Minutes of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey Online 23 March 2026 at 10.00am

Present online

• Kenny Deans (Chair)
• Jack­ie Brier­ton (sub for Ann Ross)
• Han­nah Grist (sub for Steve Micklewright)
• Sandy Brem­ner
• Rus­sell Jones (sub for John Kirk)
• Elean­or Mackintosh

In attend­ance

• Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer
• Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services
• Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change
• Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place
• Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Management
• Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030
• Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement
• Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies

• John Kirk
• Ann Ross
• Steve Mickle­wright (Deputy Chair)
• Michael Wil­li­am­son

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Wel­come and introduction

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee. Apo­lo­gies were noted. Spe­cial wel­come to Subs: the Chair noted appre­ci­ation for their input.

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The draft minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing held on 12 Decem­ber 2025 were approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were no mat­ters arising.

ACTION	Status
Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meetings
12 Decem­ber
Approv­al of minutes
At para 2a
i. CEO to share with the Com­mit­tee who was alloc­ated funds through the Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund includ­ing fund­ing alloc­a­tions and pro­ject types.	Com­plete
Update:
Climate-adaptation-fund-2024.pdf
Climate-Adaptation-Fund-2025.pdf
Emailed to Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Mem­bers on 17 March.
Paper 4 — Cairngorms Nature Action Plan
At para 19f
i. Con­sider a new term for ​“com­munity benefits”.	In hand

1. The Chair noticed that an action had been missed from the action table relat­ing to 9^e of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing and asked for it to be added.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. Elean­or Mack­in­tosh declared for aware­ness that she is a mem­ber of the Cairngorms Trust Board and a mem­ber of the Cairngorms 2030 Board but that should not pre­clude her being able to take part in the meeting.

Deer incent­ive scheme (Paper 1)

1. Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the deliv­ery of the deer incent­ive scheme run by the Park Author­ity in the hind cull­ing sea­sons of ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ and ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

   • a) A mem­ber asked why the per­form­ance meas­ure was rated green when only £25k of the £40k budget had been used and ques­tioned wheth­er this was real­ist­ic giv­en that the scheme may not be deliv­er­ing on inten­ded out­comes? Head of Land Man­age­ment advised that the rat­ing depends on what cri­ter­ia is being used; if the meas­ure was budget util­isa­tion, then no, it should not be rated green because the full budget has not been spent, while there is some expect­a­tion that the cur­rent fig­ure may increase on final­isa­tion of count. How­ever, if the meas­ure was suc­cess­ful design and imple­ment­a­tion of an incent­ive scheme, includ­ing secur­ing budget for deliv­ery, then yes, the scheme is per­form­ing as inten­ded because it provides a strong incent­ive (more than double game deal­er rates). He acknow­ledged the point being made by the mem­ber and advised it was a judge­ment call. It was agreed the Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­or (KPI) be reworded to accur­ately reflect the inten­ded out­come by the Head of Land Man­age­ment. [Post-meet­ing note: the final expendit­ure for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ is £35k of £40k budget.]
   • b) A mem­ber asked what a stat­utory con­trol looks like and how it works? Head of Land Man­age­ment explained sec­tion 8: where NatureScot will set cull tar­gets for the estates. They will then have the option of try­ing to achieve those cull tar­gets them­selves. If at any point it looks like they’re fall­ing behind where they should be in terms of a timeline, then NatureScot would have the right to put in their own resource. And any cost to the pub­lic purse could poten­tially be paid back by estates. There’s also a sec­tion 9 of the Deer Act which is all about cost recov­ery. So, NatureScot could impose cost recov­ery and get all their costs back, which could be a con­sid­er­able sum for estates. There is an appeals pro­cess, which is rel­at­ively untested. It goes through the land court. He added that all these sec­tions of the Act have not been used before. Sec­tion 7 has been used reg­u­larly before, sec­tion 10 has been used before, but sec­tion 8 has nev­er been used, and sec­tion 9, cost recov­ery has nev­er been used. So that would all be set­ting leg­al pre­ced­ence. We don’t really know how it would work, but poten­tially it could be hard hit­ting on landowners.
   • c) A mem­ber noted that the paper accur­ately reflects how effect­ive the incent­ive scheme has been so far, while also being hon­est about its lim­it­a­tions. He emphas­ised that although good pro­gress has been made, a wider and more ambi­tious approach is needed — one that aligns with the broad­er deer man­age­ment strategy recently brought to the Board. He con­cluded by say­ing it was a good paper.
   • d) A mem­ber asked how can we judge the effect­ive­ness of the incent­ive scheme when deer num­bers are out of date or uncer­tain, and estates are claim­ing they don’t have the deer? Without reli­able, up to date data, how can we chal­lenge estates’ claims or demon­strate that pro­gress is being made? Head of Land Man­age­ment agreed with the con­cerns raised and he explained that estates gen­er­ally fall into three cat­egor­ies which may vary over time:
     • i. those that genu­inely have had no deer present dur­ing key periods.
     • ii. those that believe they have no deer but may not have fully sur­veyed their ground; and
     • iii. those that deny hav­ing deer des­pite hold­ing sig­ni­fic­ant pop­u­la­tions. He stated that, from a pub­lic sec­tor per­spect­ive, it was often impossible to dis­tin­guish between these situ­ations. This uncer­tainty has led to repeated heli­copter counts at con­sid­er­able cost, as the area has con­tinu­ally sought to veri­fy deer num­bers. He agreed that con­firm­ing accur­ate data remains a per­sist­ent chal­lenge for the scheme.
   • e) The CEO noted that meet­ing the 2030 deer man­age­ment tar­gets will require meas­ures bey­ond the cur­rent incent­ive scheme. He emphas­ised the need for NatureScot to strengthen stat­utory pro­cesses and con­sider mov­ing bey­ond long-term Sec­tion 7 arrange­ments, sup­por­ted by the new Nat­ur­al Envir­on­ment Act. He added that the Author­ity must con­tin­ue press­ing NatureScot on resources and seek adequate nation­al fund­ing. He agreed pro­gress is cur­rently insuf­fi­cient and said the next Park Plan will be key to driv­ing change.
   • f) The Chair noted pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sion with NatureScot on the viab­il­ity of estates oper­at­ing with very low deer num­bers. The Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed evid­ence from DMGs show­ing estates can oper­ate effect­ively at around 8 deer per km², with cli­ent sat­is­fac­tion and a sus­tain­able sport­ing mod­el. He advised that viab­il­ity becomes more chal­len­ging below this level and that access or ter­rain are not key factors; the main issue is ensur­ing suf­fi­cient stags are avail­able dur­ing the peak guest peri­od in Septem­ber and October.

3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recommendations:

   • a) Dis­cuss the paper and con­sider any implic­a­tions for deer man­age­ment and future deer incent­ive schemes.

4. Action Point Arising:

   • i. Head of Land Man­age­ment to reword the Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­or (KPI) to accur­ately reflect the inten­ded outcome.

Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update: quarter four 2025 (Octo­ber – Decem­ber) (Paper 2)

1. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 intro­duced the paper which presents the status of the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) pro­gramme and risk man­age­ment, based on inform­a­tion in pro­ject reports for the peri­od from Octo­ber to Decem­ber 2025, and updated where appro­pri­ate to reflect cur­rent pos­i­tion as at the time of writ­ing, and the planned work to end March 2026.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

   • a) Chair thanked the Head of Cairngorms 2030 for the paper.
   • b) A mem­ber asked what happened to the Spin Pro­ject? Head of Cairngorms 2030 advised that it had been delivered in full.
   • c) A mem­ber asked why the Aviemore segreg­ated cycle path had been included in the ori­gin­al pro­ject brief if there was insuf­fi­cient road space to accom­mod­ate it. He quer­ied wheth­er this was simply an isol­ated issue or indic­at­ive of wider issues in how trans­port pro­jects are scoped. Head of Cairngorms 2030 acknow­ledged the con­cern and explained that trans­port pro­jects fun­ded through Sus­trans or Trans­port Scot­land must fol­low a staged design pro­cess. Early-stage out­line designs rely on map-based desk assess­ments rather than detailed site sur­veys. It is only at a later stage when full topo­graph­ic­al sur­veys are car­ried out, that accur­ate meas­ure­ments of avail­able space, includ­ing impacts on private bound­ar­ies, become clear. This was accep­ted as a struc­tur­al issue with­in the fund­ing and design frame­work and sug­ges­ted that topo­graph­ic­al sur­veys should ideally occur earli­er in the process.
   • d) CEO added that a segreg­ated cycle path was tech­nic­ally feas­ible along most of the route, but there were three to four sec­tions where sig­ni­fic­ant dis­rup­tion would occur, requir­ing land take from the road or private gar­dens. Fol­low­ing com­munity feed­back and prac­tic­al assess­ment, the con­clu­sion was that altern­at­ive solu­tions would be more appro­pri­ate and less con­ten­tious. He agreed that it was frus­trat­ing that this con­clu­sion emerged late and acknow­ledged that the issue could have been iden­ti­fied earli­er. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place added that the pro­ject had high­lighted the need to push con­sult­ants more firmly at the early stages to be real­ist­ic about con­straints. The late-stage iden­ti­fic­a­tion of lim­it­a­tions could have been avoided with clear­er early advice, and he provided reas­sur­ance that this would be a learn­ing point for future trans­port pro­ject scoping.
   • e) A mem­ber who is Chair of the Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group asked wheth­er this would be an appro­pri­ate point to begin examin­ing the eco­nom­ic out­puts asso­ci­ated with Cairngorms 2030 in more detail. She noted that the passing of the Com­munity Wealth Build­ing Bill may provide a new oppor­tun­ity to align pro­ject out­puts and out­comes with this policy dir­ec­tion. She invited Head of Cairngorms 2030 to attend their next meet­ing to begin set­ting goals and explor­ing how this align­ment could be achieved. Head of Cairngorms 2030 wel­comed the sug­ges­tion and con­firmed he would be pleased to attend the next Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group meet­ing. He agreed there was clear poten­tial to strengthen the links between Cairngorms 2030 out­comes, the emer­ging legis­lat­ive con­text, and the project’s mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation require­ments. He high­lighted that work on the leg­acy plan­ning for Cairngorms 2030 already included identi­fy­ing the ​“golden thread” con­nect­ing pro­ject actions, new legis­la­tion, and the dir­ec­tion of travel bey­ond 2029. He con­firmed he was happy to work with the Chair of the Cairngorms Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group and the Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place to con­trib­ute to this process.
   • f) A mem­ber noted the pos­it­ive nature of the report and asked wheth­er, aside from the trans­port-related issues already dis­cussed, there was any­thing with­in the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme that was caus­ing sig­ni­fic­ant con­cern. Head of Cairngorms 2030 advised that although the pro­gramme is com­plex, the gov­ernance, com­mu­nic­a­tion, and risk-man­age­ment arrange­ments were work­ing well, and noth­ing was caus­ing major con­cern. He added that the only area of uncer­tainty lay with­in the nature recov­ery pro­jects, where some ele­ments of scope were still being clarified.
   • g) A mem­ber asked what mod­el was being used for the Glen Clova pro­ject? Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change explained that the Glen Clova mod­el centres on sup­ply­ing ven­ison to the hotel, enabling the recruit­ment of a butcher and expan­sion of asso­ci­ated hos­pit­al­ity. As the hotel demand grows, the estate may need to work with neigh­bour­ing estates to secure addi­tion­al sup­ply. He added that engage­ment from the land man­ager had been pos­it­ive. Head of Land Man­age­ment added that part of the ven­ison also goes to Glen Kilry for the school kit­chen pro­gramme, which had been oper­at­ing suc­cess­fully. The value of the ven­ison provided over the con­tract is roughly equal to the cap­it­al costs of the facil­ity provided. Glen Clova had been a key par­ti­cipant in the ven­ison sub­sidy and has increased its cull levels. He stated that engage­ment was now con­struct­ive across sev­er­al fronts.
   • h) A mem­ber noted his pre­vi­ous dif­fi­culty get­ting ven­ison onto High­land Coun­cil school menus and asked wheth­er ven­ison is now being sup­plied to schools, par­tic­u­larly in Badenoch and Strath­spey. C2030: Nature Based Solu­tions Man­ager con­firmed that fol­low­ing lengthy dis­cus­sions, High­land Coun­cil had agreed to accept ven­ison for school din­ners in Badenoch and Strath­spey. Ven­ison was now being sup­plied both for cook­ery edu­ca­tion and for school meals.

3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recommendations:

   • a) Note the pro­gress to date and future for C2030 delivery.
   • b) Note spe­cif­ic points of C2030 deliv­ery risk.
   • c) High­light any issues arising that mem­bers may feel need spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion by staff from a stra­tegic and board perspective.

4. Action Point Arising:

   • i. Head of Cairngorms 2030 to attend the next Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group meet­ing to work with the Chair and the Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place to align Cairngorms 2030 eco­nom­ic out­puts with the Com­munity Wealth Build­ing Bill and inform future leg­acy planning.

Cairngorms 2030 restor­ing and enhan­cing landscape’s theme update Feb­ru­ary 2026 (Paper 3)

1. Mat­thew Hawkins, Cairngorms 2030 Nature Based Solu­tions Man­ager, intro­duced the paper which describes recent activ­ity and pro­gress on the sev­en pro­jects with­in the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) Restor­ing and Enhan­cing Land­scapes theme.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

   • a) A mem­ber asked if there was any mon­it­or­ing on the wel­fare of cattle that are going to be put onto graze? Cairngorms 2030 Nature Based Solu­tions Man­ager provided reas­sur­ance that he had spoken to the Dur­rell Trust about it and a farm­er from Kin­gussie was look­ing to devel­op more con­ser­va­tion graz­ing as part of his busi­ness mod­el. The mem­ber added in addi­tion, it would be good to mon­it­or and feed­back to the farm­ing industry, if they need extra min­er­al sup­ple­ments or extra feed­ing? Would they need extra worm­ing and what was the tick effect on them, if any. Cairngorms 2030 Nature Based Solu­tions Man­ager advised that they had talked about worm­ing and agreed to raise those questions.
   • b) The Chair asked for cla­ri­fic­a­tion about what was meant by the ​“com­mon theme” in para­graph 5, not­ing that the pro­jects with­in the theme, and across the wider pro­gramme, are very diverse, and that it was unclear how a com­mon theme was emer­ging from them. Cairngorms 2030 Nature Based Solu­tions Man­ager explained that the com­mon theme was not about the pro­jects being sim­il­ar, but about how they have developed over time. In par­tic­u­lar, he high­lighted a shared improve­ment in com­munity and pub­lic engage­ment across the pro­jects. While some nature pro­jects ini­tially had little or no engage­ment built in, this had grown sig­ni­fic­antly as the team’s con­fid­ence and skills had increased.
   • c) The Chair noted that the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive had achieved strong com­munity engage­ment in Alt­more by first con­tact­ing key loc­al indi­vidu­als and ask­ing them to share inform­a­tion, which res­ul­ted in a very high turnout at the ini­tial meeting.
   • d) A mem­ber asked about the Glas­gow School of Art (GSA) Rur­al Lab pro­ject, spe­cific­ally wheth­er it had a pres­ence with­in the Nation­al Park and what level of resource it brought. Head of Cairngorms 2030 explained that the Rur­al Lab is based on the Altyre Estate just out­side Forres and had been oper­at­ing for many years. He out­lined that the Lab under­takes sys­tems design and cre­at­ive aca­dem­ic research and was seen as a valu­able part­ner. He also noted that the Rur­al Lab lead, Dr Claire Deveny, had joined the Cairngorms 2030 Board, and that there was poten­tial for future col­lab­or­a­tion, includ­ing wider research oppor­tun­it­ies sup­por­ted by sig­ni­fic­ant recent fund­ing for rur­al PhD pro­grammes. Head of Cairngorms 2030 offered to arrange a meet­ing. The mem­ber wel­comed the offer of a meet­ing not­ing the rel­ev­ance to enter­prise and skills activity.

3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action Points Arising:

   • i. Cairngorms 2030 Nature Based Solu­tions Man­ager to raise and con­sider mon­it­or­ing of cattle wel­fare as part of planned graz­ing, includ­ing issues such as min­er­al sup­ple­ment­a­tion, addi­tion­al feed­ing or shel­ter, worm­ing, and poten­tial tick impacts, with a view to shar­ing rel­ev­ant learn­ing with the wider farm­ing industry.
   • ii. Head of Cairngorms 2030 to arrange an intro­duct­ory meet­ing between Dr Claire Deveney and Board mem­ber (Jack­ie Brierton).

Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme (Paper 4)

1. Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ and the devel­op­ing pro­gramme for ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

   • a) A mem­ber raised con­cern about wheth­er peat­land res­tor­a­tion could face a sim­il­ar issue to path pro­jects, where cap­it­al fund­ing was avail­able but long-term rev­en­ue fund­ing for main­ten­ance would prove uncer­tain. Head of Land Man­age­ment acknow­ledged the uncer­tainty around future main­ten­ance needs, not­ing that early peat­land pro­jects were less robust but that stand­ards have improved. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices cla­ri­fied that, unlike paths, peat­land res­tor­a­tion grant agree­ments (par­tic­u­larly under the Peat­land Code) place main­ten­ance respons­ib­il­ity on land man­agers for up to 10 years (and up to 30 years under new­er arrange­ments), mean­ing the Park Author­ity does not carry sole main­ten­ance responsibility.
   • b) A mem­ber asked if the likely scale of required main­ten­ance, par­tic­u­larly for pro­jects delivered between 2014 – 18, be quan­ti­fied? Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed that earli­er non-Peat­land Code pro­jects lacked form­al main­ten­ance oblig­a­tions, though new­er pro­jects included them. He added that a review of com­pleted pro­jects was under­way, and les­sons are being learned. At present, no sig­ni­fic­ant or alarm­ing main­ten­ance bur­den was evid­ent, but longer-term impacts remained uncer­tain due to nat­ur­al pro­cesses and cli­mate factors.
   • c) The Chair asked if the wider bene­fits of peat­land res­tor­a­tion, bey­ond car­bon, be clear­er for com­munit­ies, giv­en that baseline data was not always col­lec­ted? Head of Land Man­age­ment agreed that peat­land res­tor­a­tion deliv­ers bene­fits bey­ond car­bon, includ­ing biod­iversity, water reten­tion, and poten­tially wild­fire mit­ig­a­tion, and that more work was needed to evid­ence and com­mu­nic­ate these out­comes. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change added that future pro­ject pri­or­it­isa­tion will increas­ingly con­sider mul­tiple bene­fits, addi­tion­al­ity, green­house gas met­rics, and land­scape-scale impacts, aligned with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment pri­or­it­ies and sup­por­ted by mon­it­or­ing plans.
   • d) The Chair asked if there a mon­it­or­ing require­ment for peat­land res­tor­a­tion like there was for river res­tor­a­tion pro­jects? Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change con­firmed that there was a ded­ic­ated mon­it­or­ing officer and an estab­lished mon­it­or­ing plan and pro­gramme for peat­land restoration.
   • e) A mem­ber sought clar­ity on wheth­er the £300,000 cap rep­res­en­ted full or par­tial fund­ing, and how this affects land­scape-scale pro­jects. Head of Land Man­age­ment explained that £300,000 rep­res­ents the Park Authority’s con­tri­bu­tion, with private fund­ing expec­ted for addi­tion­al costs. Land­scape-scale out­comes could still be achieved through multi-year and multi-pro­ject approaches. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change added that the fig­ure was an indic­at­ive budget used to design pro­jects, allow­ing exist­ing com­mit­ments and land­scape-scale ambi­tions to be met over time. There is no form­al cap on the funding.
   • f) A mem­ber asked if there were estates with­in the Nation­al Park that have not engaged with peat­land res­tor­a­tion? Head of Land Man­age­ment con­firmed that almost all estates are engaged; only three are not cur­rently involved, and these were not con­sidered crit­ic­al in terms of flood­ing risk or res­tor­a­tion urgency.

3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recommendations:

   • a) Note the pro­gress against pro­gramme tar­gets for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.
   • b) Note the plans for ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇.

4. Action Points Arising:

   • i. None.

The meet­ing paused for a com­fort break at 11.25am The meet­ing resumed at 11.31am

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment update (Paper 5)

1. Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment intro­duced the paper which presents an update of cur­rent com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment activ­ity, plus out­lines a num­ber of key pri­or­it­ies for the next quarter. It also includes a stra­tegic risk register and accom­pa­ny­ing mit­ig­a­tion measures.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

   • a) A mem­ber asked how long after the cam­paign would detail res­ults from the pre and post cam­paign sur­vey be avail­able? Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment advised that the pulse sur­vey res­ults would be pro­cessed quickly by YouGov, but full res­ults were likely to be avail­able after the sum­mer bylaw peri­od, estim­ated for late August or Septem­ber, once the cam­paign has concluded.
   • b) A mem­ber noted that in pre­par­a­tion for the papers for the Form­al Board meet­ing later this week, the risk relat­ing to decisions of the Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund Pan­el being con­ten­tious should be elev­ated from medi­um to high, giv­en the sums involved and poten­tial com­munity reac­tion. Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment con­firmed and advised that this com­mit­tee paper had been final­ised and pub­lished in advance of that change being made to the paper sub­mit­ted to the board.
   • c) A mem­ber asked if there was a danger that wide­spread muir­burn activ­ity under­mine or con­fuse pub­lic mes­saging around the Fire Bylaw? CEO acknow­ledged the dif­fi­culty caused by the delayed intro­duc­tion of muir­burn licens­ing. Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment added that mes­saging had been checked with part­ners includ­ing Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice, NatureScot and oth­ers. The agreed pub­lic mes­sage remains that any fire of con­cern be repor­ted to 999. Reas­sur­ance was provided that while some con­fu­sion was inev­it­able, part­ners were com­fort­able with the cur­rent approach.
   • d) A mem­ber asked if pro­gress was being made towards estab­lish­ing a ded­ic­ated Cairngorms Nation­al Park app? Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment con­firmed dis­cus­sions were ongo­ing with part­ners includ­ing Loch Lomond and Trossachs Nation­al Park (LLT­NP) and Vis­itScot­land. Devel­op­ment is depend­ent on part­ner pro­gress and shared fund­ing arrange­ments. LLT­NP aims to com­plete its web­site work by Octo­ber, after which pro­gress may be made.

3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recommendations:

   • a) Review activ­ity across a range of com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment chan­nels in the past three months and dis­cuss the iden­ti­fied pri­or­it­ies for quarter two of 2026.
   • b) Review the accom­pa­ny­ing risk register to ensure key risks are cap­tured and that mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are appropriate.

4. Action Points Arising:

   • i. None.

Cairngorms Trust and Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment update (Paper 6)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the work of the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group Trust (‘the Cairngorms Trust’) and the col­lect­ive work of the Cairngorms Trust and the Park Author­ity in Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) activity.

Han­nah Grist left the meet­ing at 11.48 am

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

   • a) A mem­ber raised con­cern that while fund­ing levels into Cairngorms remain pos­it­ive, infla­tion had sig­ni­fic­antly eroded the real value of Com­munity-Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) fund­ing com­pared to pre­vi­ous LEAD­ER pro­grammes. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices acknow­ledged the erosion in value and con­firmed that while head­line fund­ing levels were broadly com­par­able to the pre­vi­ous LEAD­ER pro­gramme, infla­tion and the absence of mul­ti­year fund­ing sig­ni­fic­antly con­strained deliv­ery and com­munity engagement.
   • b) A mem­ber com­men­ted that main­tain­ing a strong nation­al Loc­al Action Group (LAG) net­work was essen­tial to pro­tect lob­by­ing power and pre­vent fur­ther erosion of rur­al devel­op­ment budgets, with the Cairngorms Trust well-placed to lead due to its inde­pend­ent trust mod­el. The mem­ber sup­por­ted this work and encour­aged the con­tin­ued pro­gress of work on devel­op­ing the network.
   • c) A mem­ber asked if there was scope for the Cairngorms Trust to act as a con­duit for addi­tion­al fund­ing streams bey­ond CLLD, such as employ­ab­il­ity or suc­cessor Shared Prosper­ity Fund-type fund­ing? Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed there was strong poten­tial, par­tic­u­larly for sup­port­ing rur­al busi­ness devel­op­ment and employ­ab­il­ity, and that this was an area the Trust should act­ively explore as part of its future direction.
   • d) Con­cern was raised about a per­ceived drift by the Trust towards great­er inde­pend­ence from the Park Author­ity, poten­tially weak­en­ing a pre­vi­ously strong part­ner­ship. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices acknow­ledged the con­cern as a val­id stra­tegic risk and con­firmed that a refresh of the Memor­andum of Agree­ment was inten­ded to help man­age this bal­ance, main­tain­ing the Trust’s char­it­able inde­pend­ence while strength­en­ing part­ner­ship work­ing. Oth­er officers echoed the import­ance of col­lab­or­a­tion to max­im­ise deliv­ery and fund­ing opportunities.
   • e) A mem­ber ques­tioned wheth­er vol­un­tary giv­ing con­tin­ue to be an aspir­a­tion, or be removed from the risk register and Trust busi­ness plan­ning, giv­en the chal­len­ging fun­drais­ing envir­on­ment? Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices agreed this required care­ful recon­sid­er­a­tion. He provided reas­sur­ance that early dis­cus­sions had begun, and the Trust and Park Author­ity would reflect on wheth­er vol­un­tary giv­ing remains real­ist­ic or cost-effect­ive, with fur­ther gov­ernance dis­cus­sion to follow.
   • f) A mem­ber ques­tioned wheth­er it was timely to review the long-stand­ing approach to com­munity devel­op­ment fund­ing with­in the Nation­al Park? CEO con­firmed that a broad­er stra­tegic dis­cus­sion on com­munity devel­op­ment fund­ing pri­or­it­ies over the next 5 – 10 years would take place as part of work on the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, involving the full Board.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recommendations:

   • a) Wheth­er the pro­grammes of activ­ity are mak­ing the expec­ted con­tri­bu­tion to the Park Authority’s agreed stra­tegic outcomes.
   • b) Wheth­er the deliv­ery updates sug­gest any stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on the Park Authority’s agreed per­form­ance objectives.
   • c) Wheth­er any mater­i­al impacts on the Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures arise from assess­ment of pro­gramme delivery.
   • d) Noted paper 6 annex 1.

3. Action Points Arising:

   • i. None.

AOCB

1. None

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 12 June 2026.

2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 12.16pm