241122Paper6CorporatePlanDeliveryUpdate

Form­al Board Paper 6 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 1 of 6

For inform­a­tion

Title: Cor­por­ate plan deliv­ery update

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services

Stra­tegic context

1. The Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan for 2023 to 2027 sets out the organisation’s planned con­tri­bu­tions toward achieve­ment of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP). The cor­por­ate plan estab­lishes the Park Authority’s agreed stra­tegic cor­por­ate object­ives for the peri­od to 2027.

2. Our Per­form­ance Report included in the annu­al report and accounts presents pro­gress over the course of the first year of our cor­por­ate plan in deliv­er­ing against these stra­tegic object­ives. By nature of the Park Authority’s role – seek­ing to lead col­lab­or­at­ive effort in tack­ling the big issues for the Cairngorms – our per­form­ance meas­ures are rarely dir­ectly con­trol­lable by the Park Author­ity and cer­tainly not by the Park Author­ity alone. Rather, they require the neces­sary col­lab­or­a­tion and engage­ment of the Park Author­ity and our part­ners. In this way, they act as meas­ures of the effect­ive­ness of our lead­er­ship and influ­en­cing abil­it­ies, com­bined with our own dir­ect invest­ment of fin­ance and staff resources, in tack­ling these priorities.

Pur­pose

1. This paper draws the per­form­ance report for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ against our cor­por­ate plan object­ives spe­cific­ally to the board’s atten­tion. This takes a more focused look at the Park Authority’s deliv­ery toward agreed stra­tegic object­ives in the con­text of the wider update on Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan deliv­ery con­sidered by the board at its pre­vi­ous meet­ing. 240913Paper2NPPPAnnualUpdate.pdf

2. The paper also presents the Park Authority’s draft annu­al report and accounts to the board, fol­low­ing the approv­al of this doc­u­ment by the Board’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee. The extern­al audit is not yet com­plete at the date of issue of this paper, with the audit cer­ti­fic­ate remain­ing to be signed. How­ever, this remains a timely point in the pro­cess to present the draft accounts and annu­al report to the board.

Form­al Board Paper 6 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 2 of 6

The extern­al aud­it­ors have repor­ted to the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee on 27 Septem­ber that their review is sub­stan­tially com­plete and there are cur­rently no mat­ters of which the aud­it­ors are aware that would require modi­fic­a­tion of our audit opin­ion, sub­ject to the sat­is­fact­ory res­ol­u­tion of the out­stand­ing mat­ters. Officers have not received any noti­fic­a­tion of any issues since that date.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Board is asked to: a) To note the draft annu­al accounts for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ b) To note the status of deliv­ery toward Cor­por­ate Plan object­ives as set out in the Annu­al Report c) To con­sider any actions needed to address deliv­ery of those Cor­por­ate Plan object­ives high­lighted as at increased deliv­ery risk.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. Approv­al of the Annu­al Report and Accounts and the extern­al audit of the annu­al accounts is over­seen by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee on behalf of the board, as set out in the terms of ref­er­ence for the board’s com­mit­tees. The draft accounts, which remain sub­ject to clear­ance by the Aud­it­or Gen­er­al for Scot­land and lay­ing in Par­lia­ment, are presen­ted at Annex 1 to this paper.

2. The Annu­al Report for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ includes a per­form­ance report, set out in pages 36 to 47 of Annex 1, which presents an over­view of the Park Authority’s per­form­ance in deliv­ery against our stra­tegic object­ives. A dash­board ana­lys­is indic­ates wheth­er pro­gress has been broadly on track and meet­ing expect­a­tions (rated ​‘green’); or has exper­i­enced delay or some short­fall against object­ives which can be remedied before the end of the cor­por­ate plan peri­od (rated ​‘amber’). A ​‘red’ rat­ing would be used for any stra­tegic object­ives unlikely to be sub­stan­tially com­plete by the end of the cor­por­ate plan peri­od. There are no stra­tegic object­ives clas­si­fied as red at this stage.

