CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper | 25^th March 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: CEO REPORT AND CON­VENER UPDATE

Pre­pared by: GRANT MOIR, CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Pur­pose

1. To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Con­ser­va­tion

1. Cairngorms Nature: We have been sup­port­ing our part­ners to devel­op two pro­jects focused on waders and inver­teb­rates for the Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund. The times­cale for devel­op­ing the full applic­a­tion and level of com­mit­ment required from landown­ers has res­ul­ted in the wader pro­ject being with­drawn. Anoth­er fund­ing oppor­tun­ity through the Edin­burgh Declar­a­tion Fund will occur later this year, how­ever details of the fund are yet to be confirmed.

2. Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject: The vis­it­or research and the Moun­tain Bike Trail Map­ping Intern­ship are now com­plete. This work is help­ing to devel­op an MTB Recre­ation Man­age­ment Plan for Badenoch and Strath­spey. The grant scheme to enable land man­agers to apply for up to £5000 to cre­ate more hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie is now open for applications.

   NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee (SAC) Caper report advises that if pop­u­la­tion declines con­tin­ue the spe­cies could be lost to Scot­land with­in two to three dec­ades. Factors hav­ing the biggest impact on breed­ing suc­cess were iden­ti­fied as pred­a­tion and dis­turb­ance due to rises in vis­it­or num­bers and recre­ation­al activ­it­ies. The report high­lights the import­ance of fur­ther action across the core area of Badenoch and Strath­spey if the pop­u­la­tion is to be con­served. Meas­ures to save caper­cail­lie out­lined | NatureScot

   Over the next couple of months CNPA and NatureScot will be enga­ging with a wide range of people to help for­mu­late options to tackle the two main iden­ti­fied issues. Options will need to include a thor­ough assess­ment of costs, resource, risks and feas­ib­il­ity — all of which the pro­ject will be able to play a big part in shap­ing. These will go to CNPA and NS Boards for dis­cus­sion in May/​June.

3. Wood­land Cre­ation: Since Decem­ber we have been con­sul­ted by Scot­tish Forestry about wood­land cre­ation pro­pos­als of vary­ing scale at Aber­nethy, Mar Lodge, Kin­rara and Bal­mor­al, and we anti­cip­ate form­al con­sulta­tions soon relat­ing to Atholl and Ben Alder estates. We have also been inform­ally con­sul­ted about poten­tial wood­land cre­ation pro­pos­als at Rothiemurchus, Mar Lodge and Auchavan estates.

4. Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion: We have com­pleted map­ping all areas of eroded peat across the Park. The new map rep­res­ents a sig­ni­fic­ant resource for the CNPA Peat­land Team and will also be valu­able for estates. We will shortly be able to ana­lyse this map so we are in a much bet­ter pos­i­tion to plan future peat­land res­tor­a­tion and to tar­get resources where they will be most effective.

   On the ground, the ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ annu­al tar­get of 557ha of restored peat will be exceeded, but the final area restored has not yet been cal­cu­lated. Des­pite a mild winter, snow has still lingered on high ground and held up work on some pro­jects. Low ground pro­jects have con­tin­ued with rel­at­ively few interruptions.

5. Moor­land Man­age­ment: Nature Scot con­tin­ue to take for­ward pro­pos­als to devel­op Grouse Moor Licens­ing and CNPA feed into that pro­cess. We have held dis­cus­sions with the East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship and with a num­ber of indi­vidu­al estate man­agers and head keep­ers about how we can make licens­ing both effect­ive and fair. More prac­tic­al work with ECMP con­tin­ues, with an aspen plant­ing pro­ject being a recent example.

6. Deer Man­age­ment: The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to work towards imple­ment­ing the recom­mend­a­tions of the Deer Work­ing Group. These seek to focus deer man­age­ment on tack­ling the cli­mate change and biod­iversity crises across Scot­land. Legis­la­tion is expec­ted in 2023. CNPA met with DMG rep­res­ent­at­ives from around the Park to dis­cuss the deer man­age­ment and wider land man­age­ment object­ives with­in NPPP4. Dis­cus­sion was con­struct­ive and we will meet again to dis­cuss the NPPP in due course. The South Deeside and North Angus DMG have agreed a con­sult­ant brief which is now open for tender. This con­sult­ant brief will take for­ward the devel­op­ment phase of the Her­it­age Hori­zon DMG pro­ject. This pro­ject will look to explore a vari­ety of income streams for estates, while ana­lys­ing the risks and liab­il­it­ies asso­ci­ated with those income streams. Dis­cus­sions are on-going with the South Grampi­an DMG re a sim­il­ar con­sult­ant brief. Out­with Her­it­age Hori­zons, CNPA are work­ing in part­ner­ship with the West Grampi­ans DMG to fund Strath Caulaidh Ltd to explore nat­ur­al cap­it­al-based approaches to man­aging their estates. The pro­jects with the three DMGs will con­clude by March 2023.

