Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 7

19 June 2026 Page 1 of 3

For dis­cus­sion

Title: Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund Development

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Eilidh Todd, Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager Brid­get Trus­sell, Com­munity Grants Manager

Pur­pose

This paper presents an update on the work of the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) Com­munity Grants Pan­el, sup­por­ted by our appoin­ted con­sult­ants, Involve, and the staff team, in devel­op­ing the C2030 Com­munity Grants Fund. The paper is brought to the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee at this point to sup­port a dis­cus­sion on the risk man­age­ment of this pro­ject in advance of con­sid­er­a­tion of the status of the pro­ject by the full board at its meet­ing on 26 June 2026.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

a) Con­sider the cur­rent pro­ject risk register togeth­er with the risk man­age­ment updates presen­ted in this paper, and wheth­er any updates to the risk register are required.

Stra­tegic context

1. The Park Authority’s full board have pre­vi­ously con­sidered the risk man­age­ment frame­work estab­lished to sup­port the devel­op­ment of a £1m com­munity grants fund as part of the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme. Pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sions at the board have focused on the recruit­ment and estab­lish­ment of a Pan­el of com­munity rep­res­ent­at­ives; and sub­sequently the work of that pan­el in devel­op­ing grant cri­ter­ia and decision-mak­ing pro­cesses. The most recent pro­ject risk register presen­ted to the board in March 2026 can be accessed at: Formal-Board-Paper-3-C2030-Communities-Fund-risk-register.pdf

Page 2 of 3

1. This item has been brought to the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee at this time to allow the team an oppor­tun­ity to high­light any key risk con­sid­er­a­tions as the work on pro­ject devel­op­ment nears com­ple­tion; and to provide any audit and risk input to this work pri­or to con­sid­er­a­tion by the full board.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. The Com­munity Grants Pan­el has now met for sev­en of its planned nine ses­sions, with the Advis­ory Group also hav­ing met three times. Vari­ous mem­bers of the Advis­ory Group have also had some dir­ect obser­va­tion of the work­ing of the Panel.

2. The pro­ject remains on track with devel­op­ment of grant cri­ter­ia and decision-mak­ing pro­pos­als pro­gress­ing with­in planned timetable. An update on the pro­gress of the Pan­el will be provided at the Com­mit­tee meet­ing, by which point the paper to be presen­ted to the full board will also be issued. At the time of writ­ing this paper, the key deliv­ery and gov­ernance risk con­sid­er­a­tions to draw to the atten­tion of the Com­mit­tee are: a) The inclu­sion of one addi­tion­al 2.5 hour ses­sion for the codesign pan­el for final con­sid­er­a­tions has been agreed as an ele­ment of risk mit­ig­a­tion to help ensure a viable end product from the design phase. This has a very small added cost con­sequence. b) A key risk mit­ig­a­tion focus as we come toward the end of the design phase links to pro­ject risk 6 as put to the board meet­ing in March: Con­fu­sion between this fund and a range of oth­er com­munity funds (includ­ing those run by the Park Author­ity / Cairngorms Trust) c) Sim­il­arly, con­sid­er­ing design prin­ciples around the poten­tial capa­city for the grants to be delivered by the end of the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme peri­od (pro­ject risk 9) is a sig­ni­fic­ant risk aspect at this point. d) The incom­ing shift from design phase to deliv­ery phase poses a new risk of loss of momentum and loss of con­tinu­ity of dir­ec­tion. The teams involved will con­sider appro­pri­ate mit­ig­a­tion approaches for this risk. e) Pro­ject risk 8, con­sid­er­ing leg­acy mat­ters, also becomes more per­tin­ent as we con­sider the out­come of the design phase; the poten­tial deliv­ery con­sequences of the design; and what leg­acy bene­fits we wish to achieve.

Page 3 of 3

1. Over­sight of the pro­cess will now move from the engage­ment team to the com­munity grants team, reflect­ing a shift in the pro­cess from design of grant pur­poses, and cri­ter­ia to a focus on sup­port­ing a grant applic­a­tion and award pro­cess. The Com­munity Grants Man­ager has been involved in this pro­ject since incep­tion and there is there­fore con­tinu­ity in know­ledge and under­stand­ing as the over­sight of pro­ject deliv­ery trans­itions between teams.