CAIRNGORMS

NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

ÙGH­DAR­RAS PAIRC NÀISEANΤΑ Α’

MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

ANNU­AL REPORT AND

ACCOUNTS ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉

AITH­ISG BHLIADH­NAIL AGUS CUNNTASAN

²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉

…AN OUT­STAND­ING NATIONAL

PARK, ENJOYED AND VAL­UED BY

EVERY­ONE, WHERE NATURE AND

PEOPLE THRIVE TOGETHER…

…SÀR PHÀIRC NÀISEANTA, A THA

A’ CÒRDADH RIS A H‑UILE DUINE

AGUS AIR A BHEIL IAD UILE A’ CUR

LÙACH, AGUS FAR A BHEIL NÀDAR

AGUS DAOINE A’ SOIRBHEACHA…

CON­TENTS

KEY PER­SON­NEL AND SPON­SOR­ING BODY 2

PART I — PER­FORM­ANCE REPORT 3

Over­view

For­ward 4

The Park Author­ity 6

Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ and bey­ond 8

Key Issues and Risks 10

Per­form­ance Analysis

Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Summary |

Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary 15

PART 2 – ACCOUNT­AB­IL­ITY REPORT 22

Cor­por­ate gov­ernance report

Dir­ect­ors’ Report 23

State­ment of Nation­al Park Authority’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 25

State­ment of Board and Account­able Officer’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 26

Gov­ernance State­ment 27

Remu­ner­a­tion and staff report

Remu­ner­a­tion report and key inform­a­tion on staff 32

Par­lia­ment­ary Account­ab­il­ity Disclosures

Account­ab­il­ity Report: dis­clos­ures to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment 41

Inde­pend­ent Auditor’s report 42

PART 3 — FIN­AN­CIAL STATE­MENTS 46

State­ment of Com­pre­hens­ive Net Expendit­ure 47

State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion 48

State­ment of Cash Flows 49

State­ment of Changes in Tax­pay­ers’ Equity 50

Notes to the Fin­an­cial State­ments 51

APPEN­DICES 61

Accounts Dir­ec­tion 61

Staff Uni­on Time 62

1

KEY PER­SON­NEL AND SPON­SOR­ING BODY

BOARD MEM­BERS

Peter Argyle — Con­vener to 30 Septem­ber 2018

Rebecca Badger – stood down 21 March 2019

Geva Black­ett – deputy Con­vener from 7 Decem­ber 2018 – reappoin­ted 21 March 2019

Car­o­lyn Caddick

Angela Douglas – stood down 30 Septem­ber 2018

Deirdrie Fal­con­er – appoin­ted 21 March 2019

Dave Fal­lows – stood down 21 March 2019

Pippa Had­ley

Janet Hunter

Gregor Hutcheon – stood down 30 Septem­ber 2018

John Kirk – appoin­ted 28 March 2019

John Lath­am

Douglas McAdam – appoin­ted I Novem­ber 2018

Dr Fiona McLean – appoin­ted I Novem­ber 2018

Anne Rae Mac­Don­ald – appoin­ted I Novem­ber 2018

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh – chair Plan­ning Com­mit­tee – reappoin­ted 21 March 2019

lan Maclar­en

Xan­der McDade — Con­vener from | Octo­ber 2018

Wil­lie McK­enna – reappoin­ted 21 March 2019

Wil­li­am Mun­ro – appoin­ted I Novem­ber 2018 – chair Fin­ance and Deliv­ery Committee

Gor­don Rid­dler – stood down 30 Septem­ber 2018

Dr Gaen­er Rodger – appoin­ted I Novem­ber 2018

Derek Ross – appoin­ted | Novem­ber 2018

Judith Webb — chair Audit and Risk Committee

Wal­ter Wilson – resigned 18 June 2018

Bri­an Wood — Deputy Con­vener, stood down 30 Septem­ber 2018

Board mem­ber pro­files can be found at http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​b​oard/

CHIEF EXEC­UT­IVE AND ACCOUNT­ABLE OFFICER

Grant Moir

DIR­ECT­ORS

Dav­id Camer­on — Cor­por­ate Services

Mur­ray Fer­guson — Plan­ning & Rur­al Development

Dr Peter May­hew — Con­ser­va­tion & Vis­it­or Experience

SPON­SOR­ING BODY

Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Government

2

PART I – PER­FORM­ANCE REPORT

Over­view

For­ward 4

The Park Author­ity 6

Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ and bey­ond 8

Key Issues and Risks 10

Per­form­ance Analysis

Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Summary |

Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary 15

3

PART I PER­FORM­ANCE REPORT

OVER­VIEW

For­ward

I have pleas­ure in present­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s (the Park Authority)

Annu­al Report and Accounts cov­er­ing its fif­teenth year of oper­a­tion, from I April 2018 to

31 March 2019.

The Park Author­ity has worked this year to pro­gress pri­or­ity object­ives set out in our new

Cor­por­ate Plan, 2018 to 2022. Our Cor­por­ate Plan sets out how we will alloc­ate our

resources and explains how our use of these resources will help to deliv­er the Cairngorms

Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan along with our wide range of part­ners, and through this

con­trib­ute to achiev­ing the Scot­tish Government’s Stra­tegic Objectives.

The Park Author­ity is respons­ible for deliv­er­ing across con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and

rur­al devel­op­ment. This involves us in our stat­utory func­tions, such as, plan­ning and access

but also in our role of work­ing with a wide range of part­ners to deliv­er pro­jects on the

ground that deliv­er on our out­comes. This has been achieved through lever­ing in additional

fund­ing into the Nation­al Park on con­ser­va­tion pro­jects, rur­al regen­er­a­tion pro­jects, access

pro­jects and much more besides.

It has been a busy year and some of the key high­lights of our work in the Nation­al Park are in

this Annu­al Report and Accounts, with more detailed inform­a­tion avail­able in our Annual

Review of ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉. (https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​a​n​n​u​a​l​-​r​e​p​orts/)

A major high­light of the year was the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, and the Park Authority,

play­ing host to the annu­al EURO­PARC Con­fer­ence in Septem­ber 2018. This brought around

500 del­eg­ates from 36 coun­tries to Scot­land and the Cairngorms. Of these del­eg­ates, 100

were under 30 years of age: itself mak­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the Year of Young People

in Scot­land and enga­ging the next gen­er­a­tion in con­ser­va­tion and sus­tain­able communities.

…

“We con­sider this Con­fer­ence a great suc­cess the par­ti­cip­a­tion numbers

were high­er than ever the agenda took place as sched­uled and the

enjoy­ment of the del­eg­ates was tan­gible from the begin­ning till the end!”

EURO­PARC Federation

This con­fer­ence was the biggest gath­er­ing of Nation­al Parks and pro­tec­ted areas ever held in

Europe with world class speak­ers present­ing their views on how to get young people more

involved in nature. The major out­put from the con­fer­ence was the Youth Mani­festo which

pro­tec­ted areas across Europe are now deliv­er­ing and which in the Cairngorms has led to

the co-design of a Youth Coun­cil which we will launch later this year.

We will con­tin­ue to con­trib­ute to the Scot­tish Government’s Nation­al Out­comes as set out

in the Nation­al Per­form­ance Frame­work, and we remain com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that ​“our

pub­lic ser­vices are high qual­ity, con­tinu­ally improv­ing, effi­cient and respons­ive to local

4

peoples’ needs.” We aim to deliv­er high stand­ards of ser­vice with­in our agreed budget

alloc­a­tion while achiev­ing a break even fin­an­cial outturn.

Fun­da­ment­ally we are determ­ined to work with people and con­tin­ue to deliv­er the projects

that make a sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ence to all those that are involved in this Nation­al Park. That is

what pub­lic ser­vice is all about.

Grant Moir

Chief Exec­ut­ive and Account­able Officer

5

The Park Authority

The Park Author­ity is a Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Body sponsored by the Envir­on­ment and

Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Government.

The Des­ig­na­tion Order for the Nation­al Park was approved on 7 Janu­ary 2003, came into

force on 25 March 2003, and the Park Author­ity was oper­a­tion­al from I Septem­ber 2003. The

bound­ar­ies of the Nation­al Park were fur­ther exten­ded on 4 Octo­ber 2010 to include areas

of the North Perth­shire glens includ­ing Blair Atholl and Glen Shee.

Stra­tegic context

Scotland’s Nation­al Parks are set up as mod­els of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment work­ing towards

achiev­ing 4 aims set out in sec­tion I of the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 in a co-

ordin­ated way:

• to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area;

• to pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area;

• to pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of

recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the pub­lic; and

• to pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s communities.

Strategy and busi­ness model

The Park Author­ity has a key role in lead­ing the deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Partnership

Plan. The Plan sets the con­text for close cooper­a­tion and part­ner­ship across pub­lic, private

and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions in the Park. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan sets out three

long term out­comes for the Park. These have been used as the basis for devel­op­ing the

Cor­por­ate Plan. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 (CNPPP), which

was approved by Min­is­ters, provides the over­all guide for stra­tegic align­ment between public

agen­cies with­in the Park, and also with private and com­munity organ­isa­tions who are

sig­nat­or­ies to and part­ners in deliv­ery of the CNPPP.

The Park Authority’s new Cor­por­ate Plan was approved by the Board and Scot­tish Ministers

in Spring 2018 to cov­er our work up to the end of the cur­rent CNPPP and the development

of the next one. In the wider Scot­tish con­text, the Park Author­ity will also work on ensuring

great­er stra­tegic align­ment to ensure deliv­ery of key nation­al strategies such as, cur­rent and

future Pro­grammes for Gov­ern­ment, 2020 Chal­lenge for Scotland’s Biod­iversity, Scottish

Cli­mate Change Act, the Land Use Strategy for Scot­land, Scotland’s Eco­nom­ic Strategy,

Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work, the Com­munity Empower­ment Act, the nation­al Tourism

Strategy 2020, the Nation­al Walk­ing Strategy and the Cyc­ling Action Plan for Scotland.

Our stra­tegic work includes being an act­ive mem­ber of the Envir­on­ment and Economy

Lead­ers’ Group.

6

Our com­mit­ment

Fol­low­ing engage­ment with staff and our Board in 2016 the Park Author­ity adop­ted a vision,

mis­sion state­ment and a set of val­ues, as part of its cor­por­ate plan­ning pro­cesses, which are

cent­ral to our pur­pose and stra­tegic context:

Our vis­ion — an out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by everyone,

where nature and people thrive together;

Our mis­sion — to lead the way in deliv­er­ing for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park by

bring­ing people togeth­er towards a com­mon pur­pose; enhan­cing the Park for everyone

and inspir­ing new gen­er­a­tions to be Park Champions;

Our val­ues — the CNPA is an open, inclus­ive, innov­at­ive and professional

organ­isa­tion that behaves with integ­rity. The CNPA will also oper­ate in an

envir­on­ment­ally friendly way that provides lead­er­ship in this area.

Our cul­ture – …to be the best small pub­lic body in Scotland.

We want to be the best small pub­lic body in Scot­land. The Best Com­pan­ies Sur­vey has

shown that we are a people ori­ented organ­isa­tion that is per­form­ing well. We will build on

our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and build on new oppor­tun­it­ies, such as the

exten­sion to the main office which was com­pleted in the year, to strive to ensure a high

per­form­ance cul­ture. The Park Author­ity will be innov­at­ive, quick to act and empower staff

to deliv­er the strategies put in place by our Board.

New ways of working

The Park Author­ity will con­tin­ue to look at new ways to oper­ate to deliv­er our

com­mit­ments in the cur­rent Nation­al Park Plan. This will include look­ing for alternative

fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, includ­ing applic­a­tions to funds, such as the Nation­al Lot­tery Heritage

Fund, spon­sor­ship oppor­tun­it­ies and mer­chand­ising. It also includes work­ing collaboratively

with part­ners to deliv­er improved services.

Per­form­ance monitoring

Per­form­ance indic­at­ors have been set for each of our key themes against which we will

meas­ure and mon­it­or per­form­ance. By the nature of the Park Authority’s role, in seek­ing to

lead col­lab­or­at­ive effort in tack­ling the big issues for the Cairngorms, these performance

meas­ures are rarely entirely con­trol­lable by the Park Author­ity. Rather, they require

col­lab­or­a­tion and engage­ment with our part­ners and are meas­ures of the effect­ive­ness of

our lead­er­ship and influ­en­cing, com­bined with our dir­ect invest­ment of fin­ance and staff

resources, in address­ing our priorities.

7

Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ and Beyond

To deliv­er the long term out­comes in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, the

Cor­por­ate Plan recog­nises Themes and Pri­or­it­ies. The main Themes are Conservation,

Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence and Rur­al Devel­op­ment. The deliv­ery of the main themes and their

out­comes is sup­ple­men­ted by two sup­port themes – Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and

Com­mu­nic­a­tions.

Con­ser­va­tion to be a spe­cial place for people and nature with nat­ur­al and cultural

her­it­age enhanced

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the premi­er area in the UK for nature

con­ser­va­tion, with 50% of the area recog­nised as import­ant on a European scale

through Natura 2000 des­ig­na­tion. Home to some of the most extens­ive and

inter­na­tion­ally import­ant mont­ane, wood­land, river and wet­land hab­it­ats, our role is

to bring part­ners togeth­er to deliv­er con­ser­va­tion at a land­scape scale and engage

the pub­lic in this endeavour.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• sup­port land­scape-scale con­ser­va­tion, espe­cially the expan­sion of nat­ive and

mont­ane wood­land, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, nat­ur­al flood man­age­ment and

caper­cail­lie management;

• ensure deer man­age­ment is focused on deliv­er­ing pub­lic interest priorities

spe­cific­ally the expan­sion of nat­ive wood­lands and peat­land restoration;

• sup­port sus­tain­able moor­land man­age­ment to deliv­er great­er hab­it­at diversity

and good man­age­ment practice.

Vis­it­or exper­i­ence – people enjoy­ing the Park through out­stand­ing vis­it­or and learning

exper­i­ences

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is an inter­na­tion­ally renowned vis­it­or des­tin­a­tion with an

out­stand­ing range of out­door recre­ation oppor­tun­it­ies. Our role is to ensure the qual­ity of

vis­it­or exper­i­ence matches the qual­ity of envir­on­ment by coordin­at­ing invest­ment in the

core infra­struc­ture, car­ry­ing out our role as an Access Author­ity, pro­mot­ing sustainable

tour­ism and ensur­ing people of all ages, back­grounds and abil­it­ies are able to exper­i­ence and

enjoy the Nation­al Park.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• con­tin­ue to ensure vis­it­or infra­struc­ture meets the expect­a­tions of vis­it­ors to

the Nation­al Park and help deliv­er a sus­tain­able tour­ism economy;

• increase phys­ic­al activ­ity in both res­id­ents and vis­it­ors and sup­port deliv­ery of

Scot­land Nat­ur­al Health Service;

• cre­ate a ​‘Park for All’ by encour­aging people from all back­grounds to come

and recre­ate, learn in or vis­it the Nation­al Park.

8

Rur­al devel­op­ment – a sus­tain­able eco­nomy sup­port­ing thriv­ing busi­nesses and

com­munit­ies

Deliv­ery of our pri­or­it­ies with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park can only come through close

joint work­ing with the people who live and work in the com­munit­ies of the Park. Our role is

to pro­mote invest­ment in a diver­si­fied eco­nomy, help com­munit­ies plan and achieve their

own vis­ions and deliv­er a Plan­ning Ser­vice to guide the right devel­op­ment to the right place.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• sup­port deliv­ery of hous­ing for loc­al needs through an effi­cient and effective

plan­ning service;

• sup­port com­munit­ies, spe­cific­ally focus­sing on the most fra­gile, to deliv­er their

agen­das for change;

• work closely with the busi­ness com­munity and part­ners to sup­port a

sus­tain­able Park economy.

Sup­port themes

The deliv­ery of the themes and pri­or­it­ies is sup­por­ted by Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Corporate

Ser­vices teams. Our Com­mu­nic­a­tions team works with vis­it­ors, com­munit­ies and

stake­hold­ers to raise the pro­file of the Park and cre­ate a con­nec­tion and com­mit­ment to

care for it. Our Cor­por­ate Ser­vices team ensure the deliv­ery of effect­ive, effi­cient and

sus­tain­able ser­vices in addi­tion to pro­mot­ing the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance, both

with­in the Park Author­ity itself and also in work­ing with com­munity and voluntary

organ­isa­tions involved in deliv­ery of NPPP priorities.

Cor­por­ate services

Deliv­er­ing effect­ive, effi­cient and sus­tain­able ser­vices and pro­mot­ing the highest stand­ards of

gov­ernance, to sup­port deliv­ery of the Cor­por­ate Plan and Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Part­ner­ship Plan by the Park Author­ity and our com­munity and char­ity part­ners. We will

also play an act­ive role in the Envir­on­ment and Eco­nomy Lead­ers’ Group.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• imple­ment the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and embed the

organ­isa­tion­al and cul­tur­al improve­ments to make the Park author­ity the best

small pub­lic body in Scotland;

• ensure that the office exten­sion, exist­ing accom­mod­a­tion and ICT facil­it­ies are

‘fit for pur­pose’ and help to deliv­er the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy;

• deliv­er ongo­ing ser­vice improve­ment, includ­ing appro­pri­ate shared services

devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion, to the Park Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and

the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support;

• pro­mote and sup­port the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance and management,

includ­ing equal­it­ies actions, with­in the Park Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and

the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support.

9

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and engagement

Com­mu­nic­at­ing with vis­it­ors, com­munit­ies and stake­hold­ers is vital for the work of the

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity. It sup­ports the work being under­taken across the

organ­isa­tion to deliv­er on con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and rur­al devel­op­ment. Our role

is to raise the pro­file of the Park and cre­ate a con­nec­tion and com­mit­ment to care for it

with iden­ti­fied audi­ences so they act­ively sup­port the Park and bene­fit from doing so.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• deliv­er the Com­mu­nic­a­tion and Engage­ment Strategy and increase awareness,

engage­ment and involve­ment with the Park;

• ensure high qual­ity intern­al com­mu­nic­a­tions that help deliv­er the key

pri­or­it­ies of the Cor­por­ate Plan.