Vis­it­or Services

1. Man­aging for Visitors The Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Group has met monthly over the winter and reviewed the oper­a­tion­al plan for Man­aging for Vis­it­ors. CNPA will pro­mote the #Tread­Lightly and #Cairngorm­s­To­geth­er cam­paigns, encour­aging safe, respons­ible enjoy­ment (with a focus on no fires in wood­land and peat­land and the need to keep dogs under close con­trol in the nest­ing sea­son) and the need to work togeth­er to bene­fit loc­al com­munit­ies, employ­ees and vis­it­ors. The nation­al vis­it­or man­age­ment arrange­ments have been reviewed and CNPA is rep­res­en­ted on many of the rel­ev­ant groups. Addi­tion­al fund­ing has been provided by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment for man­aging for vis­it­ors and, via NatureScot, for the Bet­ter­Places fund which will assist in provid­ing addi­tion­al sea­son­al ranger cov­er at key hot­spots. A Stra­tegic Infra­struc­ture Plan for the Park is being pre­pared. Meet­ings with com­munity lead­ers and elec­ted mem­bers, to provide brief­ings on the sea­son ahead, are planned for mid-March.

2. Long Dis­tance and Stra­tegic Routes: Work is ongo­ing to repair worn sec­tions of exten­ded Spey­side Way at Drumguish and Insh. Improve­ment pro­jects at Grant­own and Kin­craig now have fund­ing in place from the Improv­ing Pub­lic Access fund­ing stream from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and are pro­grammed for Autumn 2022. CNPA and Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil have offered grant-aid to Out­door Access Trust for Scot­land to con­struct a new path link­ing Brae­mar to Inver­cauld Bridge and work is due to com­mence in Spring 2022. The Sus­trans ​‘Paths for Every­one’ Strategy has recently iden­ti­fied the need to improve exist­ing routes that are part of the Nation­al Cycle Net­work: NCN7 in west­ern Cairngorms, exten­sion of NCN195 (Deeside Way) and a poten­tial new route from Aviemore to the Moray coast.

3. Ranger Ser­vices: Elev­en CNPA Sea­son­al Rangers have been recruited and will be trained to start work on ground in time for East­er 2022. CNPA con­tin­ue to coordin­ate and fin­an­cially sup­port the wider fam­ily of ranger ser­vices with­in the Nation­al Park and part­ners have the oppor­tun­ity to apply for fund­ing to sup­port sea­son­al rangers this sum­mer. Fol­low­ing on from Kick­start scheme last year, we will also be sup­port­ing two Train­ee Rangers and one long-term stu­dent place­ment this summer.

4. Volun­teer­ing and Health Walks: CNPA will train 12 new volun­teer rangers this spring to join the cur­rent team of 38 work­ing in part­ner­ship with rangers across the Nation­al Park. CNPA rangers will re-engage with cur­rent team of juni­or rangers in the Cairngorms, with six to ten young people attend­ing a volun­teer­ing day each month. This sum­mer, Juni­or Ranger train­ing will be offered to pupil’s attend­ing the five sec­ond­ary schools in and around the Cairngorms. There is increased demand for coun­tryside volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies around the CNP and we are work­ing with part­ners to pro­mote their ​‘days out’. Heath walks con­tin­ue to devel­op with fur­ther work planned through the Her­it­age Horizons/​Cairngorms 2030 Pro­ject. A Cairngorms Lit­ter Net­work meet­ing is planned with Keep Scot­land Beau­ti­ful in Mid-March to pro­mote com­munity-based volunteering.

5. Edu­ca­tion and Learn­ing and Inclu­sion: Cairngorms Youth Action Group, sup­por­ted by Cairngorms Trust, is devel­op­ing the Cairngorms Youth Fund, sup­port­ing pro­jects that pro­mote young people’s con­nec­tion to nature. The Our Nat­ur­al Her­it­age part­ner­ship pro­ject will restart in in Spring 2022 encour­aging ​‘New Scots’ (people from any back­ground who have recently immig­rated to Scot­land) from urb­an areas of High­land and Aber­deen to vis­it and enjoy the Nation­al Park.

Plan­ning and Rur­al Development

1. Plan­ning Guid­ance and Nation­al Policy: The work to final­ise the plan­ning guid­ance cov­er­ing Design and Place­mak­ing, Developer Oblig­a­tions and Hous­ing is pro­gress­ing well, and officers will bring form­al reports (on changes to the guid­ance on Design and Place­mak­ing and Developer Oblig­a­tions) to the Com­mit­tee for adop­tion in the next few weeks. The Hous­ing plan­ning guid­ance requires some fur­ther work before tak­ing it back to Com­mit­tee for form­al adop­tion. CNPA will respond to con­sulta­tion on the Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work by end of March.

2. Plan­ning Case­work: The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee has approved a range of devel­op­ments at the monthly Plan­ning Com­mit­tee meet­ings includ­ing the replace­ment of vis­it­or centre at the High­land Wild­life Park, small busi­ness units at the Lion’s Face quarry near Brae­mar, exten­sion of the Dalraddy cara­van park and a new camper-van site near Nethy Bridge, an access­ible accom­mod­a­tion for rent in Glen Tromie, and changes to hous­ing devel­op­ments in Aviemore. The CNPA called in a major plan­ning applic­a­tion for a bat­tery stor­age facil­ity near Boat of Garten in Feb­ru­ary 2022.

3. Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group: The Group met in Feb­ru­ary and dis­cussed ongo­ing eco­nom­ic recov­ery activ­ity and the launch of Scotland’s Nation­al Strategy for Eco­nom­ic Trans­form­a­tion, par­tic­u­larly the need to focus on rur­al issues. Officers from WeALL Scot­land also atten­ded and the Group dis­cussed the plans to devel­op a Well­being Eco­nomy Action Plan as part of the Her­it­age Horizons/​Cairngorms 2030 Project.

4. Cairngorms Tour­ism Part­ner­ship: The Tour­ism Part­ner­ship met in Feb­ru­ary and dis­cussed the feed­back on the NP Part­ner­ship Plan, future plans for the Tour­ism Recov­ery Group and the devel­op­ment of the Tour­ism Action Plan later in the year. The Action Plan will require to be sub­mit­ted to Euro­parc by Decem­ber 2022 to allow re-veri­fic­a­tion of the Nation­al Park for the European Charter for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism in Pro­tec­ted Areas.

5. Hous­ing Deliv­ery: Officers assisted the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship with devel­op­ment of plans for a stronger busi­ness lead on vari­ous aspect of hous­ing pro­vi­sion for work­ers in Badenoch and Strath­spey. Officers are pro­gress­ing dis­cus­sion on a num­ber of key devel­op­ment sites and work has recently com­menced on con­struc­tion (e.g., at Dul­nain Bridge) and is pro­gress­ing well (e.g. with 12 new afford­able houses at Tomin­toul, delivered by the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Devel­op­ment Trust).

6. Com­munity par­ti­cip­a­tion: Work is under­way to pre­pare a new Com­munity Action Plan in Car­rbridge, led by Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey (VABS). The Marr Area Part­ner­ship con­tin­ue to facil­it­ate a range of sim­il­ar pro­jects in the east of the Park. Mean­while, pre­par­a­tions are being made for wide range of work as part of the Her­it­age Horizons/​Cairngorms 2030 Pro­ject. Com­mis­sioned work has been advert­ised on the Pub­lic Con­tracts Scot­land web­site for pro­jects involving com­munity engage­ment and also per­cep­tions of land­scape change. Dis­cus­sion is under­way with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment about the estab­lish­ment of a new Region­al Cli­mate Action Hub for the Park.

7. Badenoch Great Place Pro­ject: The pro­ject has now form­ally closed but leg­acy work con­tin­ues, led by a leg­acy board (chaired by Kar­en Der­rick of VABS) and Badenoch Her­it­age, the com­munity-led SCIO that was estab­lished. Work is under­way to devel­op the Badenoch Story­lands Ses­sions and, to pick up on Scotland’s Year of Stor­ies and work on the Spir­it of the High­lands project.

Stake­hold­er Engagement

1. Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan: Around 40 face-to-face and online ses­sions were car­ried out with a range of audi­ences for NPPP4, includ­ing com­munity groups, schools, farm­ers / oth­er land man­agers and loc­al busi­nesses. Whilst attend­ance was impacted by Cov­id-19, over 500 people and 50+ organ­iz­a­tions were engaged through these activ­it­ies. We plan to con­tin­ue this engage­ment over the months to come to provide stake­hold­ers with clear feed­back on the res­ults and to pro­mote con­nec­tions to Her­it­age Horizons.

   We also com­mis­sioned inde­pend­ent research agency Scot­in­form to con­duct 17 one-to-one inter­views with audi­ences that were under-rep­res­en­ted last time around. This included eth­nic minor­ity groups and audi­ences with access­ib­il­ity needs, as well as land man­agers, loc­al busi­nesses, com­munity groups and health pro­viders. A paid and organ­ic social media advert­ising cam­paign reached nearly 500k people across the form­al and inform­al phases, includ­ing loc­al res­id­ents, work­ers and vis­it­ors to the Park. Con­tent was liked, shared or com­men­ted on 3,673 times. The team also cre­ated a part­ner toolkit of resources for e‑newsletters, social media and print publications.

   In total, we received 1,453 responses as part of the form­al con­sulta­tion, an almost five­fold increase from five years ago. The Plan­ning and Com­mu­nic­a­tions teams have been work­ing through these responses in detail over the past month or so and will share high­lights from this pub­licly over the next few weeks.

2. Her­it­age Hori­zons: Two work­shops were car­ried out in early March with pro­ject leads across all 25 Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­jects, with the aim of map­ping the vari­ous stake­hold­ers we are work­ing with via the pro­gramme, and coordin­at­ing engage­ment activ­it­ies over the next few months. Along­side this, we are pulling togeth­er a fol­low-up pro­mo­tion­al film (nar­rated by a young Gael­ic speak­er from Car­rbridge) that explains how we plan to deliv­er this ambi­tious pro­gramme of work, as well as a series of short pro­ject over­views and ​‘spot­light on’ blog pieces to give audi­ences a bet­ter idea of what each pro­ject involves. Both pro­jects should be com­plete by late March / early April.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions

1. Man­aging for vis­it­ors: Build­ing on the suc­cess­ful man­aging for visitor’s part­ner­ship in 2021 under the #Cairngorm­s­To­geth­er umbrella, we are work­ing with the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, Vis­itScot­land and NatureScot to take for­ward a tar­geted digit­al cam­paign to reach those audi­ences that do not typ­ic­ally engage with our exist­ing chan­nels. The aim is to pos­it­ively influ­ence beha­viour in the plan­ning stages before indi­vidu­als or groups travel to the Nation­al Park, and the cam­paign will dove­tail with nation­al activ­ity (led by Vis­itScot­land), SOAC-spe­cif­ic activ­ity (led by NatureScot) and the exist­ing organ­ic social media activ­ity of CNPA and CBP. Key areas of focus include respons­ible dog walk­ing, wild­fires, wild camp­ing, park­ing issues, and wild swim­ming. The first stage of the cam­paign will go live ahead of the East­er season.

2. Cairngorms Nature: A new web­site for the Cairngorms Nature BIG Week­end is being worked up in time for the first in-per­son pro­gramme for two years. The new site will be fully mobile respons­ive and access­ible and will provide a more straight­for­ward mech­an­ism to pro­mote the vari­ety of events hos­ted by CNPA and part­ners. The event will be pro­moted through a range of loc­al media chan­nels, via door drop to post­codes both in and out­side the Nation­al Park, and via a tar­geted social media campaign.

3. Cor­por­ate Com­mu­nic­a­tions: In addi­tion to NPPP4 pro­mo­tion, press releases were cre­ated to recog­nise the peat­land team win­ning a ​‘Rur­al Nat­ur­al Cap­it­al’ SHIRE award, a new fund for youth pro­jects in the Nation­al Park, CNPA sign­ing up to the Young Person’s Guar­an­tee scheme, the launch of Wee Walks Week, and a vari­ety of plan­ning updates. We also worked with Nation­al Geo­graph­ic and Vis­itScot­land on a paid-for edit­or­i­al called ​‘Scotland’s Story­lands’, pub­lished at the start of the year. The piece fea­tured inter­views with CNPA Ranger Polly Free­man, Merryn Glover, Ham­ish Napi­er, canoe guide Dave Craig and vari­ous oth­er Nation­al Park residents.

   Work is ongo­ing on the 2021 Annu­al Review, which will fea­ture case stud­ies from across CNPA’s rur­al devel­op­ment, con­ser­va­tion and vis­it­or man­age­ment work. As in pre­vi­ous years, this will be pub­lished online and made avail­able via our web­site. We are also cost­ing a hard copy res­id­ents’ news­let­ter, cov­er­ing key areas such as the rol­lout of NPPP4 and Her­it­age Hori­zons, con­ser­va­tion, plan­ning, rur­al devel­op­ment and land man­age­ment updates, and a spot­light on human stor­ies from the Nation­al Park. Depend­ing on budget and staff resource, this is likely to be dis­trib­uted three or four times a year.

4. Web­site and social media: In 2021, we reached 351,820 web­site ses­sions, a 7% increase on the 2020 fig­ure and in line with growth from 2019 (but short of our 400k tar­get). We reached 72,300 fol­low­ers across 3 Face­book pages, I Ins­tagram account, I Linked­In account and 5 Twit­ter accounts. This was an increase of 50% on the pre­vi­ous year. This growth can be attrib­uted to focus­ing on build­ing our Ins­tagram and Linked­In audi­ences, includ­ing reach­ing our end of year goal of 10,000 fol­low­ers on Instagram.

   Our exist­ing web­site is now well over six years old and start­ing to show its age, not least from a usab­il­ity and access­ib­il­ity stand­point (as high­lighted by the recent DAC audit). We have just embarked on a tech­nic­al review our cur­rent site and wider digit­al eco­sys­tem, and will take for­ward facil­it­ated audi­ence-centred work­shops, com­par­at­or bench­mark­ing and user test­ing, to help inform a detailed tech­nic­al spe­cific­a­tion for the new web­site (or web­sites). The tech­nic­al spec will form the basis of a form­al web­site tender, which we hope to devel­op with­in the next six to 12 months, depend­ing on the com­plex­ity of the pro­cess itself.

5. Green Space Dark Skies: This UK-wide will take place between the months of April and Septem­ber, with around 20 events hap­pen­ing in Nation­al Parks and AONBs up and down the coun­try. Led by out­door arts experts Walk the Plank, the aim is to ​‘take the nation on a jour­ney through our Nation­al Parks and AONBs, to a cli­mactic clos­ing moment across the UK that will be broad­cast to mil­lions on the BBC’.

   At the heart of the pro­ject are up to 20,000 so-called ​‘Lumen­at­ors’ – people from all walks of life, each car­ry­ing a low impact light into the land­scape. These lights will be sens­it­ive to the night-time envir­on­ment and will be GPS enabled, mean­ing that the organ­isers can cre­ate unique pat­terns in the land­scape based on where indi­vidu­als are located.

   We’ll be work­ing closely with Walk the Plank, CBP and oth­ers to engage loc­al com­munity groups and busi­nesses in this pro­cess, with a par­tic­u­lar emphas­is on par­ti­cipants from eth­nic minor­ity com­munit­ies, dis­ab­il­ity groups and areas of mul­tiple deprava­tion. All CO2 emis­sions from the events will be tracked and repor­ted on, with the aim of deliv­er­ing a net car­bon pos­it­ive pro­gramme across the six months of operation.

Organ­isa­tion­al Development

1. Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan­ning (BCP): the busi­ness con­tinu­ity team, with extens­ive sup­port from the wider cor­por­ate and com­mu­nic­a­tions groups, is now imple­ment­ing the end of the BCP oper­a­tion­al phase and man­aging a return to office for all staff on a hybrid office / home work­ing arrange­ment. The ini­tial three months imple­ment­a­tion of our hybrid work­ing arrange­ments will be mon­itored and reviewed, with any fur­ther amend­ments imple­men­ted from June 2022. The team are also work­ing to imple­ment effect­ive, robust arrange­ments for hybrid board meetings.

2. Staff­ing update: Since Decem­ber, staff­ing updates are as fol­lows: a) Staff who left the organ­isa­tion were: i. Bruce Mac­Don­ald: fixed term intern­ship (Gael­ic and Comms Intern) came to an end at the end of Decem­ber ii. Douglas Car­chrie: Fixed term intern­ship (Moun­tain Trail Intern) ended in Janu­ary iii. Mar­garet Smith retired as PA to the CEO and Con­vener. b) Intern­al pro­mo­tions, fol­low­ing a com­pet­it­ive intern­al recruit­ment pro­cess were: i. Tania Alli­od was appoin­ted to the Her­it­age Hori­zons post of Learn­ing and Engage­ment Officer, with effect from Decem­ber 2021 ii. Sarah Hen­shall star­ted in her new role as Head of Con­ser­va­tion on | st Janu­ary 2022

   Recruit­ment is cur­rently live for posts that have become vacant as a res­ult of intern­al appoint­ments and retirement/​resignations.

   c) Extern­al appoint­ments, fol­low­ing a com­pet­it­ive extern­al recruit­ment pro­cess were as fol­lows: i. Vicky Hilton was appoin­ted to the fixed term post of Out­door Access Officer, repla­cing Adam Streeter-smith who was pro­moted to Recre­ation and Access Man­ager. She joined the Author­ity in January

ii. Anna Ronayne was appoin­ted to the fixed term HH Sus­tain­able Transport

Officer post, joining the Authority in January

iii. Louise Emslie joined the Author­ity in Feb­ru­ary as HH Green Health

Ranger, fixed term.

iv. Sjo­erd Tel was appoin­ted to the fixed term HH Sus­tain­able Transport

Officer post, joining the Authority in February

v. Moya Mac­don­ald was appoin­ted to the fixed term HH Nature Based

Solutions Officer post, joining the Authority in February

vi. Lewis Pâté was appoin­ted to the fixed term HH Nature Based Solutions

Officer post, joining the Authority in February

All the Heritage Horizons posts were successfully recruited

1. Youth Employ­ment: a) Gradu­ate posts: i. Calum Guy star­ted as Gradu­ate Train­ee Account­ant in Janu­ary. Fixed term post ii. Craig Lewis star­ted as Gradu­ate Train­ee Account­ant in Feb­ru­ary. Fixed term post. b) Work Place­ments: — CNPA is host­ing and envir­on­ment­al sci­ence stu­dent at UHI on a two-week work place­ment. This is part of a pro­gramme that we run with UHI to provide stu­dents an oppor­tun­ity to see what the world of work is like in the envir­on­ment­al sector.

   CNPA is a Young Per­sons’ Guar­an­tee recog­nised organ­isa­tion. In addi­tion to focus­sing on Youth Employ­ment, the HR team will be work­ing with the two loc­al sec­ond­ary schools on employ­ab­il­ity skills.

2. Shared Ser­vices: Con­tin­ued work to provide HR and payroll sup­port to the Scot­tish Land Commission.

3. Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment: The Best Com­pan­ies sur­vey was com­pleted by 77% of our staff. CNPA was lis­ted on 3 of the Best Com­pan­ies league tables – Sec­tor, Region and Medi­um sized organ­isa­tion. The res­ults are cur­rently being con­sul­ted with staff and will inform the next iter­a­tion of the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy.

4. Cairngorms Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el (EAP): 3 new mem­bers were recruited to the EAP, join­ing in Janu­ary. They are Lili­ana Cor­ri­ere, Lina Payne and Rebecca Vin­all. The pan­el meets monthly, chaired by the Boards Equal­ity Cham­pi­on, Fiona McLean.

5. LEADER/​Cairngorms Trust: The 2014 to 2021 LEAD­ER pro­gramme has now been closed. The team are man­aging the effect­ive close­down and ensur­ing our records are ​“audit ready” for any domest­ic or EU led audit of the Cairngorms or Scot­tish LEAD­ER Pro­gramme. The Cairngorms Trust achieved the imple­ment­a­tion of new integ­rated trans­port sig­nage out­side Aviemore rail sta­tion, in part­ner­ship with HITRANS, and has com­pleted a year of free ebike loans to res­id­ents in sup­port of health and well­being improve­ments. The team are also bring­ing the £50,000 ​“Test­ing Change” fund to a close, which has fun­ded the activ­ity of a Youth Loc­al Action Group

(Youth LAG) and a ​“Green Change Fund” of com­munity led cli­mate and nature action pro­jects. The team are now also sup­port­ing the Her­it­age Hori­zons Com­munity Grants pro­ject, blend­ing work sup­port­ing Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment LEAD­ER replace­ment ini­ti­at­ives with the devel­op­ment of com­munity grant struc­tures with­in the Cairngorms 2030: Her­it­age Hori­zons Programme.

1. Cairngorms Trust: Char­ity activ­it­ies and vol­un­tary giv­ing: the Cairngorms Trust is seek­ing to rein­vig­or­ate the devel­op­ment and roll out of vol­un­tary giv­ing oppor­tun­it­ies across the Cairngorms. Dona­tions of around £1,800 were received in the last quarter, with full year dona­tions expec­ted in the range of £6,000 to £9,000 des­pite ongo­ing sig­ni­fic­ant dis­rup­tion from COVID19 impacts. The Trust aims to revis­it the busi­ness plan for the devel­op­ment of the vol­un­tary giv­ing scheme in the early part of 2022, with a view to sig­ni­fic­antly increas­ing the scale of vol­un­tary and oth­er char­it­able dona­tions by ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

Grant Moir March 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper | 25^th March 2022

Board Con­vener Report – For Information

Con­veners Update

We were delighted to wel­come our new Min­is­ter, Lor­na Slater MSP, for a vis­it in Decem­ber. The vis­it covered a wide range of site vis­its on top­ics includ­ing: wood­land expan­sion; peat­land res­tor­a­tion; farm­ing; afford­able hous­ing; act­ive travel and green skills. This vis­it offered a great over­view to the wide range of work under­taken by the Park Author­ity across deliv­er­ing the four aims.

Mem­bers will be aware of the on-going access issues at the Ben Alder Level Cross­ing in Dal­whin­nie. Deirdre Fal­con­er, Mur­ray Fer­guson and I met with com­munity and landown­er rep­res­ent­at­ives to dis­cuss their con­cerns. Mur­ray Fer­guson has been attend­ing meet­ings with Net­work Rail and stake­hold­er rep­res­ent­at­ives and it is our inten­tion that fol­low­ing the most recent of these meet­ings that I will write to the Chair of Net­work Rail and Trans­port Scot­land to express our con­cerns as the access authority.

I was invited by Jack­ie Brier­ton, CEO of Grow­biz and a mem­ber the Advis­ory Coun­cil to attend Scotland’s Nation­al Strategy for Eco­nom­ic Trans­form­a­tion launch in Dun­dee. The strategy was launched by Kate For­bes MSP, Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Fin­ance & Eco­nomy, with a strong focus on deliv­ery and max­im­ising poten­tial with­in cur­rent pub­lic bod­ies and powers. Part of the strategy is about tack­ling region­al inequal­it­ies and we will con­tin­ue to engage with all our rel­ev­ant stat­utory and non-stat­utory part­ners around driv­ing loc­al eco­nom­ic growth.

Most recently Grant Moir and I met with Lor­na Slater MSP, to update her on the cur­rent pro­gress of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan devel­op­ment. This was a very pos­it­ive meet­ing and the Min­is­ter hopes to vis­it the Park again soon to see more of the part­ner­ship work we do in the Park.

Extern­al Engage­ments (1^st Decem­ber 2021 – 18 March 2022)

In addi­tion to sched­uled Board meet­ings and intern­al meet­ings, I have atten­ded the fol­low­ing extern­al engage­ments in my capa­city as Con­vener of the Board since our last Board meeting.

Date	Engage­ment	Ven­ue
06/12/21	Min­is­teri­al Vis­it with Lor­na Slater MSP, Min­is­ter for Green Skills, Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy and Biod­iversity and Grant Moir, CNPA CEO	Badenoch and Strath­spey Area
21/12/21	Meet­ing with com­munity and landown­er rep­res­ent­at­ives at Ben Alder Level Cross­ing with Deirdre Fal­con­er and Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or Plan­ning & Place	Ben Alder Level Cross­ing, Dalwhinnie
01/03/22	Launch of the Nation­al Eco­nom­ic Strategy by Kate For­bes MSP, Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Fin­ance & Economy	Dun­dee
17/03/22	Min­is­teri­al Meet­ing with Lor­na Slater MSP, Min­is­ter for Green Skills, Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy and Biod­iversity and Grant Moir, CNPA CEO	Vir­tu­al

Xan­der McDade Board Convener