250124Paper12024-25BudgetMonitoring

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Paper 1 Resources Com­mit­tee 24 Janu­ary 2025 Page 1 of 4

For dis­cus­sion Title: Budget mon­it­or­ing Pre­pared by: Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Purpose

1. This paper sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of Novem­ber — month 8 of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Resources Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

Over­view

1. Annex 1 provides a sum­mary of expendit­ure against the pro­filed budget.

2. Total expendit­ure at the end of the Novem­ber was 51% of the annu­al budget; our expendit­ure pro­file con­tin­ues to run ahead of the pat­tern seen in pri­or years.

3. Expect­a­tions remain for an out­turn fore­cast of full expendit­ure being achieved and sup­por­ted by avail­able resources, with the pos­sible excep­tion of the peat­land budget. Budget in the order of £200,000 remains unal­loc­ated, and there­fore at risk of under­spend. Presently, the amount is being held as a ​‘con­tin­gency’ to cov­er poten­tial cost increases on com­mit­ted and con­trac­ted pro­jects. The cur­rent repor­ted pos­i­tion may there­fore nar­row fur­ther in the final quarter of the year. This pos­i­tion is under review and draw-down of funds will be man­aged accord­ing to need.

Budget changes

1. Budget real­loc­a­tions are set out in the budget change log provided at Annex 2. They are also reflec­ted in the sum­mary budget pos­i­tion presen­ted in Annex 1.

2. Since the last report provided to the Com­mit­tee, budget has been real­loc­ated to sup­port Act­ive Travel pro­jects with­in the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme (C2030). The Author­ity has already made the annu­al con­tri­bu­tion of £450,000 to which it is Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Paper 1 Resources Com­mit­tee 24 Janu­ary 2025 Page 2 of 4

form­ally com­mit­ted. In addi­tion, how­ever, the Exec­ut­ive approved the advance from future planned fund­ing of addi­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions as follows:

£,000 Payroll budget – vacancy sav­ings 200 Planned vis­it­or infra­struc­ture pro­jects unlikely to go ahead in 2024 – 25 90 Total real­loc­ated 290

The Park Author­ity is com­mit­ted to an annu­al con­tri­bu­tion of £450,000 to the C2030 pro­gramme — £2.25 mil­lion over the life of the pro­ject. To date, £900,000 has been paid, and the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ budget includes alloc­a­tion of a fur­ther tranche of £450,000, leav­ing £900,000 as com­mit­ted fund­ing sched­uled for pay­ment in ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ and ²⁰²⁷⁄₂₈.

1. This advance, from the remain­ing £900,000 com­mit­ted, will provide con­tin­gency in sup­port of the devel­op­ment of Stage ³⁄₄ designs for two major act­ive travel pro­jects. These are sig­ni­fic­ant con­struc­tion pro­jects that are a major ele­ment of the C2030 pro­gramme. They cur­rently have no secured fund­ing, and work to devel­op them is becom­ing time-crit­ic­al, fol­low­ing a one-year hiatus in fund­ing from Sus­trans / Trans­port Scot­land. While there is optim­ism that pro­ject fund­ing will be made avail­able in due course, cur­rent delays present a high risk for their com­ple­tion dur­ing the lifespan of the C2030 pro­gramme. Pro­vi­sion of an advance of fund­ing in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ (and sub­sequently in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ see Paper 2) provides mit­ig­a­tion against risks arising from fur­ther delay.

Staff and Board

1. Con­tin­ued under­spend against the payroll budget to the end of Novem­ber has facil­it­ated the real­loc­a­tion of budget to C2030 as described above.

2. The annu­al pay award was imple­men­ted in Novem­ber, provid­ing bet­ter cer­tainty over the likely out­turn of staff costs to the year end. This has been an unusu­al year dur­ing which there have been sig­ni­fic­ant staff move­ments and recruit­ments, with core staff tak­ing up roles in the C2030 pro­gramme, and core vacan­cies need­ing to be back­filled. The sav­ings arising from vacan­cies and recruit­ment delays have res­ul­ted in sig­ni­fic­ant space with­in the payroll budget. Resource has now been real­loc­ated from the staff budget to meet oth­er oper­a­tion­al needs. The remain­ing favour­able vari­ance of £58,000 allows some flex­ib­il­ity towards the year-end. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Paper 1 Resources Com­mit­tee 24 Janu­ary 2025 Page 3 of 4

Pro­gramme management

1. While most pro­jects with­in the pro­gramme are pro­gress­ing well, the mit­ig­a­tion of risk asso­ci­ated with the Act­ive Travel pro­jects has required addi­tion­al fund­ing of £290,000 to be alloc­ated from core resources, and for pro­vi­sion to be made in the core ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ budget for addi­tion­al sup­port of £338,000.

2. Test­ing of pro­jec­ted salary costs for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ against the C2030 payroll budget (developed when the applic­a­tion to Nation­al Lot­tery was made) has con­firmed the suf­fi­ciency of budget for staff costs for the com­ing year.

3. Recov­ery of costs through grant claims has been straight­for­ward, with no expendit­ure turned back by Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF).

Over­heads

1. Over­all, run­ning costs are under the phased budget for the peri­od. This vari­ance is largely the res­ult of delayed spend­ing on repairs and main­ten­ance. The com­mit­ment of this budget will be reviewed at the start of quarter 4.

Oper­a­tion­al plan

1. Oper­a­tion­al plan expendit­ure shows an under­spend of £170,000 against the phased budget. The £200,000 unal­loc­ated budget for peat­land res­tor­a­tion is a sig­ni­fic­ant con­trib­ut­or to this repor­ted under­spend, with oth­er ser­vices deliv­er­ing close to budget expectations.

2. In the first half of the year, there was very little cash-based expendit­ure against the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ peat­land res­tor­a­tion budget. How­ever, most of the work on pro­jects car­ried over from the pri­or year is now com­plete. The recor­ded spend of £802,000 relates to work on pro­jects fun­ded from the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ budget.

Grant-in-aid

1. Draw down of grant-in-aid has been made accord­ing to the plan sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment at the start of the year. It provides cash flow to meet organ­isa­tion­al need for both core activ­it­ies and the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) pro­gramme. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Paper 1 Resources Com­mit­tee 24 Janu­ary 2025 Page 4 of 4

Sum­mary

1. The report provides inform­a­tion on a) expendit­ure on core activ­it­ies to the end of Novem­ber (peri­od 8) and b) details of budget real­loc­a­tions made over the course of the year.

2. The pro­jec­ted out­turn is with­in budget, with risks iden­ti­fied around: a) Fin­an­cial resources advanced to sup­port Act­ive Travel pro­jects with­in the C2030 pro­gramme, and b) Peat­land res­tor­a­tion, where £200,000 of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ budget is cur­rently unal­loc­ated while sub­ject to poten­tial cost increases in con­trac­ted projects.

Louise Allen 09 Janu­ary 2025 louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk