260121 Minutes

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY UGH­DAR­RAS PAIRC NAISEANTA A’ MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

Cairngorms Equal­ity Advis­ory Panel

Tues­day 26^th Janu­ary 2021

5:00pm — 6:30pm — Held virtually

Minutes

Present: |Anita Howard|Anna Phil­brick| | — -| — -| |Bo Gorley|Celia Sweeney| |Gemma Hendry|Heather Earn­shaw| |Kev­in Hutchens|Kristeen Alis­on| |Linda Bamford|Peter Kennedy| |Stu­art Hall|Vanessa Altweck|

In Attend­ance: |Fiona McLean (CNPA, Chair)|Gail Richard­son (Cap­tion­er)| | — -| — -| |Grant Moir (CNPA)|Heather Trench (CNPA)| |Kate Christie (CNPA)|Katherine Will­ing (CNPA, Notes)| |Louisa McDaid (Captioner)|Oliver Dav­ies (CNPA)| |Vicky Walk­er (CNPA)||

1. Wel­come and Introduction

1.1. Fiona wel­comed every­one and intro­duced Heath­er Trench who was attend­ing to speak about the vis­it­or sur­vey, Grant Moir, CEO of CNPA and new head of com­mu­nic­a­tions Oliv­er Dav­ies. 1.2. The pre­vi­ous meet­ing notes and action log were agreed upon.

1. Pan­el Mem­bers Experience

2.1. This week’s pan­el mem­ber talk reflec­ted on his life exper­i­ences and how this had this had encour­aged him to become involved in equal­ity issues. 2.2. The pan­el mem­ber dis­cussed a range of issues and why they were import­ant touch­ing on afford­able accom­mod­a­tion, hous­ing and grant sup­port, explain­ing how these areas help people to improve their situ­ation. The pan­el mem­ber also dis­cussed pro­vi­sion for res­pite for carers and link­ing indi­vidu­als to share their exper­i­ence and know­ledge. 2.3. The bene­fit sys­tem was dis­cussed and how this often is not suf­fi­cient and there­fore grant sup­port is needed. The pan­el mem­ber also reflec­ted on self-advocacy. 2.4. The pan­el mem­ber explained that a mech­an­ism to help causes/​campaigns gain more recog­ni­tion could be to involve someone recognisable/​well known to sup­port the cause, such as, when they worked on a pro­ject advoc­at­ing for access to the coun­tryside for dis­abled people he gained sup­port from the Earl of Wessex.

Response from the Group

2.5. The chair asked if there were any ques­tions and reminded the group that they are able to send ques­tions to the equal­it­ies email address.

1. Cairngorms Vis­it­or Sur­vey — Heath­er Trench

3.1. The group were asked to con­sider the find­ings and advice on any future amend­ments of the data gathered. Heath­er dis­cussed the research explain­ing that they are face-to-face inter­views that take place across the park every five years. The team aim to get a rep­res­ent­at­ive selec­tion of times and loc­a­tions. Due to Coronavir­us the inter­views had to stop early but the team was still pleased with the amount of inter­views com­pleted. 3.2. The sur­vey iden­ti­fied three vis­it­or groups which are still under rep­res­ent­at­ive of the pop­u­la­tion; C2 and DE socio eco­nom­ic groups, Black Asi­an and Minor­ity Eth­nic (BAME) groups and those with a dis­ab­il­ity or parties who had an indi­vidu­al with a dis­ab­il­ity in their group. All groups had made some pro­gress but are not rep­res­ent­at­ive of the pop­u­la­tion. The sample size for these groups is small but par­tic­u­larly small for BAME par­ti­cipants. 3.3. There con­tin­ues to be a good split between age groups, age groups tend to vary sea­son­ally. Heath­er dis­cussed the break­down of age of vis­it­ors and the ori­gin of vis­it­ors and how this related to the make-up of under-rep­res­en­ted groups. 3.4. Heath­er dis­cussed the aver­age over­all rat­ing that vis­it­ors are asked to give. It was the highest it had ever been. Heath­er dis­cussed this in rela­tion to the three under-rep­res­en­ted groups and how this linked with sea­son­al pat­terns. Heath­er also dis­cussed the scor­ing of facil­it­ies, what groups thought of their vis­it, and any improve­ments sug­ges­ted. This was also dis­cussed in rela­tion to how under-rep­res­en­ted groups answered. 3.5. Heath­er also gave a short review of research done through­out Cov­id-19 and post lockdown’s data and the implic­a­tions that this will have on future vis­it­ors seen in Cairngorm Nation­al Park.

Feed­back from the Group

3.6. There was wide dis­cus­sion on the data and how this should be ana­lysed. It was felt it would be use­ful to have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the ​‘oth­er’ answers as there was a large per­cent­age of par­ti­cipants who answered this way. It was also sug­ges­ted that it would be use­ful to under­take ana­lys­is on wheth­er there was any inter­sec­tion­al­ity between the three under­rep­res­en­ted groups. It was sug­ges­ted des­pite the small sample of BAME responses it would be use­ful to dis­ag­greg­ate this data. It was import­ant to con­tin­ue to break down the sug­ges­tions of what could be improved into sub­groups, under­rep­res­en­ted groups are a smal­ler sample so their responses will not show on the main top four. This way you are then able to use that to focus strategy to encour­age vis­it­ors from these groups. Finally, it was sug­ges­ted that it may be use­ful to do cross ana­lys­is with Euan’s guide how­ever there was a note that Euan’s guide can be mis­lead­ing as it is based on one wheel­chair users exper­i­ence, access pan­els tend to be more accur­ate. 3.7. There were a num­ber of ques­tions pro­posed for future sur­veys. It was sug­ges­ted there should be ques­tions sur­round­ing access­ible accom­mod­a­tion and fur­ther ques­tion­ing on how easy it is to book, the oppor­tun­ity of face-to-face inter­views should be util­ised and people may not be com­fort­able vol­un­tar­ily talk­ing about those exper­i­ences. Future ques­tions also sug­ges­ted includ­ing ele­ments to under­stand LGB­TQI+ vis­it­ors as it is recog­nised in research that this group often face bar­ri­ers with vis­it­ing rur­al areas. It was also thought to be import­ant to ask vis­it­ors what would encour­age them to return to the park. 3.8. There were a num­ber of sug­ges­tions on how to attract more diverse vis­it­or groups. The search func­tion did not work prop­erly on mobile which means there is miss­ing digit­al access­ib­il­ity. It was sug­ges­ted that the CNPA web­site and social chan­nels would bene­fit from more equal­ity and diversity con­tent. It was felt increas­ing access­ible toi­lets and par­tic­u­larly increas­ing chan­ging places toi­lets would attract a diverse range of vis­it­ors. It would be of bene­fit to com­pile a guide which lis­ted and linked access­ible accom­mod­a­tion, toi­lets, foot­paths and off road wheel­chairs to make this easy for vis­it­ors, advert­ised on the CNPA web­site. Sim­il­arly, com­pil­ing a map with all the pic­nic spaces on.

1. Cov­id Equal­ity Impact Assess­ment (EQIA)

4.1. Vicky and Kate expressed thanks to all who con­trib­uted and sent in sug­ges­tions. 4.2. The group was asked to con­tin­ue to send any good prac­tice they are aware of as this is a work­ing doc­u­ment that focuses on CNPA employ­ees. 4.3. CNPA have begun to imple­ment the feed­back already, a par­ent group has been set up and the resources sign­posted in feed­back will go into the CNPA Well­being email.

The next meet­ing will be on the 23^rd of February.

END OF MEETING