Key Issues and Risks

Risk man­age­ment and con­sid­er­a­tion of issues arising that may impact on the deliv­ery of our

stra­tegic cor­por­ate pri­or­it­ies are cent­ral to our man­age­ment activ­it­ies with­in the Park

Author­ity. The Man­age­ment Team reviews stra­tegic risks at least quarterly, and we have

developed and embed­ded stra­tegic and oper­a­tion­al risk man­age­ment prac­tices, togeth­er with

pro­ject man­age­ment pro­cesses, to take full cog­nis­ance of these core aspects of effective

organ­isa­tion­al and stra­tegic con­trol arrangements.

The Park Author­ity has developed a Stra­tegic Risk Man­age­ment Strategy and associated

Stra­tegic Risk Register, which, in tan­dem with our cor­por­ate per­form­ance and monitoring

sys­tem, details the key issues and risks around deliv­ery of our Cor­por­ate Plan togeth­er with

the stra­tegic object­ives and key per­form­ance indic­at­ors set out in that plan. The Board

receives detailed reports and com­ments on key issues and risks twice annu­ally, with the

Board’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee review­ing stra­tegic risk man­age­ment between these

Board meet­ings. The most recent review of key issues and risks con­sidered by the Board in

June 2019 can be found at:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​1​4​0​6​2​0​1​9​/​1​9​0​6​1​4​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r​3Anne

x3StrategicRiskRegister.pdf

Sig­ni­fic­ant pro­jects will also have their own embed­ded risk registers and risk mit­ig­a­tion plans.

More inform­a­tion on risk and intern­al con­trols can be found in the Gov­ernance Statement

with­in this doc­u­ment and in our Risk Man­age­ment Strategy avail­able at:

http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​d​o​c​s​/​b​o​a​r​d​p​a​p​e​r​s​/​1​5​0​6​2​0​1​8​/​1​8​0​6​1​5​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r​4​Annex

IRiskManagementStrategyV0.1.pdf

10

PER­FORM­ANCE ANALYSIS

Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Summary

The main sources of the Park Authority’s fund­ing for the year were the resource budgets

and grant-in-aid fund­ing from the spon­sor­ing body the Envir­on­ment and Forestry

Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, of the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The Author­ity also

acts as Account­able Body for the Cairngorm LEAD­ER pro­gramme and The Nation­al Lottery

Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) and part­ner fun­ded pro­jects, the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Landscape

part­ner­ship, Great Place Badenoch and the Caper­cail­lie Framework.

Our income — total income for the year was £7.002million:

£1.585m = 23%

grant in aid

pro­ject funding/​recoveries

£4.765m = 68% £2.237m = 32% oth­er funding/​recoveries

£0.672m

= 9%

Resource grant-in-aid of £4.565m (2018: £4.315m) was received against operational

activ­it­ies, togeth­er with cap­it­al grants of £0.2m (2018: £0.26m). Part­ner con­tri­bu­tions to

pro­jects totalled £1.585m (2018: £1.3m) with income and grants from all oth­er sources

com­ing to £0.672m (2018: £0.3m).

Our expendit­ure — total expendit­ure for the year on oper­a­tion­al costs was

£6.941 mil­lion:

pro­ject staff salaries

core staff costs

£1.585m = 23% £1.649m = 24% pro­ject costs

£2.436m = 36% oper­a­tion­al plan costs

run­ning costs

£2.920m = 42% £0.670m = 10% core depreciation

£0.117m = 2%

11

Pro­ject income and expendit­ure levels for the year have again increased on 2018 levels as a

res­ult of the increase in activ­ity in both the LEAD­ER pro­gram and on NLHF supported

pro­jects.

Our expendit­ure on main themes

RUR­AL DEVELOPMENT

SER­VICE DELIVERY

SUP­PORT FOR PARK ECONOMY

SUP­PORT COMUNITITES

HOUS­ING FOR LOC­AL NEEDS

£0.260m

£0.601m

VIS­IT­OR EXPERIENCE

VIS­IT­OR EXPERIENCE

£0.391m

ACT­IVE CAIRNGORMS

£0.263m

INFRA­STRUC­TURE

£0.319m

CON­SER­VA­TION & LAND MANAGEMENT

MOOR­LAND MANAGEMENT

DEER MAN­AGE­MENT

LAND­SCAPE SCALE CONSERVATION

£0.148m

£.067m

£1.061m

£0.974m

£1.101m

The Park Authority’s expendit­ure is also broken down over key themes and pri­or­it­ies of

oper­a­tion­al activ­ity in note 3 (seg­ment­al report­ing) to the Fin­an­cial State­ments. The above

table shows our invest­ment in the main oper­a­tion­al themes before the alloc­a­tion of any

oth­er income or part­ner­ship fund­ing. (Depre­ci­ation on tan­gible and intan­gible assets is not

attrib­uted to any theme or pri­or­ity in intern­al reporting.)

Our out­turn

We are tak­ing £0.061m for the year (2018: £0.121m) to Tax­pay­ers’ equity (Table 1). After

account­ing for cap­it­al invest­ment cre­at­ing £0.2m in new tan­gible and intan­gible assets, and

cap­it­al grants of £0.002m, the planned break­even out­turn for the year was achieved.

Table I £,000

Resource and cap­it­al DEL received 4,765

Less net expendit­ure adjus­ted for cap­it­al grants (4,565)

Less cap­it­al grants giv­en (20)

Remain­ing C DEL against non-cur­rent assets 180

Less depre­ci­ation (119)

Trans­fer for year to Tax­pay­ers’ equity 61

The accounts for the year to 31 March 2019, set out on pages 41 to 53, which are prepared

on a going con­cern basis, and in a format dir­ec­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters in accord­ance with

the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. A copy of the Accounts Dir­ec­tion is repro­duced in

Appendix 1.

12

Out­turn to budget

A budget is agreed with the spon­sor­ing depart­ment (Depart­ment­al Expendit­ure Limited

[DEL]) which cov­ers all expendit­ure net of income from all oth­er sources. DEL is further

split between cash alloc­a­tions (resource [RDEL] and cap­it­al [CDEL]) and non-cash

alloc­a­tions. Non-cash DEL cov­ers depre­ci­ation and impair­ment of non-cur­rent assets, which

are cap­it­al­ised tan­gible and intan­gible assets included in the State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion at

the year end.

Table 2

Cash Non- Total

Resource Cap­it­al Total Cash

DEL DEL DEL DEL

DEL

£,000 £,000 £,000 £,000

£,000

Budget

Ori­gin­al alloc­a­tion 4,565 200 4,765 116 4,881

Out­turn

Net resource expendit­ure 4,565 4565 — 4,565

Net cap­it­al grants 20 20 20

Depre­ci­ation — - 119 119

Net Expendit­ure 4,565 20 4,585 119 4,704

Non-cur­rent assets bought 182 182 182

Total spend 4,565 202 4,767 119 4,886

(Over)/underspend 0 (2) (2) (3) (5)

0% 1% 0.04% (2.6%) 0.1%

*per­cent­ages are cal­cu­lated on the total per com­pon­ent and budget.

Net incom­ing resources

The net incom­ing resources for the year to 31 March 2019 com­prises income received from

part­ners reim­burs­ing costs incurred, includ­ing reim­burse­ment of grant out­lays and

admin­is­tra­tion costs incurred on the Cairngorms LEAD­ER pro­gramme 2014 – 20, and the

Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund pro­jects — Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Partnership,

Great Place Badenoch and the Caper­cail­lie Frame­work. Fees are also received from called-

in plan­ning applic­a­tions sub­mit­ted in the first instance to the five loc­al author­it­ies with­in the

Nation­al Park’s boundaries.

Changes in non-cur­rent assets

Move­ments in non-cur­rent assets are shown in note 8.

In August 2018 we took pos­ses­sion of a pur­pose built office exten­sion. Expendit­ure of

£41,641 was incurred in year and the total cap­it­al cost of the pro­ject, includ­ing fit­ting out

and addi­tion­al equip­ment, to the Park author­ity was £322,955.

Char­it­able donations

There were no char­it­able dona­tions made in the year or pre­vi­ous year.

13

Rela­tion­ship with sup­pli­ers and partners

Our sup­pli­er pay­ment policy com­plies with the terms of the Bet­ter Pay­ment Prac­tice Code.

Dur­ing the year to 31 March 2019, the time taken to pay cred­it­ors achieved an aver­age of

7.4 days (2018: 8.8 days) against a tar­get of 10 days (2018: 10 days), with 89.6% (2018:

71.4%) of pay­ments being made by the tar­get date.

Our oper­at­ing model

Much of the work under­taken by the Park Author­ity involves work­ing in part­ner­ship with

oth­ers: influ­en­cing, build­ing rela­tion­ships and facil­it­at­ing pro­jects through tak­ing a lead or

host­ing roles where oth­er deliv­ery part­ners per­haps do not have the full oper­a­tion­al or

busi­ness sys­tems capa­city to deliv­er the full range of activ­it­ies required.

Organ­isa­tion­al development

Our people and our organ­isa­tion­al struc­tures are there­fore crit­ic­al to our continued

suc­cess. We brought the second phase of our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment (OD) Strategy to

a con­clu­sion in ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉, and set the ground­work for the next phase of our work on phase

three of our OD Strategy from April 2019 onwards. Our OD Strategy sets the framework

through which we aim to improve and devel­op as an organ­isa­tion through innovation,

embra­cing digit­al tech­no­lo­gies and the oppor­tun­it­ies they afford, and improv­ing our

pro­vi­sion of ser­vices to the pub­lic. We con­tin­ue to har­ness our integ­rated change

man­age­ment pro­gramme in deliv­er­ing ongo­ing intern­al and pub­lic ser­vice improvements.

Improv­ing effi­ciency, effect­ive­ness and eco­nomy and deliv­er­ing best

value

The Park Author­ity focuses on the deliv­ery of best value, and on the improve­ment in

effi­ciency, effect­ive­ness and eco­nomy in exer­cising our functions.

We main­tain our over­sight of effect­ive­ness of ser­vice deliv­ery through a dir­ect linkage

between our com­plaints hand­ling pro­ced­ure and devel­op­ment of best value ser­vices. We

ensure com­plaints and any oth­er forms of feed­back on our ser­vices are used to inform

ser­vice devel­op­ment and help identi­fy ser­vice improve­ments where these are required. We

ensure in our hand­ling of com­plaints that the best pos­sible ser­vice is provided to our

stake­hold­ers and cus­tom­ers, and also that we make the most effect­ive con­tri­bu­tion to our

own ser­vice improve­ment from our invest­ig­a­tion of feed­back and com­plaints. We also value

input from intern­al audit, which sup­por­ted our work on com­plaints hand­ling, and oth­er areas

of extern­al review to identi­fy poten­tial areas for ser­vice improve­ment and enhanced

effect­ive­ness.

In terms of the Park Authority’s deliv­ery of effi­cien­cies in its oper­a­tions, we con­tin­ue to

deliv­er against tar­get cumu­lat­ive effi­ciency sav­ings. Con­sequently, the Park Author­ity is able

to main­tain invest­ment, through its Oper­a­tion­al Plan, in pro­jects with­in the Nation­al Park

des­pite reduc­tions in pub­lic sec­tor fund­ing, by redir­ect­ing these effi­ciency sav­ings from

organ­isa­tion­al sup­port into pro­ject investment.

Our deliv­ery of ser­vices through shared ser­vices and joint pro­cure­ment with various

part­ners has been a con­trib­ut­ory factor to suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of effi­ciency sav­ings and also to

14

devel­op­ment of eco­nom­ic, effect­ive ser­vice pro­vi­sion. The Park Author­ity both deliv­ers and

receives shared ser­vices as a con­sequence of vari­ous joint deliv­ery arrange­ments, in

par­tic­u­lar with Loch Lomond and the Trossachs NPA. All func­tion­al areas of corporate

ser­vices have been involved in the devel­op­ment of these shared ser­vices arrangements:

gov­ernance and stand­ards, audit, human resources, fin­ance, and inform­a­tion technology.

Gael­ic lan­guage: our duty as a pub­lic body to devel­op and deliv­er our

Lan­guage Plan

The Park Authority’s first five year Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan, adop­ted in 2013 came to an end in

March 2018. All actions iden­ti­fied in the Plan have been delivered except intern­al and

extern­al bilin­gual sig­nage at our offices which we are tak­ing for­ward as part of our office

redevel­op­ment project.

We have now developed and agreed our second Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan to be delivered over

2018 to 2022. A high­light of our Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan deliv­ery in ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ was the

recruit­ment and man­age­ment of our first Gael­ic stu­dent intern to sup­port our Gael­ic as an

Asset pro­ject. We also con­tin­ued our work with our LEAD­ER deliv­ery and Cairngorms

LEAD­ER Loc­al Action Group on the devel­op­ment of Comunn na Gaidhlig’s Spors Gaidhlig

pro­ject, sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of Gael­ic Lan­guage deliv­ery of out­door activities.

Fin­an­cial instruments

Due to the non-trad­ing nature of our activ­it­ies, and the way fin­ance is provided by Scottish

Gov­ern­ment, we are not exposed to the degree of fin­an­cial risk faced by commercial

entit­ies.

Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Summary

²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ Activ­ity highlights

As part of the Year of Young People the Nation­al Park hos­ted the 2018 EUROPARC

Con­fer­ence, ​“Inspired by the Next Gen­er­a­tion”, in Septem­ber 2018, atten­ded by over 500

del­eg­ates from all over Europe includ­ing around 100 del­eg­ates under the age of 30. The

suc­cess­ful Con­fer­ence was opened by the Min­is­ter for Rur­al affairs and the Natural

Envir­on­ment, Mairi Gougeon, and closed by the Deputy First Min­is­ter and Cab­in­et Secretary

for Edu­ca­tion and Skills, John Swin­ney, who spoke in sup­port of the Youth Mani­festo which

was launched dur­ing the Con­fer­ence. Over 50 young people launched the mani­festo ask­ing for

organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies to engage with their young people to cre­ate new opportunities

for liv­ing, learn­ing and work­ing in rur­al com­munit­ies and pro­tec­ted areas. As its contribution

to the Youth Mani­festo, the Nation­al Park will recruit young people aged 16 – 30 to be part of

a steer­ing group to co-design a Cairngorm’s Nation­al Park Youth Group or Youth Council:

• to be the voice of young people in the Park;

• to devel­op a pro­ced­ure to fund young people’s ideas about liv­ing, learn­ing and

work­ing in the Park;

• to put on excit­ing and innov­at­ive events for young people in the Park.

The EURO­PARC Fed­er­a­tion is ded­ic­ated to nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age in Europe and works

15

to improve the man­age­ment of Pro­tec­ted Areas in Europe through international

cooper­a­tion, exchange of ideas and exper­i­ence, and by influ­en­cing policy. The full 2018

EURO­PARC Con­fer­ence report can be found at https://​www​.euro​parc​.org/​e​u​r​o​parc-

con­fer­ence/­pre­vi­ous-con­fer­ences/euro­parc-con­fer­ence-2018/

Our achieve­ments and key areas of work in the first year of the new four year Cor­por­ate Plan

included the following:

Land Man­age­ment

• Cairngorms Nation­al Park Forest Strategy was launched on 1 March 2019,

provid­ing stra­tegic dir­ec­tion on future forest man­age­ment and the res­tor­a­tion of

wood­lands in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park over the next two dec­ades. This is

import­ant not just for the Nation­al Park but for Scot­land. The chal­lenge is now to

encour­age more landown­ers to adopt the Strategy’s vis­ion and object­ives and we are

in dis­cus­sion with oth­er Gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and NGOs, on cre­at­ing a ​“chal­lenge

fund” to assist in the cre­ation of more wood­land with­in the Nation­al Park;

• Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship is now well into the Delivery

Phase with a num­ber of indi­vidu­al pro­jects com­pleted and the full partnership

pro­gramme due to com­plete by Septem­ber 2020;

• Peat­land Action officers con­tin­ue to deliv­er res­tor­a­tion man­age­ment across the

Nation­al Park with 13 Pro­jects under­way, 8 of which were com­pleted by the end of

March 2019, cov­er­ing 1,100 hec­tares of peat­land with a budget of £1.48m.

Devel­op­ment work has iden­ti­fied 1,200 hec­tares across 11 peat­land sites for

poten­tial res­tor­a­tion when fund­ing is available;

• East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship, fun­ded and sup­por­ted by 6 Estates and

the Park Author­ity, focused in the year on col­lect­ing data on muir­burns, mountain

hares, waders and wood­land creation.

Con­ser­va­tion

• Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Frame­work, sup­por­ted by The Nation­al Lottery

Her­it­age Fund and LEAD­ER, star­ted its devel­op­ment phase to answer the question

“How can people who live, work and play in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park help

secure the long-term future of Caper­cail­lie” pilot­ing an innov­at­ive approach to

seek­ing con­ser­va­tion solu­tions from with­in loc­al communities;

• the review of the first Cairngorms Nature Action Plan (2013−18) was well

received by stake­hold­ers and part­ners at the Cairngorms Nature sem­in­ar in June

2018. The on-line report is avail­able at http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​king-

part­ne­ship/nat­in­al-park-strategies/cnap and describes the partnership’s main

achieve­ments and pro­gress against tar­gets. The Cairngorms Nature action plan 2019

was launched nation­ally at Holyrood on 21 Feb­ru­ary 2019 and loc­ally with the launch

of the Forest Strategy on I March 2019;

• the Author­ity coordin­ated anoth­er suc­cess­ful Cairngorms Nature’s ​“BIG

WEEK­END” out­ing in May 2018 with over 60 events held across the National

Park, with an estim­ated 1,600 people tak­ing part. A rur­al skills day organ­ised with

Forestry Enter­prise Scot­land res­ul­ted in over 200 young people learn­ing about

out­door job oppor­tun­it­ies in the Nation­al park. The ​“Rewild­ing Re-peopling”

dis­cus­sion was sold out with 150+ attendees.

16

Vis­it­or Experience

• the Park Author­ity, with sup­port from Paths for All and NHS High­land obtained a

three year LEAD­ER fund­ing pack­age to sup­port volun­teer­ing and Health Walks

in the Cairngorms, with the second year of the pro­ject suc­cess­fully delivered over

²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉;

• Long Dis­tance Routes (1) Spey­side way plan­ning con­sent is now in place with

fund­ing from Low Car­bon Travel and Trans­port Chal­lenge Fund to com­plete the new

build to extend this LDR to a new ter­minus in New­ton­more by Autumn 2019. (2)

Deeside Way plan­ning con­sent for the path line from Braemar