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ARC Paper 8 Draft Annual Procurement Report combined

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 8 19 June 2026

Paper 8

Draft of the first Annu­al Pro­cure­ment report

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

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