septem­ber 2024 Page 4 of 4

1. One pro­ject can­celled late due to leg­al uncer­tain­ties related to car­bon cred­its. This was a sig­ni­fic­ant loss as £316,000 was alloc­ated to the pro­ject and hoped to bring over 300ha of peat­land under res­tor­a­tion. We cur­rently hope to replace this lost pro­ject with two smal­ler pro­jects but dead­lines for plan­ning and ten­der­ing remain tight.

2. We will run two New Entrant pro­jects in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅. Con­tract­or interest has increased in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅, with the Park Authority’s tendered pro­jects aver­aging six bids per tender. It seems likely this has been a con­sequence of cuts in the forestry budget which has led to some con­tract­ors seek­ing to spread their port­fo­li­os across sec­tors. This has per­haps been an unex­pec­ted con­sequence of budget cuts.

3. In ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅, over £300,000 of private sec­tor invest­ment has been made to peat­land res­tor­a­tion in the Nation­al Park. Reduced cer­tainty over pub­lic sec­tor fund­ing for peat­land res­tor­a­tion emphas­ises the need for increased private sec­tor invest­ment. It seems likely there is scope to increase private invest­ment, and the Park Author­ity is well placed to demon­strate this.

4. The Peat­land Pro­gramme Devel­op­ment Man­ager left the Park Author­ity in June 2024, after mak­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the devel­op­ment of res­tor­a­tion in the Cairngorms and to the nation­al pro­gramme The role has been recruited from with­in the Peat­land ACTION team, start­ing in Septem­ber. With exper­i­ence as a Peat­land Officer with the Park Author­ity for over three years, the recruit­ment brings a wealth of know­ledge and exper­i­ence along with min­im­al dis­rup­tion to the programme.

²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ planned programme

1. A pri­or­ity for the new Pro­gramme Devel­op­ment Man­ager will be work on our pipeline of pro­jects in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆. Land man­ager interest in peat­land res­tor­a­tion remains high and peat­land pro­jects are becom­ing part of the accep­ted routine on some estates. It is anti­cip­ated that many new pro­jects will be developed on estates where we are cur­rently work­ing and where rela­tion­ships are well estab­lished. We will seek to present a bal­anced pro­gramme of lower cost drain block­ing pro­jects with high­er cost erosion pro­jects across the Park while main­tain­ing import­ant rela­tion­ships with land man­agers and sup­port­ing and devel­op­ing the New Entrants’ Scheme.

Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Management