241213PerfCPaper1C2030ProgrammeReportQ32024

For dis­cus­sion

Title: Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update Quarter three 2024 (July- Septem­ber) Pre­pared by: Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030

Stra­tegic context

1. Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) will inspire people and com­munit­ies in the Nation­al Park to act and tackle the nature and cli­mate crisis. Bring­ing togeth­er 20 long-term pro­jects on trans­form­ing land­scapes, empower­ing com­munit­ies, rethink­ing how we travel and cham­pi­on­ing wellbeing.
2. The Park Author­ity was awar­ded £12.5 mil­lion by The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) to devel­op and deliv­er Cairngorms 2030 and become the UK’s first net zero nation­al park. The five-year deliv­ery phase com­menced in Janu­ary 2024.

Pur­pose

1. This paper presents the status of pro­gramme man­age­ment, includ­ing risk man­age­ment status, based on inform­a­tion in pro­ject reports for the peri­od from July to Septem­ber 2024, updated where appro­pri­ate to reflect cur­rent pos­i­tion as at the time of writ­ing, and the planned work to end Decem­ber 2024.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Per­form­ance com­mit­tee is asked to dis­cuss: a) Pro­gramme risk level remains at amber due to the delay in receiv­ing Sus­trans Places for Every­one design fund­ing. The deliv­ery risk will likely remain at this level until end March 2025. b) A revised pro­gramme cash flow fore­cast has been pre­pared, which is show­ing a tem­por­ary £1.2 mil­lion income short­fall. This short­fall will be resolved in the next fin­an­cial year when trans­port fund­ing is expec­ted to be rein­stated. c) A £600,000 fund­ing applic­a­tion to High­lands and Islands Enter­prise (HIE) is pro­ceed­ing with the Ini­tial Stra­tegic Assess­ment approved by HIE on 11 Novem­ber 2024. The form­al applic­a­tion and due dili­gence pro­cess has com­menced. d) Azets Ltd have under­taken an intern­al gov­ernance and risk report­ing audit of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme. The per­form­ance com­mit­tee Chair was inter­viewed as part of that pro­cess and the find­ings will be repor­ted to Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee and covered sub­sequently at Per­form­ance Committee.

Stra­tegic risk management

Per­form­ance Dash­board: Pro­gramme level (see Annex 1 for projects)

Per­form­ance Meas­ure	Red Amber Green (RAG) status	Issue / mitigation
Pro­gramme risk profile	Amber	Risk pro­file remains at amber fol­low­ing noti­fic­a­tion from Sus­trans Scot­land that design stage fund­ing was not avail­able in 2024 / 2025. Revised cash flow sub­mit­ted to NLHF and both parties accept risk pro­file will remain at amber until next fin­an­cial year.
Future fund­ing profile	Amber	Risk pro­file remains stat­ic. Dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and Trans­port Scot­land on import­ance of releas­ing funds as soon as pos­sible to allow design work to commence
Fin­ance: impact on Park Author­ity budget management	Green	No issues cur­rent or pro­jec­ted in 2024 / 2025. The poten­tial fin­an­cial implic­a­tions for C2030 pro­gramme deliv­ery will be a key ele­ment of 2025 / 2026 budget scen­ario plans as board and man­age­ment con­sider deploy­ment of fin­an­cial alloc­a­tions for the next fin­an­cial year.
Pro­cure­ment	Green	Pro­cure­ment stand­ards and pro­ject ini­ti­ation approvals are being revised to improve com­pli­ance and decision making.
Staff­ing	Green	No issues.
Deliv­ery of Sus­trans fun­ded projects	Amber	Sus­trans / act­ive travel match fund­ing for the pro­gramme is not secured at the val­ues or with­in the timelines required to achieve pro­ject objectives.

Act­ive Com­munit­ies pro­ject risk pro­file remains at amber and pro­ject deliv­er­ables have been amended

Stake­hold­er engagement

1. Press releases a) Inter­view with Andy Toop, founder of the SPIN Pro­ject in Aviemore, a com­munity- focused ini­ti­at­ive which aims to make bikes access­ible to every­one and aid in redu­cing emis­sions, work­ing towards the Cairngorms Nation­al Park being net zero by 2030 (Cycle friendly Cairngorms). b) Inter­view with Out­door Com­munity Activ­it­ies Organ­iser, Andy Mil­lar at the Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre (Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre). c) Inter­view with Green Health Link Work­er Louise Emslie about con­nect­ing with nature (Pub­lic Health and the Out­doors). d) Inter­view with teach­er Sophia about com­munity garden at Alford Academy (Cli­mate Learn­ing and Education).

2. Cairn Magazine a) Cairn magazine was not pub­lished with­in this time frame.

3. Oth­er press activ­ity a) As part of the Nation­al Lot­tery thir­ti­eth birth­day cel­eb­ra­tions Sandy Brem­ner, Con­vener of our Board, was inter­viewed by Talk TV and the Scot­tish Sun to talk about C2030.

4. Social media sum­mary of con­nec­tions: a) Total engage­ments — that is people who have liked, shared and inter­ac­ted with mater­i­als — of all C2030 activ­ity across social media: 2,845. Social media activ­ity in this peri­od has centred around loc­al engage­ment and con­sulta­tion event pro­mo­tion as well as the shar­ing of Cairngorms Voices blogs. We also shared an inter­view with our Con­vener Sandy Brem­ner as part of the Nation­al Lottery’s thir­ti­eth birth­day cel­eb­ra­tions. In addi­tion to the above, we shared: i. Pro­mo­tion of art­work delivered to Spey­side Com­munity High School (Cli­mate learn­ing and edu­ca­tion) ii. World Alzheimer’s Day (Out­door demen­tia resource centre) iii. Pro­mo­tion of River­woods film screen­ing (Cli­mate con­scious communities)

5. A sum­mary of the social media activ­ity is giv­en in the fol­low­ing reports: a) August Comms Update.pptx b) Septem­ber Comms Update.pptx

6. Volun­teer activ­ity a) Volun­teer Rangers con­tin­ue to sup­port the deliv­ery of pro­jects which have been estab­lished because of Cairngorms 2030. For example, sev­en Volun­teer Rangers have sup­por­ted the deliv­ery of the John Muir Award at the Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre, whilst oth­er mem­bers of the team are sur­vey­ing bumble­bee tran­sects in sup­port of the Cairngorms Future Farm­ing pro­ject. b) As pro­jects con­tin­ue to take shape and begin to deliv­er, the Volun­teer­ing Man­ager is work­ing in part­ner­ship and coordin­a­tion with the Cairngorms 2030 Engage­ment Team to begin struc­tured and detailed con­ver­sa­tions with pro­ject leads to help them shape their plans for volun­teer involve­ment for the dur­a­tion of the pro­gramme. This will include map­ping oppor­tun­it­ies for volun­teer involve­ment and explor­ing in detail why pro­ject leads might seek to involve volun­teers, and which audi­ences and pop­u­la­tions would be most import­ant to involve. It will include draft­ing timelines and resourcing plans and devel­op­ing resources to sup­port Pro­ject Leads or part­ners in deliv­er­ing volun­teer days where appro­pri­ate. c) Map­ping of Volun­teer Ranger activ­it­ies onto C2030 out­comes is cur­rently under way to allow for accur­ate report­ing of cur­rent activ­ity and informed pro­jec­tions of the scale of future activ­ity. d) The volun­teer­ing team is cur­rently explor­ing the pos­sib­il­ity of devel­op­ing a ​‘fam­ily volun­teer­ing’ pro­gramme to allow a more inclus­ive volun­teer­ing offer. We are cur­rently at the inform­a­tion gath­er­ing stage, enga­ging with all UK Nation­al Park Author­it­ies to learn from best prac­tice else­where and devel­op pro­pos­als for poten­tial mod­els which could facil­it­ate increased fam­ily volun­teer­ing in sup­port of Cairngorms 2030 and wider Park Author­ity outcomes.

Theme lead highlights

1. Trans­form­ing land­scapes a) Five of the pro­jects have a risk status of green with two at amber. These are due to the Peat­land staff­ing level hav­ing an impact upon Geo­graph­ic Inform­a­tion Sys­tem (GIS) data pro­duc­tion for grant fund­ing and devel­op­ment of future pro­jects. Mit­ig­a­tion is in place for both. In addi­tion, with­in the catch­ment pro­ject the ongo­ing con­cern about the Dal­getty plain ele­ment remains. This is now being explored through con­ver­sa­tions with the loc­al com­munity. b) Pro­jects to deliv­er two deer lar­ders have pro­ceeded with deliv­ery part­ners in place. c) The Peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­ject is likely to exceed its 1,500 hec­tares (ha) tar­get for 2024/2025. d) The risk register shows little change with all risks being mon­itored care­fully. A new risk (nature recov­ery) reflects the uncer­tainty over the will­ing­ness of landown­ers to engage in pro­vi­sion of com­munity bene­fits. How­ever, we shall be work­ing to sup­port them dur­ing the pro­ject devel­op­ment at the Expres­sion of Interest (EOI) stage and beyond.

2. Empower­ment a) This quarter has been the busiest so far, bal­an­cing the con­tinu­ing estab­lish­ment of a new engage­ment team with the deliv­ery of a pro­gramme of events across the geo­graphy of the Park. Pro­gress has also been made on innov­at­ive meth­ods, from gami­fic­a­tion to lived exper­i­ence pan­el. The tender for con­sult­ant, help­ing estab­lish which meth­od of par­ti­cip­at­ory demo­cracy is pur­sued for the com­munity man­aged cli­mate grants is being final­ised by the team and expec­ted to go out to pro­cure­ment in late Novem­ber or early Decem­ber. b) Interest is grow­ing in the Learn­ing for Sus­tain­ab­il­ity for Schools edu­ca­tion pro­ject, and poten­tial non-part­ner organ­isa­tions com­ing on board. Feed­back from the schools has been uni­ver­sally pos­it­ive, with the high­light this quarter being show­cas­ing school pupil developed videos dur­ing Cli­mate Week. c) We have been nego­ti­at­ing between the vari­ous Cli­mate Hubs to devel­op Memor­andum of Under­stand­ing and activ­ity plans, estab­lish­ing future part­ner­ship deliv­ery. A suc­cess­ful event dur­ing Cli­mate week was an excel­lent oppor­tun­ity to col­lab­or­ate between pro­jects, show­cas­ing videos developed by young people.

3. Trans­port a) The uncer­tainty with regards to fund­ing of the design of pro­posed infra­struc­ture improve­ments remains a risk to deliv­ery. b) While delays and cuts to gov­ern­ment fund­ing have impacted pro­ject pro­grammes, pro­ject work con­tin­ues to devel­op design of infra­struc­ture. c) Sig­ni­fic­ant pro­gress has been made in terms of part­ner­ships and spe­cify­ing work pack­ages for col­lab­or­a­tion. Expect more tan­gible pro­gress dur­ing quarter four. d) Part­ner­ship work­ing and col­lab­or­a­tion with Trans­port Author­it­ies includ­ing The High­land Coun­cil and Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil con­tin­ues to improve. e) There is an improv­ing situ­ation over­all with com­mit­ments to expendit­ure begin­ning to arise albeit later than expec­ted. f) Pro­cure­ment for a pack­age of Com­munity-led Cyc­ling Ini­ti­at­ives in Badenoch and Strath­spey was designed and will be delivered via a new Com­munity Trans­port Grant from quarter four. This includes the loc­a­tions for the first com­munity led cycle hubs.

4. Health and Well­being a) The num­bers of par­ti­cipants in the Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre activ­ity pro­gramme goes from strength to strength. To date 1250 people have taken part. b) The work of the Pub­lic Health and the Out­doors Pro­ject Team con­tin­ues to rig­or­ously test the work­ing mod­el of the pro­ject and identi­fy­ing areas of work that need to be under­taken or changed. c) Both green health pro­jects con­tin­ue to devel­op col­lab­or­a­tions and con­nec­tions with C2030 pro­jects and extern­al part­ners that will be pivotal in the con­tin­ued suc­cess and leg­acy of this ground­break­ing work. d) Long term plan­ning dis­cus­sions have com­menced between the Park Author­ity, NHS High­land and Alzheimer Scotland.

5. Recruit­ment a) The Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion has advert­ised its vacant Cairngorms 2030 post. The Com­munity Bene­fits from Nature Adviser is expec­ted to be appoin­ted by end of 2024.

6. Gov­ernance a) The NLHF mon­it­or­ing meet­ing took place on 05 Novem­ber 2024, cov­er­ing pro­ject report­ing which has also informed this report. i. Pro­gramme deliv­ery risk was accep­ted as amber. ii. Cash flow pos­i­tion was approved and fol­low up meet­ing to review match income report­ing was arranged. iii. Approv­al gran­ted to launch a £150,000 Com­munity Trans­port Grant Scheme. iv. Approv­al gran­ted on the pro­posed alloc­a­tion of £1.5 mil­lion Nature Net­works pro­ject. V. Approv­al to grant award Glen­more Cycle Hub – pro­pos­al to issue a £20,000 grant award to Aviemore Glen­more Com­munity Trust. b) The next Pro­gramme Board meet­ing will be held on 04 Decem­ber 2024 c) Azets Ltd have under­taken an intern­al gov­ernance and risk report­ing audit of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme. The per­form­ance com­mit­tee Chair was inter­viewed as part of that pro­cess and the find­ings will be repor­ted to Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee and covered sub­sequently at Per­form­ance Committee.

7. Budget and cash flow a) A revised pro­gramme cash flow fore­cast has been pre­pared, which is show­ing a tem­por­ary £1.2 mil­lion income short­fall. This short­fall will be resolved in the next fin­an­cial year when trans­port fund­ing is expec­ted to be rein­stated b) A £600,000 fund­ing applic­a­tion to High­lands and Islands Enter­prise is pro­ceed­ing with the Ini­tial Stra­tegic Assess­ment approved by HIE on 11 Novem­ber 2024. The form­al applic­a­tion and due dili­gence pro­cess has commenced.

8. Pro­cure­ment a) Pro­cure­ment stand­ards and pro­ject ini­ti­ation approvals are being revised to improve com­pli­ance and decision mak­ing. b) Grant award or ser­vice con­tract awards approved i. Nature recov­ery pro­ject: two Lar­der pro­jects. ii. Engage­ment pro­ject: Lived exper­i­ence pan­el appoint­ment of con­sult­ant. iii. Edin­burgh Uni­ver­sity – Socioeco­nom­ic research and music

9. Leg­al agree­ments a) MORAY Cli­mate Action Net­work Memor­andum of Under­stand­ing signed b) NES­CAN Cli­mate Hub Memor­andum of Under­stand­ing signed

10. Pro­gramme deliv­ery actions to end Decem­ber 2024 a) 29 Octo­ber — Com­munity engage­ment road­show – Kin­gussie b) 30 Octo­ber — High­land Coun­cil stra­tegic trans­port meet­ing c) Novem­ber — Edin­burgh Uni­ver­sity – Gami­fic­a­tion / Com­munity engage­ment grant award signed d) Novem­ber — Pro­gramme gov­ernance audit recom­mend­a­tions e) 05 Novem­ber — NLHF quarterly per­form­ance review f) Decem­ber — Nature recov­ery – Deer Man­age­ment Groups EOI assess­ment g) 04 Decem­ber — NLHF Budget mon­it­or­ing meet­ing h) 04 Decem­ber — C2030 Pro­gramme board meet­ing i) 05 Decem­ber — End year review – staff feed­back session

11. Sig­ni­fic­ant Pro­gramme Change Requests a) None

12. Sig­ni­fic­ant Budget Adjust­ments a) A revised pro­gramme cash flow fore­cast has been pre­pared, which is show­ing a tem­por­ary £1.2 mil­lion income short­fall. This short­fall will be real­ised in the next fin­an­cial year when trans­port fund­ing is reinstated.

Con­clu­sions

1. Per­form­ance Over­view and Mat­ters Mer­it­ing Stra­tegic Review a) Pro­gramme risk level remains at amber due to the delay in receiv­ing Sus­trans Places for Every­one design fund­ing. NLHF accepts that the deliv­ery risk will remain at this level until end March 2025. b) A revised pro­gramme cash flow fore­cast has been pre­pared, which is show­ing a tem­por­ary £1.2 mil­lion income short­fall. This short­fall will be resolved in the next fin­an­cial year when trans­port fund­ing is expec­ted to be rein­stated. c) A £600,000 fund­ing applic­a­tion to High­lands and Islands Enter­prise is pro­ceed­ing with the Ini­tial Stra­tegic Assess­ment approved by HIE on 11 Novem­ber 2024. The form­al applic­a­tion and due dili­gence pro­cess has com­menced. d) Oth­er than for excep­tions high­lighted in this pro­gramme update, the com­pon­ent pro­jects have made reas­on­able or sub­stan­tial pro­gress over the peri­od to the end of the third quarter. e) A for­ward-look­ing indic­a­tion of future activ­ity is provided in the sep­ar­ate mile­stone update which is on the agenda for information.

Dav­id Clyne, 27 Novem­ber 2024 davidclyne@​cairngorms.​co.​uk