241004RCPaper12024-25BudgetMonitoring

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Paper 1 Resources Com­mit­tee 04 Octo­ber 2024

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For dis­cus­sion

Title: Budget monitoring

Pre­pared by: Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Operations

Pur­pose

1. This paper sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of August — month 5 of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Resources Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

Over­view

1. Annex 1 provides a sum­mary of expendit­ure against the pro­filed budget.

2. Total expendit­ure at the end of the August is 27% of the annu­al budget. In addi­tion, our expendit­ure pro­file is ahead of the pat­tern seen in pri­or years.

3. The fore­cast out­turn for the oper­a­tion­al plan indic­ates an out­turn fore­cast of full expendit­ure being achieved and sup­por­ted by avail­able resources, with the excep­tion of the peat­land budget where we cur­rently fore­cast a level of sur­plus which is itself sig­ni­fic­antly reduced com­pared with the pre­vi­ous report­ing peri­od. There is poten­tial that remain­ing peat­land resources will be required to off­set cost increases in com­mit­ted, con­trac­ted pro­jects and there­fore for the cur­rent repor­ted pos­i­tion to nar­row fur­ther as the year progresses.

4. Over­all, the pos­i­tion includ­ing budget adjust­ments in place and planned con­tin­ues to pro­ject a bal­anced out­turn for the fin­an­cial year.

Budget changes

1. The Com­mit­tee is aware of the con­straints on pub­lic sec­tor fin­ance, and the loss of anti­cip­ated resources (£300,000) from the Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund. Budget adapt­a­tions have been iden­ti­fied to cov­er this £300,000 gap and these are recorded

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Paper 1 Resources Com­mit­tee 04 Octo­ber 2024

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in the budget change log provided at Annex 2. They are also reflec­ted in the sum­mary budget pos­i­tion presen­ted in Annex 1.

Staff and Board

1. The payroll budget con­tin­ues to be under­spent. The pro­file of the budget takes into account the fact that the annu­al award has not yet been made. The adjust­ment of £94,000 made to the budget has been recog­nised in full in the phased budget to 31 August 2024, thereby crys­tal­lising the vacancy sav­ings made to date. The remain­ing vari­ance of £74,000 provides some flex­ib­il­ity for the remain­ing sev­en months of the year. Plans have been iden­ti­fied by man­age­ment team to real­loc­ate this budget to sup­port oth­er areas of activ­ity where expec­ted income has reduced, in com­munity led devel­op­ment and sus­tain­able trans­port activities.

2. The budget allows for pay pro­gres­sion through salary bands, and for imple­ment­a­tion in the year of staff pay increases for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ which seek to mir­ror as far as pos­sible pay changes taken for­ward in the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Main Group and oth­er bench­marked organ­isa­tions. This has been dis­cussed pre­vi­ously with the Com­mit­tee and out­lined to the board at its budget set­ting meet­ing in March 2024. Provid­ing the final award remains at levels pre­vi­ously dis­cussed, the budget would appear to be real­ist­ic and able to accom­mod­ate increases once implemented.

Pro­gramme management

1. Two thirds of the expendit­ure on pro­jects to date covered by third party income is payroll cost (£431,000). A fur­ther £320,000 has been com­mit­ted by requis­i­tion to date, demon­strat­ing pro­gress towards delivery.

2. Recov­ery of costs through grant claims has been straight­for­ward, with no expendit­ure turned back by Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF).

3. Pay­ment against the final claim on the Caper­cail­lie pro­ject has been received: grant income received has covered pro­ject expendit­ure in full.

Over­heads

1. Over­all, run­ning costs are just under the phased budget for the peri­od (£8,000). This vari­ance is made up of com­pens­at­ing factors: small advance spends on oth­er staff and board costs, and delayed spend­ing on repairs and maintenance.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Paper 1 Resources Com­mit­tee 04 Octo­ber 2024

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Oper­a­tion­al plan

1. Oper­a­tion­al plan expendit­ure shows an under­spend of £51,000 against the phased budget. Low cash expendit­ure against the peat­land res­tor­a­tion budget is a sig­ni­fic­ant con­trib­ut­or to this repor­ted underspend.

2. There has been very little cash-based expendit­ure to date against the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ peat­land res­tor­a­tion budget. How­ever, expendit­ure of £880,000 has been recor­ded to date against accru­als of £1.08 mil­lion made at the year-end towards the final­isa­tion of pro­jects con­trac­ted in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄. In addi­tion, increased con­trac­tu­al com­mit­ments on peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­jects now leaves only £238,000 of the annu­al budget unal­loc­ated at present, with expec­ted pres­sures from cost increases in con­trac­ted pro­jects to be met from these remain­ing funds.

3. Sig­ni­fic­ant expendit­ure on deliv­ery of the oper­a­tion­al plan and con­trib­ut­ing to expendit­ure in advance of the phased budget includes: a) Nature-friendly farm­ing £29,000 – pur­chase of wild­flower seed £16,500 b) Fresh­wa­ter res­tor­a­tion £37,000 – sup­port for Dee River Res­tor­a­tion Officer £30,000 c) Rap­tor pro­ject £20,000 – sur­veys and tag­ging d) Volun­teer recruit­ment and co-ordin­a­tion £30,000

4. Annex 3 provides a view of the pro­jec­ted out­turn on the Oper­a­tion­al Plan budget.

Grant-in-aid

1. Draw down of grant-in-aid has been made accord­ing to the plan sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment at the start of the year. It provides cash flow to meet organ­isa­tion­al need for both core activ­it­ies and the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) programme.

Sum­mary

1. The report provides inform­a­tion on a) expendit­ure on core activ­it­ies to the end of August (peri­od 5) b) a fore­cast of the out­turn oper­a­tion­al plan expendit­ure to the year-end.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Paper 1 Resources Com­mit­tee 04 Octo­ber 2024

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1. The pro­jec­ted out­turn is with­in budget, with risks iden­ti­fied around a) Payroll expendit­ure, which is depend­ent on the final agreed pay award for the year, and b) Peat­land res­tor­a­tion, where £200,000 of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ budget is cur­rently unal­loc­ated while sub­ject to poten­tial cost increases in con­trac­ted projects.

Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions 24 Septem­ber 2024 louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk