Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Annu­al Pro­cure­ment Report Fin­an­cial Year 2025 – 2026

Con­tents

1. Intro­duc­tion 1.1. About the Cairngorms Nation­al Park 1.2. Pro­cure­ment strategy
2. Sum­mary of reg­u­lated procurements 2.1. Types of procurement 2.2. Sum­mary of pro­cure­ment activity 2.3. Reg­u­lated procurements 2.4. Unreg­u­lated procurements
3. Review of Pro­cure­ment Compliance 3.1. Deliv­er­ing our priorities
4. Future pro­cure­ments
5. Sum­mary Appen­dices Appendix A — Unreg­u­lated procurements Appendix B — Future pro­cure­ments

1. Intro­duc­tion

1.1. About the Cairngorms Nation­al Park

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the UK’s largest nation­al park at 4,528km² and is home to one quarter of the UK’s rare and endangered spe­cies. Around 18,000 people live in the Nation­al Park across the areas of Aber­deen­shire, Angus, High­land, Moray and Perth­shire, with two mil­lion vis­it­ors enjoy­ing this spe­cial place every year.

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (the Park Author­ity) is the organ­isa­tion that was set up to ensure that the unique aspects of the Cairngorms – the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment of the Nation­al Park, its wild­life, and its people – are looked after, both now and in the future. The Park Author­ity provides lead­er­ship to all those involved in the Cairngorms, and works in part­ner­ship with a range of com­munit­ies, busi­nesses, non-gov­ern­ment organ­isa­tions and pub­lic sec­tor part­ners to deliv­er prac­tic­al solu­tions on the ground.

Our vis­ion is for ​‘an out­stand­ing Nation­al Park enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where people and nature thrive togeth­er’. To achieve this, the Park Author­ity has four dis­tinct aims, as set out in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000:

1. To con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area.
2. To pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the public.
3. To pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area.
4. To pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s communities.

Our core work is under­pinned by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and the declar­a­tion of a nature and cli­mate emergency.

1.2. Pro­cure­ment strategy

The Park Authority’s Pro­cure­ment Strategy was approved by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee in Septem­ber 2024 and is sub­ject to ongo­ing review to ensure con­tinu­ous devel­op­ment and align­ment with evolving organ­isa­tion­al pri­or­it­ies, reg­u­lat­ory require­ments and best practice.

The Park Authority’s Pro­cure­ment Strategy estab­lishes a clear and struc­tured approach to sourcing goods, ser­vices and works in sup­port of deliv­er­ing its stra­tegic object­ives and ensur­ing the effect­ive stew­ard­ship of pub­lic funds. It sets out how pro­cure­ment activ­ity under­pins the Park Authority’s wider oper­a­tion­al deliv­ery mod­el, which com­bines in-house expert­ise, grant fund­ing to third-party organ­isa­tions, and the engage­ment of extern­al sup­pli­ers. All pro­cure­ment activ­ity is under­taken in full com­pli­ance with the rel­ev­ant legis­lat­ive frame­work, includ­ing the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Reform (Scot­land) Act 2014, the Pub­lic Con­tracts (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2015 and the Pro­cure­ment (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2016.

The strategy is designed to align closely with the Park Authority’s over­all stra­tegic pri­or­it­ies and to remain respons­ive to the evolving needs of its ser­vice areas. It pro­motes an agile and pro­por­tion­ate approach to pro­cure­ment, enabling oper­a­tion­al teams to access the goods, ser­vices and works required to deliv­er pro­grammes effect­ively. A cent­ral aim is to ensure that resources are avail­able at the right time, at the appro­pri­ate qual­ity, and at the best achiev­able value. In this con­text, the role of pro­cure­ment is both enabling and stra­tegic, sup­port­ing deliv­ery while ensur­ing strong gov­ernance and value for money across all spending.

