Approved Resources minutes - 29 August 2025

Minutes of the Resources Com­mit­tee meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey Hybrid 29 August 2025 at 09.00am

Present in person Rus­sell Jones (Chair) Lauren McCal­lum (Deputy Chair) Kenny Deans (sub­sti­tute for Han­nah Grist) Michael Wil­li­am­son Sandy Brem­ner Derek Ross

Present online Jack­ie Brierton

In attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies Han­nah Grist

Wel­come and introductions

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing of the Resources Committee.

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The draft minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing on 16 May 2025 were approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were no mat­ters arising.
2. The Chair announced that Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices had shared a draft of the social media Policy with him­self, and the Board Con­vener and the final policy has now been shared with the full Board. Com­mit­tee Mem­bers were all con­tent with the policy.

Actions from 24 Janu­ary 2025 meeting:

Paper	Action	Status
Paper 3	i. Share FOI policy with Board mem­bers to high­light the work being done in this area.	Closed — FOI update to Audit Risk Com­mit­tee June 25 will cov­er this.
	_​Information set out in Paper-6-FOISAComplaints.pdf
Paper 1	i. Return to com­mit­tee the new policy on staff recog­ni­tion and reward once available.	Open. Policy still in development
Paper 2	i. Arrange for a budget mon­it­or­ing inform­a­tion ses­sion with board members.	Com­plete
Paper 5	i. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Jack­ie Brier­ton to Invest­ig­ate the pos­sib­il­ity of Cred­it Uni­ons for staff and park wide.	Open

Action points from 16 May 2025

Mat­ter Arising	Action	Status
At para 4 c)	i. Provide an advice note to Board Mem­bers to give a clear under­stand­ing that the per­son­al use of social media policy is sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance for best practise.	Cur­rently in devel­op­ment — should be issued pri­or to next meeting.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

Budget mon­it­or­ing (Paper 1)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of July — month four of the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ fin­an­cial year.
2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Clar­ity was sought around the £300,000 under­spend from ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅, if this was deduc­ted from the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ budget. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions explained this was treated as cash in advance which can be drawn down and the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ budget remains the same. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that the Peat­land budget was the most dif­fi­cult to man­age to an out­turn by the end of the year due to a vari­ety of depend­ant factors. It was also noted also that the fund­ing is ring-fenced and can only be applied to deliv­ery of peat­land res­tor­a­tion. b) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted on point 16 a, regard­ing Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) fund­ing, not­ing that this is Cairngorms Trust fund­ing and not Park Author­ity fund­ing. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that the Park Author­ity is the account­able body for CLLD fund­ing. Around £60,000 of the fund­ing is claimed by the Park Author­ity to cov­er a pro­por­tion of the staff costs for admin­is­tra­tion of the fund. It was sug­ges­ted that the word­ing was changed to make it clear­er that this is not a fin­an­cial resource over which the Park Author­ity has con­trol – decisions on applic­a­tion of the fund­ing are made by the Cairngorms Trust. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions agreed. c) Board Con­vener com­men­ted on the recent announce­ment of the Trans­port Fund­ing acknow­ledging the exhaust­ive efforts from the staff, thank­ing them all for their hard work on this. Com­mit­tee mem­bers all echoed the comments.
3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper agree­ing to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.
4. Action Points Arising: None.

²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ estim­ated out­turn (Paper 2)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sets out the cur­rent cash out­turn pos­i­tion for the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.
2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) CEO cred­ited both the fin­ance and oper­a­tion­al teams for their work ensur­ing spend passed through the sys­tem, not­ing that a £14,000 vari­ation is impress­ive giv­en the scale of the budget.
3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper agree­ing to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Note the cash out­turn pos­i­tion for the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.
4. Action Points Arising: None.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Equal Pay Audit ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ (Paper 3)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment presen­ted the paper as the Park Author­ity reports annu­ally on its Gender Pay Gap, using staff data from 31 March each year. Whilst it is not a leg­al require­ment for the Park Author­ity to pub­lish this report (only organ­isa­tions with more than 250 staff have to pub­lish their gender pay gap data), it is good prac­tice to mon­it­or the gender pay gap, not only with regards to inform­ing future policy dir­ec­tion, but also to sup­port our Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty, and par­tic­u­larly out­come one — ​“we will have an increas­ingly diverse work­force with more under-rep­res­en­ted groups work­ing for us, sup­por­ted by an inclus­ive cul­ture, where all exist­ing, new and pro­spect­ive staff are treated equit­ably, and feel that they belong”.
2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained the paper would go to Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) soon for a lead­er­ship dis­cus­sion but was brought to the Resources Com­mit­tee first. b) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ted that in a small organ­isa­tion, such as the Park Author­ity, small changes can have the impact of dis­tort­ing stat­ist­ics dis­pro­por­tion­ately. c) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if the Park Author­ity were pro­act­ively encour­aging females to apply for Dir­ect­or / CEO roles. CEO explained there has been three Dir­ect­ors recruited in the last 15 years, and that the pan­el for recruit­ment was gender bal­anced with a short list for all the posts includ­ing males and females. In these three cases the best can­did­ates were male. Heads of Ser­vice are encour­aged to step up to Dir­ect­or roles intern­ally when they become avail­able and extern­ally there are a good range of back­grounds apply­ing for the roles – how­ever, these can only be filled once a pos­i­tion becomes avail­able. d) Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained that band E female staff have been offered train­ing for women advan­cing into lead­er­ship, which should enhance their con­fid­ence to apply for Dir­ect­or­ate roles when they are avail­able. e) Dis­cus­sions were had around job shares to which Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained most vacant posts are recruited on the basis that the Park Author­ity would be will­ing to con­sider job shares or part time hours of 30 hours per week. CEO explained due to the level of work required in a Director’s role, this may be dif­fi­cult to ful­fil on part time hours, and this would be con­sidered indi­vidu­ally on a case-by-case basis. f) A Board Mem­ber thanked the staff for the hard work into mak­ing roles more appeal­ing to women, espe­cially policies like men­o­pause and endo­met­ri­os­is, high­light­ing how pro­gress­ive the organ­isa­tion is. g) A Board Mem­ber asked if there was a way to cap­ture if ​“leav­ers” are pro­gress­ing to a more seni­or level out­with the organ­isa­tion, which would help us to track the impact of our work to sup­port women into lead­er­ship Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained that is not some­thing that is cur­rently repor­ted, though this inform­a­tion is cap­tured dur­ing exit inter­views, how­ever this could be repor­ted and added to the future gender pay gap analyses.
3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper agree­ing to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Con­sider the gender pay gap fig­ures ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅
4. Action Points Arising: i. Cap­ture if staff are mov­ing on to more seni­or roles out with the Park Author­ity in future reports.

Action points from 29 August 2025

Point	Action
At para 15 g	i. Cap­ture if staff are mov­ing on to more seni­or roles out­with the Park Author­ity in future reports.

Health and Safety Com­mit­tee Minutes (Paper 4)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment presen­ted the paper which sets out the minutes for the Health and Safety Com­mit­tee meet­ing on 13 May 2025.
2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if near misses have been cap­tured and dis­cussed or acted on. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained that near misses are included in the acci­dent and incid­ent report­ing, and this is eval­u­ated at the meet­ings. b) A Board Mem­ber sought clar­ity on the rangers receiv­ing train­ing on sexu­al har­ass­ment, if this was a pre­cau­tion­ary train­ing or due to an incid­ent. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained this was train­ing that was being provided to expand skill sets, not due to any incidents.
3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper agree­ing to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Note the minutes from the Health and Safety Com­mit­tee meeting.
4. Action Points Arising: None.

Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um Minutes (Paper 5)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment presen­ted the paper which sets out the draft minutes from the Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um meet­ing on 11 June 2025.
2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: a) Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment high­lighted that the Gender Diversity policy was amended fol­low­ing the Equal­ity and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) inter­im guid­ance that was pub­lished after the recent Supreme Court rul­ing about the defin­i­tion of sex. The amend­ments involved updat­ing the defin­i­tion of sex in the gloss­ary and set­ting out that all toi­lets in the Grant­own-on-Spey office are now single use, gender neut­ral toi­lets, which we were able to facil­it­ate with some minor struc­tur­al changes in the build­ing. It was repor­ted that staff were very pos­it­ive about the policy and the amend­ments. The policy was still ​“draft” to reflect that it could change fur­ther once the EHRC pub­lished its final guid­ance. b) CEO noted how unique it was to have the Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um (SCF) as this is not com­mon in oth­er non-depart­ment­al pub­lic body’s (NDPB) and hope­ful the Park Author­ity can main­tain this for as long as possible.

Mike Wil­li­am­son joined the meet­ing at 9.44am

c) Discussions were had around the union involvement in the SCF, Deputy CEO and Director of Corporate Services explained that the Park Authority has a voluntary recognition agreement with the Prospect union and that one of the staff reps sitting on the SCF is there as the union representative, but they have an equal voice to the non-union members. The external Prospect official is invited to and regularly attends the SCF meetings. But a “formal recognition” agreement typically involves consultation with union representatives only, which means non-unionised staff are not included in such consultations. Head of Organisational Development explained that there are seven staff representatives sitting in SCF and one union representative.
d) Board Members shared support and thanks to the SCF for their discussions on complex issues and involvement. Committee members all supported the work done via the SCF.

1. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper agree­ing to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Note the minutes from the Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um meeting.
2. Action Points Arising: None.

AOCB

1. None

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 07 Novem­ber 2025.
2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 09.49am

Motion for con­fid­en­tial ses­sion to be set out will be to pro­tect con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of staff pay and con­di­tions pro­pos­als pri­or to form­al negotiations.