3. Atten­tion is drawn to the fact that the assess­ment of deliv­ery against stra­tegic object­ives is as of 31 March 2024. As such, some time has passed from the over­view of cor­por­ate deliv­ery pos­i­tion now presen­ted. The Park Author­ity will seek to deliv­er future per­form­ance update reports to board closer to the end of fin­an­cial and oper­a­tion­al years in ques­tion. Those object­ives high­lighted at some increased risks

Form­al Board Paper 6 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 3 of 6

have been drawn out in the ​“Sup­port­ing Inform­a­tion” sec­tion of this paper and updates provided on cur­rent status.

Stake­hold­er engagement

1. As noted at the out­set of this paper, giv­en the nature of the Park Authority’s role – seek­ing to lead col­lab­or­at­ive effort in tack­ling the big issues for the Cairngorms – achieve­ment of our cor­por­ate object­ives typ­ic­ally requires the neces­sary col­lab­or­a­tion and engage­ment of our part­ners. The assess­ment of pro­gress against object­ives is made in con­text of the col­lab­or­at­ive work under­taken between the Park Author­ity and our deliv­ery part­ners. Fuller inform­a­tion on the part­ner­ship deliv­ery has been provided in the pre­vi­ous board meet­ing update on Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan delivery.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. Our stra­tegic risk register has been developed to sup­port deliv­ery of the stra­tegic object­ives covered in the per­form­ance report. There are no new risk implic­a­tions arising from the over­view of cor­por­ate plan deliv­ery as of 31 March 2024.

Implic­a­tions

1. Our annu­al oper­a­tion­al plan and budget is estab­lished to give a bal­ance of invest­ment which will col­lect­ively achieve our stra­tegic object­ives. The evid­ence from ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ per­form­ance assess­ment sug­gests that the bal­ance of invest­ment has been appro­pri­ate in sup­port of the suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s wide range of stra­tegic objectives.

2. The Park Author­ity con­tin­ues to deliv­er against these stra­tegic object­ives over the course of ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅. The Resources Com­mit­tee has reviewed the pos­i­tion of cur­rent year budget man­age­ment and noted that we remain on track to deliv­er a range of ini­ti­at­ives and invest­ments fur­ther pro­gress­ing these object­ives with­in a bal­anced budget position.

3. The implic­a­tions for cor­por­ate deliv­ery into ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ will be con­sidered from Decem­ber 2024 informed by the Scot­tish Government’s budget.

Form­al Board Paper 6 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 4 of 6

Suc­cess measures

1. The per­form­ance report dash­board com­prises a key ele­ment of the Park Authority’s cor­por­ate per­form­ance frame­work and suc­cess meas­ures. This gives a high-level stra­tegic over­view of pro­gress being made toward achieve­ment of agreed cor­por­ate plan objectives.

2. In present­ing the draft accounts for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄, the Park Authority’s annu­al suc­cess meas­ure is to achieve an out­turn pos­i­tion with­in a range of an over­spend of no more than 1% to an under­spend of no more than 2%. The net pos­i­tion achieved in the year of only £4,000 over­spend rep­res­ents an over­spend that amounts to only 0.03% of grant-in-aid received. In cash terms, net income of £329,000 against total income of £14.562 mil­lion rep­res­ents a 2.3% sur­plus. This is accoun­ted for in the main by high­er cost recov­er­ies from extern­al sources than ori­gin­ally budgeted.

3. The Park Authority’s accounts for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ rep­res­ent the 20^th year since estab­lish­ment of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Our report at page 23 high­lights that total income in the first year was £1.927m and is now £14.562m.

4. Income of £14.562m rep­res­ents the highest level of annu­al income receipts by the Park Author­ity since its creation.

Sup­port­ing information

Update on cor­por­ate object­ives with escal­ated risk assessments

1. The major­ity of stra­tegic object­ives are assessed as on track for deliv­ery as expec­ted by the end of the cor­por­ate plan peri­od, March 2027. Updates on the status of those ele­ments of cor­por­ate per­form­ance assessed as at some heightened deliv­ery risk are provided below.