Key object­ives set out in the strategy include secur­ing best value from all pro­cure­ment activ­ity, oper­at­ing in a lean and effi­cient man­ner, and pos­i­tion­ing the Park Author­ity as a val­ued and respons­ible cus­tom­er. The Park Author­ity is also com­mit­ted to achiev­ing wider social, eco­nom­ic and envir­on­ment­al out­comes through its pro­cure­ment prac­tices. This includes trad­ing only with eth­ic­al sup­pli­ers, redu­cing the envir­on­ment­al impact of its sup­ply chain, and con­trib­ut­ing pos­it­ively to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. The strategy fur­ther sup­ports com­munity wealth build­ing ambi­tions by encour­aging the cap­ture of com­munity bene­fits through pro­cure­ment, which will be advanced through a com­ple­ment­ary meth­od­o­logy aligned with the Park Authority’s broad­er well­being eco­nomy approach.

To man­age the inher­ent chal­lenges of pub­lic pro­cure­ment, the strategy estab­lishes a frame­work for identi­fy­ing and mit­ig­at­ing key risks, includ­ing com­mer­cial, tech­nic­al, per­form­ance, con­trac­tu­al and leg­al risks. This ensures that pro­cure­ment exer­cises are robust, con­tracts are effect­ively man­aged, and anti­cip­ated bene­fits are real­ised over their full lifecycle.

Through its pro­cure­ment pro­cesses, the Park Author­ity pro­motes fair work prac­tices, includ­ing the pay­ment of the Scot­tish Liv­ing Wage, and encour­ages sup­pli­ers to con­trib­ute to skills devel­op­ment through appren­tice­ships and train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies where appro­pri­ate. Efforts are made to increase access­ib­il­ity for small and medi­um-sized enter­prises (SMEs) and third sec­tor organ­isa­tions by adopt­ing pro­por­tion­ate approaches to ten­der­ing, includ­ing the use of lot­ting to remove unne­ces­sary bar­ri­ers to participation.

In addi­tion, the strategy places strong emphas­is on innov­a­tion and sus­tain­ab­il­ity. Pro­cure­ment spe­cific­a­tions are increas­ingly out­comes-focused, enabling sup­pli­ers to pro­pose cre­at­ive and sus­tain­able solu­tions. Through this com­pre­hens­ive approach, pro­cure­ment serves as a key ena­bler of the Park Authority’s stra­tegic ambi­tions and long-term value creation.

2. Sum­mary of reg­u­lated procurements

2.1. Types of procurement

Reg­u­lated pro­cure­ment is defined by the Pro­cure­ment Reform (Scot­land) Act 2014 as:

• the pur­chase of goods and ser­vices with an estim­ated value of £50,000 or great­er (exclud­ing VAT)
• pub­lic works with an estim­ated value of £2,000,000 or great­er (exclud­ing VAT)

Com­pet­it­ive pro­cure­ment applies to any require­ment with an aggreg­ate value exceed­ing £5,000 up to £50,000, which are low-risk and non-repet­it­ive in nature.

For con­tracts between £10,000 – 25,000, the Park Author­ity pro­cure­ment policy requires to seek at least 3 tenders using a writ­ten spe­cific­a­tion, where the eval­u­ation cri­ter­ia must be applied and pub­lished. Pro­cess is to be under­taken via Pub­lic Con­tracts Scot­land Quick Quote facil­ity (PCS) and man­aged by Procurement.

For con­tracts between £25,000 and £49,999, the policy dic­tates that open com­pet­i­tion must be applied by using a writ­ten spe­cific­a­tion and eval­u­ation cri­ter­ia. This Pro­cess is under­taken via PCS.

The Park Author­ity fol­lows the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Pro­cure­ment Jour­ney guid­ance for all pro­cure­ments that fall below reg­u­lated thresholds, except where a non-com­pet­it­ive award is demon­strably justified.

Table 1. Defin­i­tions of pro­cure­ment types

Type of pro­cure­ment	Defin­i­tion
Unreg­u­lated contracts	The pur­chase of goods and ser­vices with an estim­ated value up £50,000 (exclud­ing VAT). Pub­lic works with an estim­ated value up to £2,000,000 (exclud­ing VAT).
Reg­u­lated contracts	The pur­chase of goods and ser­vices with an estim­ated value of £50,000 or more (exclud­ing VAT). Pub­lic works with an estim­ated value of £2,000,000 or more (exclud­ing VAT).
Frame­work agree­ment call-off contracts	Nation­al pub­lic pro­cure­ment frame­work agree­ments are cent­rally estab­lished arrange­ments that allow pub­lic bod­ies to pro­cure goods, ser­vices, or works from pre-approved sup­pli­ers under agreed terms. Depend­ing on value thresholds and frame­work rules, con­tracts may be awar­ded either by dir­ect call-off or through a mini-com­pet­i­tion, redu­cing the need for sep­ar­ate full pro­cure­ment exer­cises while sup­port­ing effi­ciency, com­pli­ance, and value for money.
Grant-fun­ded con­tracts (Peat­land res­tor­a­tion projects)	Grant-fun­ded pro­cure­ments are pro­cure­ments where the fund­ing for goods, ser­vices, or works is provided in whole or in part through extern­al grant fund­ing rather than the organisation’s core budget. These pro­cure­ment pro­cesses are facil­it­ated and man­aged by the Park Author­ity and adhere to the same com­pli­ance stand­ards as reg­u­lated pro­cure­ments under­taken and awar­ded dir­ectly by the Park Author­ity. These pro­cure­ments must still com­ply with applic­able pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tions and intern­al policies, while also meet­ing any spe­cif­ic con­di­tions or require­ments attached to the grant fund­ing, such as value lim­its, eli­gible expendit­ure, and report­ing obligations.

2.2. Sum­mary of pro­cure­ment activity

As shown in Fig­ure 1, in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ the total pro­cure­ment spend was £4,493,126. The reg­u­lated con­tract spend was £1,420,450. Unreg­u­lated con­tract expendit­ure totalled £1,103,287, exclud­ing grant-fun­ded con­tracts. The total value of grant-fun­ded pro­cure­ment activ­ity was £1,900,190. The com­bined value of frame­work agree­ment call-off con­tracts was £69,199.

Fig­ure 1. Sum­mary of Pro­cure­ment Spend ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ Com­pon­ents:

• Reg­u­lated con­tract awards (over £50,000): £1,420,450
• Frame­work call-offs & mini com­pet­i­tions unreg­u­lated: £69,199
• Con­tract awards unreg­u­lated (exclud­ing Grant-fun­ded): £1,103,287
• Grant-fun­ded con­tract awards unreg­u­lated: £1,900,190

Grant-fun­ded pro­cure­ment con­sisted of peat­land res­tor­a­tion works. Although these con­tracts were fun­ded through grants and delivered on behalf of indi­vidu­al estates, the pro­cure­ment pro­cesses were facil­it­ated and man­aged by the Park Author­ity. These pro­cesses adhered to the same com­pli­ance stand­ards as reg­u­lated pro­cure­ments under­taken and awar­ded dir­ectly by the Park Authority.

Two con­tracts relat­ing to Recre­ation­al Fire Byelaw mes­saging cam­paigns were awar­ded through Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment frame­work agree­ments using the mini-com­pet­i­tion pro­ced­ure. The use of estab­lished frame­works was iden­ti­fied as the most appro­pri­ate approach for these con­tracts, as they enabled more effi­cient and com­pli­ant pro­cure­ment. The frame­work agree­ments have already under­gone robust pro­cure­ment, due dili­gence, and sup­pli­er vet­ting pro­cesses, ensur­ing that all appoin­ted sup­pli­ers meet the required stand­ards. Util­ising these frame­works reduced admin­is­trat­ive bur­den, accel­er­ated access to the mar­ket, and enabled the deliv­ery of the cam­paigns with­in required times­cales. In addi­tion, the approach sup­ports the achieve­ment of con­sist­ent value for money while min­im­ising the resource effort asso­ci­ated with run­ning full tender exer­cises. The com­bined value of these two con­tracts was £69,198.

