241122Paper4Annex2UpdateofBoardStandingOrders

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 4 Annex 2 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 1 of 17

Annex 2 Stand­ing Orders for meet­ings of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (referred to as ​“the Board” in the rest of this doc­u­ment) was estab­lished on 25 March 2003 by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Des­ig­na­tion, Trans­ition­al and Con­sequen­tial Pro­vi­sions (Scot­land) Order 2003, which in turn was made under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. Under para­graph 19 of sched­ule 1 of that Act, the Nation­al Park Author­ity may determ­ine its own pro­ced­ures for con­duct­ing its business.

2. This paper sets out the pro­ced­ures which apply to meet­ings of the Board and of its com­mit­tees. These stand­ing orders are in addi­tion to any require­ments set out in the Act and in the found­ing des­ig­na­tion order, and any fur­ther Acts of Par­lia­ment or guid­ance from Scot­tish Ministers.

The Park Author­ity Membership

1. The Park Author­ity board com­prises 19 mem­bers as pre­scribed in the Des­ig­na­tion Order. The 19 is made up of 5 mem­bers dir­ectly elec­ted in accord­ance with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Elec­tions (Scot­land) Order 2003; sev­en mem­bers dir­ectly appoin­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters and sev­en appoin­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters on the nom­in­a­tion of the rel­ev­ant Loc­al Author­it­ies. All mem­bers are appoin­ted or elec­ted on an indi­vidu­al basis, and not as rep­res­ent­at­ives of organ­isa­tions. Dur­a­tion of appoint­ments is as set out in a Member’s let­ter of appoint­ment, and in the case of elec­ted Mem­bers is until the next Nation­al Park Author­ity election.

Con­vener and Deputy Convener

1. In accord­ance with sched­ule one, para­graph 11, of the Act, the board elects the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener from among its num­ber. The pro­cess of elec­tion for Con­vener shall be con­duc­ted by the Prop­er Officer, who will arrange for appro­pri­ate pro­cesses to be imple­men­ted allow­ing for elec­tions to be con­duc­ted securely, anonym­ously and by elec­tron­ic means. The pro­cess of elec­tion will be as follows:

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a) The Prop­er Officer will estab­lish a planned timetable for all elec­tions with the board in advance of the elec­tion tak­ing place and at least two months in advance of the cur­rent term of appoint­ment com­ing to an end. b) The Prop­er Officer or their author­ised rep­res­ent­at­ive will seek nom­in­a­tions from mem­bers of the Park Author­ity at least two weeks pri­or to the pro­posed open­ing of the elec­tion. Any mem­ber may pro­pose anoth­er Park Author­ity mem­ber as Con­vener, and a third mem­ber must second the nom­in­a­tion for it to be val­id. Nom­in­a­tions must be received and val­id by the stated date and time at which the nom­in­a­tions pro­cess will close. A final list of val­id nom­in­ees will be cir­cu­lated by the Prop­er Officer to all mem­bers fol­low­ing the close of the nom­in­a­tion peri­od. c) Pro­posers and seconds of nom­in­a­tions may be delivered in any per­man­ent form email, let­ter, recor­ded oral mes­sage – provided that the sub­mis­sion in whatever form provides a means of per­man­ent record of the pro­pos­al or second of a nom­in­a­tion to the sat­is­fac­tion of the Prop­er Officer. The mem­ber nom­in­ated must also provide a per­man­ent form of record that they con­sent to being nom­in­ated for the role in ques­tion. d) In a case of more than one val­id nom­in­a­tion being con­firmed, each can­did­ate who has a val­id nom­in­a­tion will be asked if they wish to provide a state­ment to sup­port their can­did­acy. State­ments sup­plied will be cir­cu­lated to all mem­bers and pub­lished on the Park Authority’s web­site. e) Can­did­ates will be lis­ted on a bal­lot paper or bal­lot list depend­ing on elec­tion pro­cess used in the order in which their val­id­ated nom­in­a­tion is received by the Prop­er Officer. f) An elec­tron­ic bal­lot pro­cess will be com­mu­nic­ated to all mem­bers by email or oth­er appro­pri­ate means. The bal­lot will be open for at least a 48 hour peri­od. g) Elec­tion will be by abso­lute major­ity, using a single, trans­fer­rable vote sys­tem as fol­lows: i. ii. iii. Mem­bers will be asked to state clearly their pre­ferred can­did­ate in their order of pref­er­ence, e.g. can­did­ate A = 1, can­did­ate C = 2, can­did­ate B = 3 etc.; Only board mem­bers may vote and there will be no oppor­tun­ity to appoint a proxy voter; Once all votes are cast and col­lec­ted, the Prop­er Officer sup­por­ted by a second officer will count all first pref­er­ences. If this count gives rise to a can­did­ate hold­ing a major­ity of votes, they shall be declared as elec­ted to the role. If this count does not give a major­ity for a single can­did­ate, the can­did­ate receiv­ing few­est votes shall be excluded and their votes

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real­loc­ated to remain­ing can­did­ates on basis of any second pref­er­ences stated; iv. This pro­cess will con­tin­ue until one can­did­ate emerges with an abso­lute major­ity of the votes cast by those mem­bers present and vot­ing. V. vi. vii. Where there is an equal­ity of votes among those can­did­ates who have least votes, then a decision on who is to be excluded will be determ­ined by lot unless either can­did­ate opts to with­draw from the elec­tion pro­cess. Where there is an equal­ity of votes with only two can­did­ates for a pos­i­tion, then a decision on who is to be elec­ted will be determ­ined by lot unless either can­did­ate opts to with­draw from the elec­tion pro­cess. If it is the case that there is only one can­did­ate for a pos­i­tion, then that per­son will be declared elec­ted. viii. Vot­ing will be by secret bal­lot. Bal­lot records will be retained for inspec­tion by any mem­ber of the Board or the Chief Exec­ut­ive for a peri­od of sev­en days.

1. Where any part of the elec­tion pro­cess is required to be determ­ined by ​“lot”, this will be achieved through the pro­cess estab­lished as an Annex to these Stand­ing Orders and in force at the time of the election.

2. The dur­a­tion of the office of Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener will be three years (unless the mem­ber con­cerned ceases to be a Mem­ber of the Park Author­ity or resigns from the pos­i­tion of Con­vener / Deputy Con­vener before the end of the period).

3. For cases in which a Con­vener / Deputy Con­vener resigns or ceases to be a Mem­ber, the elec­tion pro­cess will be triggered immediately.

4. The above pro­cess in para­graphs four — five will also apply to the elec­tions of board Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener, and Chairs of estab­lished board Committees.

5. In instances where Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener are elec­ted at the same time, the res­ult of the Con­vener shall be declared first and that can­did­ate removed from elec­tion of Deputy Con­vener. Votes shall be redis­trib­uted in accord­ance with the pro­vi­sions above.

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Quor­um

1. The quor­um of the Park Author­ity board will be half of its total num­ber plus one in oth­er words, 10 Mem­bers. The quor­um of 10 mem­bers will apply regard­less of vacan­cies in mem­ber­ship. No busi­ness will be trans­acted at a board meet­ing unless a quor­um is present. If the Con­vener of the meet­ing finds dur­ing a board meet­ing that the num­ber of mem­bers present has reduced below the quor­um: a) The item of busi­ness shall be deferred if mem­bers leav­ing the meet­ing as a con­sequence of declar­a­tions of interest is the cause of the quor­um not being met; or b) The meet­ing shall end at that point should a quor­ate meet­ing not be able to progress.

2. All attend­ance and absences shall be recor­ded in the minutes of the meet­ing. The quor­um for com­mit­tees will be as agreed for each com­mit­tee in terms of ref­er­ence for each com­mit­tee to be agreed by the board.

3. Par­ti­cip­a­tion at meet­ings will nor­mally be in per­son. Par­ti­cip­a­tion may be by video con­fer­ence provided the Member’s con­tri­bu­tion is fully access­ible to all mem­bers and pub­lic attend­ing the meet­ing. In cases where attend­ance by video con­fer­ence is per­mit­ted, wheth­er through a meet­ing being called as an on-line or hybrid meet­ing, or a mem­ber by excep­tion being approved to attend by video con­fer­ence by the Con­vener or Chair of the meet­ing, such mem­bers will be deemed to be present and con­sti­tute part of the board attend­ance for the pur­pose of the meet­ing and quorum.

4. People who are not mem­bers of the Park Author­ity board may be invited by the Con­vener to attend and speak for all or part of the meet­ing, but they will not count as part of the quor­um. Sim­il­arly, officers present at the meet­ing includ­ing the Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer are not coun­ted toward the quorum.

Sched­ule of Meetings

1. The board shall approve in advance of each cal­en­dar year a pro­vi­sion­al set of dates and ven­ues for its board meet­ings. The sched­ule will be pub­lished on the Park Author­ity web­site and pos­ted in the recep­tion area of the Park Author­ity offices, and will be noti­fied to the five loc­al author­it­ies with part of their area with­in the Park.

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1. The Con­vener may con­vene a spe­cial meet­ing of the board when it appears that an item of busi­ness requires urgent atten­tion. In the absence of the Con­vener, such a meet­ing may be con­vened by the Deputy Con­vener. Any mem­ber may request that such a meet­ing be called, but the final decision rests with the Con­vener (or Deputy Con­vener in the absence of the Con­vener) unless the request is made to the Prop­er Officer by at least 10 mem­bers in which case the meet­ing must be called with­in 21 days of receipt of the request.

2. The Chief Exec­ut­ive is respons­ible for over­all organ­isa­tion, man­age­ment and staff­ing of the Park Author­ity. It is the respons­ib­il­ity of the Chief Exec­ut­ive to advise the board on mat­ters of fin­an­cial pro­pri­ety and reg­u­lar­ity. The Chief Exec­ut­ive shall have the right to attend and speak at all Board meet­ings and Com­mit­tee meet­ings (albeit without vot­ing rights), except for parts of meet­ings when agreed by Board Mem­bers that the mat­ters under dis­cus­sion should involve Mem­bers only, for example where per­form­ance, remu­ner­a­tion or con­duct of the Chief Exec­ut­ive is under discussion.

Pub­lic Attend­ance at Meetings

1. The Nation­al Parks Scot­land Act (Sched­ule two, para­graph 12) provides that access to meet­ings and doc­u­ments of the Park Author­ity board are covered by the pro­vi­sions of Part IIIA of the Loc­al Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1973. In broad terms this means that meet­ings of the Park Author­ity board are to be open to the pub­lic, unless there are good reas­ons to the con­trary (such as breach of an oblig­a­tion of con­fid­ence, or a con­fid­en­tial staff­ing mat­ter). Annex 1 to these stand­ing orders sets out more detail.

2. The Prop­er Officer for the Park Author­ity is appoin­ted by the board (as required under the terms of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000) and is charged with ensur­ing the applic­a­tion of the pro­vi­sions out­lined in para­graph 17 above about pub­lic access to meet­ings. The Prop­er Officer advises on the issues that arise, such as exclu­sion of papers from pub­lic inspec­tion, for example, if it is decided this relates to an item likely to be taken in private ses­sion. The Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices is estab­lished as the Park Authority’s Prop­er Officer.

3. The ven­ues for board meet­ings will be decided by the Con­vener in dis­cus­sion with the Deputy Con­vener and Chief Exec­ut­ive, ensur­ing good access by the pub­lic of all abilities

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Board Papers

1. Board papers will be pre­pared by Park Author­ity officers and con­sidered and approved by the Chief Exec­ut­ive pri­or to sub­mis­sion to the board. The Park Authority’s policy will be to cir­cu­late papers to Mem­bers sev­en clear days in advance of a meet­ing. As required through stat­utory pro­vi­sions in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act, cop­ies of the papers will be sent to the five loc­al author­it­ies with part of their area with­in the Park. Papers will be avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion at all the offices of the Park Author­ity. Papers will also be sent to the spon­sor divi­sion of the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and will be made avail­able on the Park Author­ity web­site. The Park Author­ity will strive to ensure the papers of the board, and its com­mit­tees are made as read­ily avail­able as pos­sible to mem­bers of the pub­lic, with actions taken com­men­sur­ate with the need to make prudent use of pub­lic resources. Meth­ods of ensur­ing this will be kept under review, but is likely to mean, for example, that staff will not be required to send out cop­ies of papers on request except in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stance. Cop­ies of papers may be avail­able at board meet­ings and com­mit­tee meet­ings to mem­bers of the pub­lic who attend, depend­ing on ven­ue and avail­ab­il­ity of facil­it­ies. Cop­ies of board papers will be avail­able on the Park Authority’s web­site as soon as they have been cir­cu­lated to Members.

2. Drafts of papers will nor­mally be cir­cu­lated to the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener 14 clear days in advance of a meet­ing. The cir­cu­la­tion of drafts is inten­ded to allow seni­or man­agers to brief the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener on mat­ters being raised and allow for feed­back to be giv­en. The Chief Exec­ut­ive and Man­age­ment Team remain respons­ible for final­ising papers for cir­cu­la­tion to the Board hav­ing con­sidered any feed­back received to drafts, where adequate time has been received for feed­back to be reviewed pri­or to issue of papers to the full Board.

Mem­bers’ Issues and Ques­tions at Board Meetings

1. Each board meet­ing will take an item at the end of the agenda of Any Oth­er Com­pet­ent Busi­ness under which a mem­ber may raise an issue if they con­sider the mat­ter is of sig­ni­fic­ant interest and rel­ev­ance to the Board as a whole. In keep­ing with the rules on open­ness and trans­par­ency, this may only draw atten­tion of Mem­bers to an issue and may lead to its addi­tion to a future agenda. Such issues or ques­tions must be noti­fied to the Con­vener in advance of the meet­ing– it will not always be prac­tic­al for Mem­bers to do so in writ­ing, but advance notice should be giv­en orally to the Con­vener before the start of the meet­ing, unless the mat­ter is one

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which has aris­en dur­ing the course of the meet­ing. It is clearly in the interests of effi­cient use of everyone’s time that Mem­bers use this item with dis­cre­tion. On ques­tions of order, includ­ing wheth­er an item is con­sidered ​“com­pet­ent” the Convener’s rul­ing will be final.

Con­ven­ing Meetings

1. At a meet­ing of the Park Author­ity board, the Con­vener will preside. In their absence the Deputy Con­vener will preside. If neither is able to be present, the Con­vener will indic­ate which oth­er mem­ber should preside. If no advice from the Con­vener is avail­able, Board Mem­bers present will choose by major­ity vote of those present, that one of their num­ber will preside. If deemed neces­sary by the Chief Exec­ut­ive and Prop­er Officer in such cir­cum­stances, for example where there are mul­tiple nom­in­a­tions of mem­bers to preside, the meet­ing shall be sus­pen­ded to allow an elec­tion to be car­ried out as far as pos­sible in line with the elec­tion pro­cess set out at para­graphs 4.g)i to 5 in these Stand­ing Orders.

2. Plan­ning Com­mit­tees will be con­vened by the per­son elec­ted by the whole Park Author­ity Board as the Con­vener of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee; and in their absence, by the Deputy Plan­ning Con­vener who is also elec­ted by the whole board. Elec­tions for these roles are con­duc­ted in accord­ance with the pro­vi­sions for elec­tion of Board Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener as set out in these Stand­ing Orders. In the absence of both of these indi­vidu­als, the mem­bers of the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee shall use para­graph 23 of the Board Stand­ing Orders in determ­in­ing who shall con­vene the meeting.

3. The Con­vener of a Board meet­ing or Com­mit­tee meet­ing will pre­serve order; determ­ine all mat­ters of order, com­pet­ency and rel­ev­ancy; and will ensure mem­bers have suf­fi­cient oppor­tun­ity to express their views on any mat­ter under consideration.

4. Board mem­bers will observe the require­ments of the Park Authority’s Code of Con­duct at all times dur­ing any board or com­mit­tee meeting.

Board Decisions

1. Decisions of the board will gen­er­ally be by con­sensus of attend­ing mem­bers. A mem­ber arriv­ing after the com­mence­ment of an item of busi­ness or depart­ing prior

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to com­ple­tion will be treated as a non-attend­ing mem­ber for the pur­pose of any decision taken after the time of departure.

1. A board mem­ber may have their dis­sent to a decision of the Board recor­ded provided they have atten­ded for the whole of the dis­cus­sion and decision and asks to record their dis­sent dur­ing dis­cus­sion or imme­di­ately after the decision is con­cluded. Such a com­ment being recor­ded does not over­ride any aspects of the require­ments of the Authority’s Code of Con­duct. In par­tic­u­lar, the recor­ded dis­sent to a decision by a mem­ber does not remove the require­ments of the Code relat­ing to col­lect­ive respons­ib­il­ity and good gov­ernance of mem­bers pub­licly sup­port­ing decisions of their pub­lic body.

2. Writ­ten com­ments on agenda items sub­mit­ted by board mem­bers who are not attend­ing will be cir­cu­lated to board mem­bers. Such writ­ten com­ments may be read into the record of the meet­ing or noted as received in the record of the meet­ing with the decision on these actions at the sole dis­cre­tion of the Con­vener. Such con­tri­bu­tions shall not deem a mem­ber to be present at a meet­ing and the con­tri­bu­tion by writ­ten state­ment shall not count toward achiev­ing a quor­um for the meeting.

3. Excep­tion­ally, if a Board decision is required urgently and it is not pos­sible to con­vene a meet­ing, the mat­ter will be dealt with through cor­res­pond­ence. The decision to do this will be made by the Con­vener or Deputy Con­vener. In such cir­cum­stances, views will be sent to the Con­vener (or Deputy Con­vener, as appro­pri­ate). Any decision taken by cor­res­pond­ence will be noted as a mat­ter arising and recor­ded in form­al minutes at the next board meeting.

4. At board meet­ings, where a decision is neces­sary it will be reached by simple major­ity fol­low­ing a vote (with the Con­vener hav­ing the cast­ing vote in cases of a tied vote). A decision shall be made by vote on the fol­low­ing occa­sions: a) When the Con­vener detects that there is a body of opin­ion among mem­bers who either dis­agree with a pro­pos­al or have expressed reser­va­tions about it and no clear con­sensus has emerged; b) When a mem­ber requests a vote to be taken and this is sup­por­ted by anoth­er mem­ber in attend­ance; c) Any oth­er cir­cum­stances where at the Convener’s dis­cre­tion it is felt that a decision should be pre­ceded by a vote.

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1. Only attend­ing mem­bers as defined in para­graph 27 will be able to vote. A vote will be done by a roll call, with the name of each mem­ber present called by the Clerk to the Board and the mem­ber con­cerned stat­ing their decision. Where a mem­ber is attend­ing a meet­ing through a video con­fer­ence or tele­phone link, the pro­vi­sions of para­graph 12 also apply in determ­in­ing eli­gib­il­ity to vote. A mem­ber must have been able to hear all con­tri­bu­tions made through­out the rel­ev­ant item of busi­ness clearly, while all oth­er mem­bers must have been able to hear and under­stand that member’s con­tri­bu­tions to the item. This defin­i­tion of eli­gib­il­ity to vote is under­stood and accep­ted by any mem­ber elect­ing to attend a meet­ing by means of tele­phone or video con­fer­ence link. The Prop­er Officer will inde­pend­ently advise the Con­vener on any con­sid­er­a­tions on attend­ance, with the Convener’s decision on this mat­ter in the con­text of such advice being final.

2. At the Convener’s dis­cre­tion, a vote on a mat­ter may be con­duc­ted through a secret bal­lot. In such cir­cum­stances the Prop­er Officer will arrange for officers to issue and col­lect bal­lot papers, count the vote, and announce the res­ult to the board.

3. In any vote on a decision point, the stated recom­mend­a­tion in the paper shall rep­res­ent the motion. Any amend­ment to that recom­mend­a­tion or altern­ate recom­mend­a­tion shall con­sti­tute an amend­ment. Amend­ments pro­posed and seconded shall be voted off against each oth­er in reverse order: the last pro­posed and seconded amend­ment shall be voted on against the second last agreed amend­ment until one amend­ment remains to be voted on against the motion.

4. A decision made by the Board will not gen­er­ally be recon­sidered by the board with­in six months of that decision being car­ried, except in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances and with the agree­ment of the board. In such cir­cum­stances, there­fore, at least 10 mem­bers of the Board must be in favour of recon­sid­er­ing a decision with­in peri­od of six months from the ori­gin­al decision for the sub­ject and poten­tial revised decision to be brought back as an item of busi­ness with­in the six-month time period.

5. In cases pur­su­ant to either para­graph 28 (record of dis­sent) or 31 (decision by vote rather than con­sensus) the require­ments of the Park Authority’s Code of Con­duct shall remain in force in full for all sub­sequent engage­ment by mem­bers on the sub­jects in ques­tion. This require­ment is rein­forced through para­graph 40 of these Stand­ing Orders.

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Declar­a­tion of Interests

1. The Park Author­ity holds a register of Mem­bers’ interests, avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion and pub­lished on the Park Authority’s web­site. The rules on regis­tra­tion and declar­a­tion of interests are set out in the Mem­bers’ Code of Conduct.

2. Mem­bers must con­sider their poten­tial interests in items of busi­ness at all meet­ings of the Author­ity, make any declar­a­tions of interest and take any neces­sary action required by those declar­a­tions of interest at each meet­ing pri­or to com­mence­ment of con­sid­er­a­tion of the rel­ev­ant item of busi­ness. A stand­ing item will be included in all agen­das sup­port­ing meet­ings of the Author­ity and its Com­mit­tees allow­ing for declar­a­tions of interest in items of busi­ness of the meet­ing to be considered.

Per­son­al Liab­il­ity of Members

1. As set out in the Park Authority’s Code of Con­duct for Mem­bers, if an indi­vidu­al Board Mem­ber incurs a civil liab­il­ity in the course of car­ry­ing out his / her respons­ib­il­it­ies for the Board, that Mem­ber will not be required to per­son­ally pay that liab­il­ity provided they acted hon­estly and in good faith. This indem­nity does not, how­ever, pro­tect a Mem­ber who acts reck­lessly or in bad faith.

Cor­por­ate Respons­ib­il­ity and Confidentiality

1. Board Mem­bers share cor­por­ate respons­ib­il­ity for decisions taken by the Board as a whole. Mem­bers must there­fore either accept and pub­licly sup­port the col­lect­ive decision of the Board or resign. Mem­bers must respect the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of sens­it­ive inform­a­tion held by the organ­isa­tion, as well as the dis­cus­sions and papers taken in private ses­sion. Mem­bers must fur­ther com­ply fully with the require­ments of the Park Authority’s Code of Con­duct at all times.

Board Minutes

1. The Chief Exec­ut­ive is respons­ible for put­ting in place appro­pri­ate arrange­ments for tak­ing minutes of all Board and Com­mit­tee meet­ings. Taken in con­junc­tion with the papers presen­ted to the meet­ing, the minutes should provide a cor­rect record of the meet­ing and the decisions reached, and suf­fi­cient detail to indic­ate the issues dis­cussed in reach­ing those decisions.

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1. Minutes should include the action points agreed at the meet­ing, and these car­ried for­ward to fol­low­ing meet­ings until discharged.

2. Draft minutes will be approved by the Chief Exec­ut­ive and the Con­vener of the meet­ing, marked clearly as ​“draft”, and cir­cu­lated to Mem­bers, who can pro­pose amend­ments in writ­ing or raise these at the next board meet­ing. The Con­vener, Deputy Con­vener and Chief Exec­ut­ive will arbit­rate over mat­ters of dissent.

3. Minutes will be approved at the fol­low­ing meet­ing. The minutes of the fol­low­ing meet­ing will show the board’s approv­al of minutes of pri­or meet­ings as a cor­rect record sub­ject to any amend­ments agreed. Approved minutes will be pub­lished on the Park Authority’s website.

4. With ref­er­ence to para­graph 16, the Con­vener is respons­ible for mak­ing arrange­ments to have appro­pri­ate minutes taken of any meet­ing or part meet­ing where the Board has agreed that only mem­bers should be present. The Con­vener with the Board must determ­ine at which stage, if any, these minutes may become pub­lic and must make appro­pri­ate arrange­ments for stor­age of minutes, notes or papers sup­port­ing such meet­ings or part meet­ings with­in the Park Authority’s records man­age­ment sys­tem. In this regard, the Con­vener must com­ply with all require­ments of the Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Act 2002 and asso­ci­ated reg­u­la­tion and must per­son­ally deal with all inter­ac­tions in man­aging any inform­a­tion requests.

Com­mit­tees

1. In accord­ance with Sched­ule one para­graph 17 of the Act, The Board may estab­lish Com­mit­tees and may appoint onto those Com­mit­tees people who are not Park Author­ity board mem­bers. A major­ity of Com­mit­tee mem­bers must be Park Author­ity board members.

2. The board may del­eg­ate func­tions and decisions to Com­mit­tees, or to officers of the Park Author­ity. The board shall decide the remit and mem­ber­ship of com­mit­tees. Com­mit­tees shall report dir­ect to the board.

3. Each Com­mit­tee Chair­per­son shall be elec­ted by the full board using the elec­tion pro­vi­sions set out at para­graphs four to nine of these Stand­ing Orders. Com­mit­tees shall appoint a Vice Chair­per­son at their first meet­ing fol­low­ing agree­ment of their

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 4 Annex 2 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 12 of 17

mem­ber­ship by the Board or fol­low­ing the resig­na­tion or end of term of a pre­vi­ous Deputy Chair­per­son from among the mem­ber­ship of the Com­mit­tee agreed by the Board. Com­mit­tee Chairs and Deputy Chairs must be the Park Author­ity Board mem­bers. Com­mit­tee Chairs and Deputy Chairs shall serve for a peri­od of three years.

1. These stand­ing orders shall apply to each Com­mit­tee of the Board unless a Com­mit­tee adopts its own stand­ing orders, in which case they must be endorsed by the whole Board. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in par­tic­u­lar will be expec­ted to have its own stand­ing orders cov­er­ing issues which arise only in the con­text of determ­in­ing plan­ning applic­a­tions (such as deal­ing with rep­res­ent­a­tions by applic­ants, man­age­ment of site vis­its, etc).

2. Agen­das and minutes of all com­mit­tee meet­ings will be made avail­able to all mem­bers of the Board unless spe­cified expli­citly to the con­trary in the board’s agreed terms of ref­er­ence of a committee.

3. Com­mit­tee mem­ber­ships will be estab­lished for a max­im­um term of three years, and mem­ber­ship of all com­mit­tees reviewed in full every three years. Appoint­ments made dur­ing each three-year cycle will be for the remain­ing dur­a­tion of that three-year cycle.

4. Com­mit­tees shall have at least six Board mem­bers appoin­ted to their membership.

5. Com­mit­tee meet­ings shall be quor­ate provided that at least four mem­bers are present to con­duct busi­ness. If meet­ings remain without a quor­um 15 minutes after the des­ig­nated start time then the meet­ing shall by decision of the Chair with advice from oth­ers present either be: a) Post­poned with the Chief Exec­ut­ive and Prop­er Officer then respons­ible for arran­ging an appro­pri­ate date and time for the meet­ing to take place; or b) Con­tin­ued on the basis that any decisions taken by mem­bers present are ​‘in prin­ciple’ decisions to be con­firmed either by cor­res­pond­ence or at a future meet­ing depend­ing on the busi­ness needs of the item in ques­tion. Where meet­ings are con­tin­ued, and decisions are made ​‘in prin­ciple’ the Chief Exec­ut­ive and Prop­er Officer shall make appro­pri­ate arrange­ments for con­firm­a­tion of those decisions or for a fur­ther meet­ing where decisions in prin­ciple are not confirmed.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 4 Annex 2 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 13 of 17

1. Mem­bers of a com­mit­tee may agree a proxy to attend a com­mit­tee meet­ing on their behalf unless this is expli­citly not per­mit­ted in the agreed terms of ref­er­ence of that com­mit­tee. Proxy rep­res­ent­at­ives must be exist­ing board mem­bers and must be con­firmed at least sev­en days pri­or to the meet­ing date with the Chair and Clerks to the Board in order to have the same time to famil­i­ar­ise them­selves with the committee’s forth­com­ing busi­ness and ask any pre­lim­in­ary ques­tions. Proxy mem­bers count toward the quor­um of a com­mit­tee meeting.

Del­eg­a­tion of Functions

1. As set out in Sched­ule one of The Act, the Board may del­eg­ate author­ity (gen­er­ally or spe­cific­ally) to Com­mit­tees of the Board, to staff, or to any of its Members.

Sus­pen­sion and Amend­ments of Stand­ing Orders

1. These stand­ing orders may be sus­pen­ded, var­ied, revoked or added to only by the Park Author­ity board, and any such alter­a­tions will require the con­sent of 10 mem­bers. Notice of the inten­tion to bring for­ward pro­posed amend­ments to stand­ing orders must be sig­ni­fied at the pre­vi­ous board meet­ing. Not­with­stand­ing this pro­vi­sion, no stand­ing order may be sus­pen­ded or amended if this would con­tra­vene any stat­utory pro­vi­sion or dir­ec­tion made by Scot­tish Ministers.

2. Oth­er Pro­vi­sions which togeth­er with these stand­ing orders, provide for the con­duct of the Park Author­ity board meetings

3. Loc­al Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1973, Part III (by vir­tue of Sched­ule two, para­graph 12, of the Nation­al Parks Scot­land) Act) a) Access to Meet­ings and Documents

4. Mem­bers’ Code of Conduct

Cairngorms Form­al Board Paper 4 Annex 2 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 14 of 17

Annex 1 to Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Stand­ing Orders Access to Meet­ings and Doc­u­ments –Rules Gov­ern­ing the Park Author­ity Sched­ule two para­graph 12 of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 applies Part IIIA of the Loc­al Gov­ern­ment (Scot­land) Act 1973 to a Nation­al Park Author­ity. Its pro­vi­sions are broadly as follows:

1. Meet­ings of the Park Author­ity and its Com­mit­tees to be open to the pub­lic, unless: a) Con­fid­en­tial inform­a­tion would thereby be dis­closed in breach of an oblig­a­tion of con­fid­ence; this includes inform­a­tion fur­nished by the Gov­ern­ment on terms which for­bid dis­clos­ure to the pub­lic, of inform­a­tion for which dis­clos­ure is pro­hib­ited by law or a court order; b) These pro­vi­sions, includ­ing pro­vi­sions for mak­ing papers and oth­er inform­a­tion avail­able to the pub­lic, have been aug­men­ted by the Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Act 2002, Envir­on­ment­al Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2004, and the INSPIRE (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2009. Or the Park Author­ity resolves to exclude the pub­lic from con­sid­er­a­tion of a par­tic­u­lar item when they con­sider it is likely that there would be dis­clos­ure of exempt inform­a­tion as fol­lows: c) Inform­a­tion relat­ing to a par­tic­u­lar employ­ee or poten­tial employ­ee of the Park Author­ity, or par­tic­u­lar office hold­er or poten­tial office hold­er. d) Inform­a­tion relat­ing to a par­tic­u­lar indi­vidu­al who is an occu­pi­er of accom­mod­a­tion provided by the Park Author­ity; a recip­i­ent of or applic­ant for fin­an­cial assist­ance from the Park Author­ity; a recip­i­ent of or applic­ant for any ser­vice provided by the Park Author­ity. e) Inform­a­tion relat­ing to the fin­an­cial or busi­ness affairs of any par­tic­u­lar per­son; f) The amount of any expendit­ure pro­posed to be incurred by the Park Author­ity, or terms pro­posed under any par­tic­u­lar con­tract for prop­erty, goods or ser­vices. g) The iden­tity of any per­son offer­ing any par­tic­u­lar tender for a con­tract with the Park Authority.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 4 Annex 2 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 15 of 17

h) Inform­a­tion relat­ing to any con­sulta­tion or nego­ti­ations in con­nec­tion with labour rela­tions mat­ters arising between the Park Author­ity or Min­is­ter and employ­ees or office hold­ers of the Park Author­ity. i) Any instruc­tions to Coun­sel and any opin­ion of Coun­sel in con­nec­tion with leg­al pro­ceed­ings by or against the Park Author­ity, or the determ­in­a­tion of any mat­ter by the Park Author­ity. j) Inform­a­tion which, if dis­closed to the pub­lic, would reveal that the Park Author­ity pro­poses to make an order or dir­ec­tion under an enact­ment. k) Oth­er leg­al con­sid­er­a­tions pur­su­ant to our oblig­a­tions under the Data Pro­tec­tion Act 1998.

1. Where a res­ol­u­tion is passed to exclude the pub­lic on these grounds, the res­ol­u­tion must identi­fy the pro­ceed­ings affected and state the reas­ons. The meet­ing is then not required to be open to the public.
2. For a meet­ing of the Park Author­ity, pub­lic notice of the time and place of the meet­ings shall be pos­ted at the offices of the Park Author­ity at least three clear days before the meet­ing (unless the meet­ing is con­vened at short­er notice).
3. Where a meet­ing is open to the pub­lic, duly accred­ited mem­bers of the press shall be giv­en reas­on­able facil­it­ies (as far as is prac­tic­able) for tak­ing their report of the meet­ing (but not neces­sar­ily photographs).
4. Cop­ies of the agenda and reports for the meet­ing shall be open to inspec­tion by mem­bers of the pub­lic at the Park Author­ity offices at least three days in advance of the meet­ing (except where the meet­ing is con­vened at short­er notice). It is for the Prop­er Officer to exclude from this such reports as are not likely to be open to the pub­lic. Cop­ies of reports and agenda shall be avail­able to the pub­lic at the meeting.
5. An item of busi­ness may not be con­sidered at a meet­ing unless the report (assum­ing it is open to the pub­lic) has been avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion as set out above, or if there are spe­cial cir­cum­stances (to be spe­cified in the minutes) which lead the Con­vener to the view that the item must be con­sidered as a mat­ter of urgency.
6. Every report which is not open to the pub­lic shall be marked appro­pri­ately, with reas­on giv­en for its exclu­sion from pub­lic circulation.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 4 Annex 2 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 16 of 17

1. Media out­lets may request a copy of a meet­ing agenda and reports.
2. Vari­ous meet­ing doc­u­ments shall be avail­able for pub­lic inspec­tion up to six years after a meet­ing – the minutes, agenda, and rel­ev­ant reports.
3. Where vari­ous parts of a meet­ing are closed to the pub­lic, to pre­vent dis­clos­ure of exempt inform­a­tion, and the minutes do not provide the pub­lic with a reas­on­ably fair and coher­ent record of the pro­ceed­ings, where pos­sible the prop­er office shall make a writ­ten sum­mary to provide such a record without dis­clos­ing the exempt information.
4. The rules above apply to all Com­mit­tees of the Park Author­ity in addi­tion to the full Board.
5. The Park Author­ity shall keep a register of the names of mem­bers of each of its cur­rent com­mit­tees, open to the pub­lic. All mem­bers shall be con­tact­able through the Park Author­ity Offices.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 4 Annex 2 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 17 of 17

Annex 2 Draw­ing Lots / Tie-Break Procedure

1. Where oper­a­tion of the Stand­ing Orders elec­tion pro­ced­ures requires a tie-break pro­ced­ure to be imple­men­ted, the fol­low­ing pro­ced­ures shall apply.
2. Where the tie break is required between only two can­did­ates, a tie-break shall be affected by the toss of a coin. The Prop­er officer will agree with both can­did­ates which side of the coin to be used rep­res­ents heads and which side rep­res­ents tails. The Prop­er Officer shall ask whichever can­did­ate is lis­ted highest in the order of can­did­ates included in the ori­gin­al bal­lot to call either heads or tails. The Prop­er Officer shall then toss the coin and declare who is the win­ner of the tie break based on that coin toss. It will be at the Prop­er Officer’s sole dis­cre­tion to ensure the coin toss is clear and rep­res­ents a final con­clu­sion to the process.
3. Where the tie break is between three or more can­did­ates, the tie break shall be affected by each can­did­ate cut­ting a deck of cards. Can­did­ates shall cut the deck of cards and take the card exposed by the cut. Can­did­ates will cut the deck in the order in which they are lis­ted on the bal­lot paper. The win­ner of the tie break shall be based