A6	Gamebird man­age­ment	Ensure that all pheas­ant and part­ridge shoots adhere to best prac­tice and that all gamebird releases are sus­tain­able and do not neg­at­ively impact on nat­ive biodiversity.

1. Data col­lec­tion has been delayed but is now under­way. Data on game bird releases with­in the Park should be avail­able by end 2024. The meth­od­o­logy for PhD research

Form­al Board Paper 6 22 Novem­ber 2024 Page 5 of 6

into the impacts of these releases has been agreed. Research is due to start late 2024.

A13	Spe­cies recovery	Ensure spe­cies thrive in the Nation­al Park with key assemblages across the Cairngorms with­in the semi-nat­ur­al landscape.

1. The final report on Cairngorms Nature Action Plan was pub­lished on the Park Author­ity web­site in Octo­ber 2024. Report­ing against Spe­cies Recov­ery Curve tar­gets shows: 14 — achieved tar­get; 13 — sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress made; two — tar­get not met. Over 80% of the actions were com­pleted, demon­strat­ing high levels of activ­ity and a pos­it­ive trend in cre­at­ing sus­tain­able pop­u­la­tions. How­ever, inex­per­i­ence with using the Recov­ery Curve in the Park res­ul­ted in some over ambi­tious tar­gets being set, and extern­al factors not accoun­ted for. The Cairngorms Nature Action Plan 2025 – 2030 will adapt tar­get set­ting accord­ingly and provide a more accur­ate meas­ure of pro­gress in sub­sequent stages of report­ing to the end of the cor­por­ate plan period.

2. Beavers were rein­tro­duced to the upper Spey catch­ment in 2023. The Park Author­ity and NatureScot joint caper­cail­lie emer­gency plan was pub­lished in Septem­ber 2024.

B1	Work­ing age population	The pro­por­tion of young and work­ing age people in the Nation­al Park increases rel­at­ive to the total res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion, which remains stable.

1. The risk assess­ment relates to avail­ab­il­ity of data and ana­lys­is. A Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Evid­ence Report is in pre­par­a­tion and early engage­ment with key agen­cies and stake­hold­ers star­ted. Nation­al Records of Scot­land 2022 based mid-year pop­u­la­tion estim­ates for Scot­land and Loc­al Author­it­ies was pub­lished 26 March 2024. Data for small areas (allow­ing a Nation­al Park estim­ate) was to be pub­lished from May / June 2024 allow­ing fur­ther ana­lys­is to be taken forward.

C1	Access to housing	Ensure that there is suf­fi­cient afford­able hous­ing stock to enable people to live and work with­in the Nation­al Park.

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1. High­land Coun­cil Short term let con­trol Area estab­lished March 2024. Perth and Kinross Coun­cil invest­ig­a­tion estab­lish­ment of Short Term let con­trol area in High­land Perth­shire. Afford­able and mid-mar­ket hous­ing devel­op­ments under­way at Car­rbridge, Dul­nain Bridge, Aviemore and Kingussie.

C2	New hous­ing	Deliv­er new hous­ing in the Nation­al Park and ensure as much as pos­sible is secured for key work­ers and / or to resolve afford­ab­il­ity issues.

1. Afford­able and mid-mar­ket hous­ing devel­op­ments under­way at Car­rbridge, Dul­nain Bridge, Aviemore and Kingussie.

C3	Hous­ing and com­munity benefit	Work with com­munit­ies to ensure that the major­ity of land alloc­ated for devel­op­ment around vil­lages and towns in the Nation­al Park is con­trolled by com­munit­ies or pub­lic bod­ies to help man­age long-term devel­op­ment needs.

1. Com­munity groups have been explor­ing com­munity hous­ing pro­jects in Strath­don, Brae­mar, Dul­nain Bridge and Grantown-on-Spey.

Dav­id Camer­on, 05 Novem­ber 2024 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk