CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 25 March 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: CODE OF CONDUCT

Pre­pared by: DAV­ID CAMER­ON, DIR­ECT­OR OF COR­POR­ATE SER­VICES AND DEPUTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Pur­pose

This paper presents the revised Mod­el Code of Con­duct issued by the Stand­ards Com­mis­sions for Scot­land for Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Bod­ies (NDPBs), togeth­er with updated guid­ance accom­pa­ny­ing the Mod­el Code.

The paper seeks the Board’s agree­ment to adopt the revised Mod­el Code as the Code of Con­duct for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to: a) Approve the adop­tion of the revised Mod­el Code of Con­duct for Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Bod­ies in full and without amend­ment as the Cairngorms NPAs Code of Conduct.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 25 March 2022

Stra­tegic Context

1. The revised Mod­el Code of Con­duct for Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Bod­ies (NDPBs) was approved by Scot­tish Par­lia­ment on 7 Decem­ber 2021. Mem­bers have pre­vi­ously been made aware of and received cop­ies of the revised Mod­el Code and accom­pa­ny­ing updated guid­ance issued by the Stand­ards Com­mis­sion for Scot­land (“the Com­mis­sion”). For ease of ref­er­ence in hand­ling this item of board busi­ness, the revised Mod­el Code is provided in full again as Annex I to this paper and the accom­pa­ny­ing guid­ance doc­u­ment as Annex 2.

2. Scot­tish Government’s expect­a­tion is that NDPB’s will adopt the revised Mod­el Code with­in six months of its approv­al by Parliament.

Sig­ni­fic­ant Changes in the revised Mod­el Code

1. A present­a­tion developed by the Com­mis­sion set­ting out the sig­ni­fic­ant changes to the Code is avail­able at: Stand­ard Present­a­tions & Train­ing | The Stand­ards Com­mis­sion for Scot­land.

2. In review­ing the revised Mod­el Code and sup­port­ing Guid­ance the fol­low­ing sig­ni­fic­ant changes to present­a­tion and con­tent of the Mod­el Code appear worthy of highlighting:

a. Dif­fer­ent lan­guage style used through­out of ​“my” and ​“I” inten­ded to rein­force to the board mem­ber their indi­vidu­al respons­ib­il­ity in adher­ing to the Code.

b. Para­graph 1.5 of the Code brings in a spe­cif­ic, expli­cit pro­vi­sion of when the Code is deemed to apply under a new head­ing of ​“My Respons­ib­il­it­ies”. ​“I will com­ply with the sub­stant­ive pro­vi­sions of this Code, being sec­tions 3 to 6 inclus­ive, in ALL situ­ations and at ALL times when I am act­ing as a board mem­ber of my pub­lic body, have referred to myself as a board mem­ber or could object­ively be con­sidered to be act­ing as a board mem­ber.” [Emphas­is added] This rep­res­ents a sig­ni­fic­ant update to the Code in terms of when the Code applies. Para­graphs 7 to 12 of the guid­ance doc­u­ment helps to explain this new pro­vi­sion of the Code.

c. The applic­a­tion of the Code to vari­ous social media situ­ations is very well sup­por­ted in explan­a­tion and example through­out the guid­ance doc­u­ment. The Code itself does not go into detail with regard to sep­ar­a­tion of ​“phys­ic­al” face to face activ­ity and social media activ­ity, with the guid­ance rein­for­cing that mem­bers may be object­ively con­sidered to be act­ing as a board mem­ber in either of these cir­cum­stances. The guid­ance doc­u­ment makes clear that inter­ac­tions through social media can impact adher­ence with the code in a vari­ety of ways.

d. The revi­sion to sec­tion 2 and para­graphs 2.1 and 2.2 now much more clearly set out the inter­ac­tion of the key prin­ciples of pub­lic life with the sub­stant­ive pro­vi­sions of the Code.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 25 March 2022

e. Para­graph 3.7 picks up the work we have done intern­ally last year on the Gov­ernance Respons­ib­il­ity State­ment: ​“Except where it is writ­ten into my role as a board mem­ber, and / or at the invit­a­tion of the Chief Exec­ut­ive, I will not become involved in oper­a­tion­al man­age­ment of my pub­lic body. I acknow­ledge and under­stand that oper­a­tion­al man­age­ment is the respons­ib­il­ity of the Chief Exec­ut­ive and the Exec­ut­ive team”. This brings a more expli­cit focus on this area of under­stand­ing respect­ive respons­ib­il­it­ies into the Code and is rein­forced at vari­ous points in the accom­pa­ny­ing guidance.

f. Para­graph 3.11 makes col­lect­ive respons­ib­il­ity an expli­cit aspect of NDPB board mem­ber­ship. This was not drawn out with such focus pre­vi­ously. ​“I will respect the prin­ciple of col­lect­ive decision mak­ing and cor­por­ate respons­ib­il­ity. This means that once the board has made a decision, I will sup­port that decision, even if I did not agree with it or vote for it.” This is well sup­por­ted and illus­trated in para­graphs 57 to 59 of the guid­ance and the example, which makes clear this pro­vi­sion also applies to social media interactions.

g. Sec­tion 5 rep­res­ents a sig­ni­fic­ant improve­ment in set­ting out in a stage by stage pro­cess the con­sid­er­a­tion of declar­a­tions of interest, though con­sid­er­ing wheth­er there is any con­nec­tion with an item of busi­ness; wheth­er there is an interest that needs a declar­a­tion and with­draw­al from a meet­ing or part of a meet­ing; and wheth­er in the interest of trans­par­ency to pub­licly state a con­nec­tion to an item of busi­ness which does not amount to an interest. This is also very thor­oughly sup­por­ted in the guid­ance doc­u­ment in para­graphs 130 to 164.

Stra­tegic Policy Considerations

1. Mem­bers are reques­ted to con­sider the revised Mod­el Code and: a) Con­sider wheth­er any amend­ments to the Mod­el require to be made pri­or to adop­tion by Cairngorms NPA; b) Con­sider wheth­er any spe­cif­ic points of the revised Mod­el Code require fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion and / or spe­cif­ic training.

2. Officers have not iden­ti­fied any ele­ments of the revised Mod­el Code which require amendment.

3. A sup­ple­ment­ary update issued by Scot­tish Government’s Pub­lic Bod­ies Unit has made expli­cit that they do not expect any devi­ation from the Mod­el Code in the main body of text adop­ted by pub­lic bod­ies. Pub­lic Bod­ies’ revised codes should also use the same para­graph num­ber­ing as the Mod­el Code for con­sist­ency of ref­er­ence across NDPBs. The Pub­lic Bod­ies Unit indic­ate that as the Mod­el Code has been approved by Par­lia­ment and con­tains leg­al terms of ref­er­ence enforce­able by the Stand­ards Com­mis­sion for Scot­land (SCS) it is vitally import­ant that revised Codes keep that con­sist­ency throughout.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 25 March 2022

1. Fur­ther­more, Pub­lic Bod­ies Unit have indic­ated that loc­ally gen­er­ated guid­ance should not be inser­ted into the Code nor the guid­ance doc­u­ment issued by SCS.

2. As such, the recom­mend­a­tion to the board is for the adop­tion of the revised Mod­el Code in full and without amend­ment. The Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive has been involved in a num­ber of rounds of con­sulta­tion on the devel­op­ment of this revised Mod­el Code and is of the opin­ion that it is suit­able fpr adop­tion in its presen­ted form, and indeed an improve­ment on the cur­rent Cairngorms NΡΑ.

3. Should the board believe now, or at any time in the future in light of exper­i­ence of applic­a­tion of the Code, there is a need for modi­fic­a­tion to either the Code or sup­port­ing guid­ance, the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive will coordin­ate devel­op­ment of a rationale for amend­ment with the board or an iden­ti­fied sub-com­mit­tee for sub­mis­sion to and con­sid­er­a­tion by SCS.

Stra­tegic Risk Management

1. There are no spe­cif­ic stra­tegic risk man­age­ment implic­a­tions with­in the pro­pos­als presen­ted to the board in this paper. Adop­tion of the revised Mod­el Code should provide fur­ther enhance­ment to the clar­ity and under­stand­ing of gov­ernance and board respons­ib­il­it­ies with­in Cairngorms NPΡΑ.

Next Steps

1. Fol­low­ing con­sid­er­a­tion by the board, we will com­mu­nic­ate the decision to the Com­mis­sion and agree an imple­ment­a­tion date. The agreed imple­ment­a­tion date will be com­mu­nic­ated to all members.

2. We will arrange full train­ing for mem­bers on the Code of Con­duct. This is likely to be put in place toward the end of the cal­en­dar year to accom­mod­ate the cur­rent timetable for loc­al author­ity and min­is­teri­al appoint­ments to the board, with repeat train­ing put in place to accom­mod­ate any changes arising from dir­ect elec­tions to the board in 2023.

3. In the mean­time, the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive remains avail­able to provide advice and sup­port to mem­bers on com­pli­ance with the Code.

Dav­id Camer­on davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

3 March 2022