In total, the Park Author­ity put in place 53 con­tracts, of which 5 were reg­u­lated pro­cure­ments over the value of £50,000 exclud­ing VAT.

Table 2. Sum­mary of pro­cure­ment activ­ity for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆

Type of pro­cure­ment	Quant­ity	Con­tact val­ues (excl. VAT)
Frame­work call-offs & mini com­pet­i­tions unregulated	2	£69,198
Con­tract awards unreg­u­lated (includ­ing Grant-funded)	47	£3,003,477
Con­tract awards unreg­u­lated (exclud­ing Grant-funded)	39	£1,103,287
Grant-fun­ded con­tract awards unregulated	7	£1,900,190
Reg­u­lated con­tract awards (over £50,000)	5	£1,420,450

2.3. Reg­u­lated procurements

The fol­low­ing reg­u­lated pro­cure­ments were com­pleted in the peri­od from 1^st April 2025 to 31^st March 2026.

Table 3. Reg­u­lated Procurements

Con­tract name	Sup­pli­er	Con­tract start date	Con­tract expiry date	Con­tract Value (excl. VAT)	Sup­pli­er location
Con­sultancy: Act­ive Com­munit­ies – Aviemore North and Boat of Garten (part of Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030) RIBA Stage 3 and 4	Mott Mac­Don­ald	03-Sep-25	30-Jun-27	£1,134,794	Based else­where in Scot­land, Glasgow
Fence remov­al on Dor­back Estate and the bound­ary of Aber­nethy Nature Reserve	J Smith Contracting	09-Jan-26	31-Mar-26	£56,274	In the park, Tulloch
Cairngorms Youth Action Coordinator	Anna Flem­ing	03-Mar-26	30-Apr-29	£74,950	Based else­where in Scot­land, Edinburgh
Cycle Friendly Cairngorms – Com­munity Cycle Infrastructure	Intel­li­gen Inter­na­tion­al Ltd	12-Mar-26	31-Mar-29	£100,000	Eng­land, Halwhistle
Cairngorms future farm­ing (C2030): regen­er­at­ive trans­ition sup­port package	Wilder­cul­ture CIC	10-Feb-26	31-Dec-28	£54,432	Eng­land, Coniston

The above table does not include con­tract exten­sions which were taken dur­ing ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.

2.4. Unreg­u­lated procurements

Dur­ing the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ fin­an­cial year, the Park Author­ity awar­ded a total of 41 unreg­u­lated con­tracts, exclud­ing grant-fun­ded Peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­jects. This fig­ure includes two call-offs made under exist­ing frame­work agreements.

The total value of these unreg­u­lated con­tracts was £1,172,486 with an aver­age con­tract value of £28,597.

Of the 41 con­tracts awar­ded, 25 (61%) of the sup­pli­ers were based out­side the park bound­ary, e.g., in Inverness or the cent­ral belt. One con­trib­ut­ing factor is that, although the con­tracts were clas­si­fied as unreg­u­lated, the Park Authority’s pro­cure­ment strategy requires that they are advert­ised on PCS. The Park Author­ity seeks to sup­port the loc­al sup­pli­ers with­in and around the park where appro­pri­ate, how­ever, we are also required by legis­la­tion to ensure a fair and equit­able tender pro­cess without dis­tort­ing com­pet­i­tion across all ten­der­ers, regard­less of their geo­graph­ic loc­a­tion, whilst apply­ing best prac­tice and attain­ing best value for money.

13 sup­pli­ers (31%) are either based in the park (7 sup­pli­ers) or around the park (6), e.g. Pit­lo­chry or Aboyne. Half of these con­tracts were awar­ded as a res­ult of tender pro­cesses car­ried out via Quick Quotes or out­side PCS, invit­ing mostly loc­al sup­pli­ers to take part in the tender pro­cess because of their expert­ise and pre­vi­ous exper­i­ence in work­ing in the park and liais­ing with loc­al stake­hold­ers. This same rationale also applies for the oth­er half of the loc­al sup­pli­ers who won a con­tract after scor­ing highest based on the com­mer­cial and qual­ity award cri­ter­ia owing to their know­ledge of the loc­al area and exper­i­ence deliv­er­ing pro­jects of sim­il­ar scope.

Graph­ic­al rep­res­ent­a­tion of this data is shown in Table 3 below. It demon­strates that 47% by value of the con­tracts awar­ded in the fin­an­cial year were awar­ded to firms either in the park, or with­in 30 miles of the park boundaries.

Table 4. Loc­a­tion of awar­ded unreg­u­lated contracts

Loc­a­tion	Total value of con­tracts awar­ded	% per loc­a­tion	Num­ber of con­tracts awar­ded	Aver­age value of contracts
Eng­land	£75,840	6%	3	£25,280
In the park	£172,995	15%	7	£24,714
Based with­in 30 miles of park	£375,022	32%	6	£62,504
Based else­where in Scotland	£548,629	47%	25	£21,945
Grand Total	£1,172,486	100%	41	£28,597

Fig­ure 2. Total value and num­ber of con­tracts awarded (This fig­ure visu­ally rep­res­ents the data presen­ted in Table 4, show­ing the dis­tri­bu­tion of con­tract value and num­ber of con­tracts by sup­pli­er location.)

A sum­mary of all the unreg­u­lated pro­cure­ments that were com­pleted in the peri­od from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 is included at Appendix A.

3. Review of Pro­cure­ment Compliance

In accord­ance with Sec­tion 15(5) of the Pro­cure­ment Reform (Scot­land) Act 2014 and asso­ci­ated stat­utory guid­ance, the Park Author­ity are required to out­line how its reg­u­lated pro­cure­ments will:

• Sup­port the deliv­ery of its func­tions and the achieve­ment of its organ­isa­tion­al objectives
• Deliv­er best value for money
• Be con­duc­ted in line with the Gen­er­al Duties and the Sus­tain­able Pro­cure­ment Duty

3.1. Deliv­er­ing our priorities

Pro­cure­ment plays a key role in sup­port­ing the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s wider object­ives by ensur­ing that oper­a­tion­al teams have timely access to the mater­i­als, ser­vices, and works required to achieve planned out­comes. This includes secur­ing the optim­al bal­ance of qual­ity and cost from the mar­ket while align­ing with deliv­ery timescales.

The Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan for 2023 – 2027 sets out object­ives across the themes of Nature, People, and Place, along­side intern­al organ­isa­tion­al pri­or­it­ies. Pro­cure­ment activ­ity, delivered in line with this strategy, under­pins all areas of the Cor­por­ate Plan by enabling effi­cient, effect­ive, and value-driv­en deliv­ery of these object­ives. These pri­or­it­ies are also in line with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Pro­cure­ment Strategy, Scot­tish Pub­lic Fin­ance Manu­al and the Scot­tish Pro­cure­ment Policy Manual.

Table 5 below out­lines the key pri­or­it­ies, along with their respect­ive com­pli­ance status and pro­gress to date.

Table 5. Pro­cure­ment objectives

Key Pri­or­it­ies	Com­pli­ance / Progress
Pro­mote fair work prac­tices and the Scot­tish Liv­ing Wage in pro­cure­ment processes.	In line with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment pro­cure­ment policy, the Park Author­ity is com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing Fair Work First prin­ciples, includ­ing the pay­ment of the real Liv­ing Wage, through its pro­cure­ment activ­ity. Dur­ing the report­ing peri­od, all rel­ev­ant reg­u­lated pro­cure­ments incor­por­ated Fair Work First cri­ter­ia as part of the selec­tion and eval­u­ation pro­cess. Sup­pli­ers were required, as a min­im­um, to demon­strate their com­mit­ment to pay­ing the real Liv­ing Wage to all work­ers engaged in the deliv­ery of the con­tract. In addi­tion, bid­ders were asked to evid­ence their wider fair work prac­tices, includ­ing: • Provid­ing appro­pri­ate chan­nels for effect­ive work­ers’ voice, such as trade uni­on recog­ni­tion or altern­at­ive mech­an­isms. • Demon­strat­ing invest­ment in work­force devel­op­ment, includ­ing train­ing and skills devel­op­ment. • Avoid­ing the inap­pro­pri­ate use of zero-hours con­tracts. • Tak­ing action to tackle the gender pay gap and pro­mote equal­ity, diversity and inclu­sion. • Offer­ing flex­ible and fam­ily-friendly work­ing prac­tices from day one of employ­ment. • Demon­strat­ing a com­mit­ment to oppos­ing fire and rehire prac­tices. Fair Work First con­sid­er­a­tions formed a core ele­ment of tender eval­u­ation pro­cess, ensur­ing that con­tract awards sup­port fair, sus­tain­able, and inclus­ive employ­ment practices.
	Sus­tain­able Pro­cure­ment – Work­force and Eth­ic­al Prac­tices As part of its sus­tain­able pro­cure­ment approach, the Park Author­ity included addi­tion­al require­ments with­in tender pro­cesses to sup­port fair and respons­ible con­tract deliv­ery: • Work­force cap­ab­il­ity: Sup­pli­ers were required to con­firm that all per­son­nel engaged in con­tract deliv­ery pos­sess the neces­sary skills, exper­i­ence, and com­pet­ence. • Health and safety: Ten­der­ers were required to sub­mit rel­ev­ant risk assess­ments and lone work­ing policies, which were reviewed as part of the tender eval­u­ation. • Work­force pro­tec­tion (TUPE): Where applic­able, pro­cure­ments included pro­vi­sions for TUPE, cov­er­ing all eli­gible trans­fer­ring staff, includ­ing those provid­ing hol­i­day and sick­ness cov­er. Con­tract and Sup­pli­er Man­age­ment The Park Author­ity recog­nises that deliv­er­ing fair work out­comes extends bey­ond con­tract award. As such: • Fair Work First com­mit­ments are mon­itored through­out the con­tract life­cycle where rel­ev­ant. • Sup­pli­ers are expec­ted to main­tain com­pli­ance with the com­mit­ments made in their tender sub­mis­sions. • Con­tract man­age­ment pro­cesses provide assur­ance that work­force prac­tices remain aligned with Fair Work First prin­ciples. Con­tinu­ous Improve­ment The Park Author­ity will con­tin­ue to strengthen its approach by: • Embed­ding Fair Work First con­sist­ently across all reg­u­lated pro­cure­ments. • Sup­port­ing sup­pli­ers to enhance fair work prac­tices with­in their organ­isa­tions. • Ensur­ing pro­cure­ment activ­ity con­trib­utes to inclus­ive eco­nom­ic growth and fair employ­ment across the sup­ply chain.
Deliv­er com­munity bene­fits through pro­cure­ment, includ­ing con­trib­ut­ing to a dynam­ic com­munity wish list or a com­munity devel­op­ment action plan, aligned with com­munity wealth build­ing principles.	The Park Author­ity deliv­ers com­munity bene­fits through its pro­cure­ment activ­ity by adopt­ing an approach that sup­ports loc­al sup­pli­ers and aligns with com­munity wealth build­ing (CWB) prin­ciples, while fully com­ply­ing with legis­lat­ive require­ments to ensure fair, trans­par­ent, and non-dis­crim­in­at­ory pro­cesses. Across both reg­u­lated and unreg­u­lated pro­cure­ments, oppor­tun­it­ies are struc­tured to main­tain open com­pet­i­tion and achieve best value for money. This is com­ple­men­ted by