CNPA Annual Report and Accounts 2019/2020

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY ÙGH­DAR­RAS PAIRC NÀISEANΝΤΑ Α’ MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

ANNU­AL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀

AITH­ISG BHLIADH­NAIL AGUS CUN­NTAS­AN ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀

…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 LUACH, 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 ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ and bey­ond 8 Key Issues and Risks 10 Per­form­ance Ana­lys­is Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Sum­mary 11 Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary 15 PART 2 — ACCOUNT­AB­IL­ITY REPORT 26 Cor­por­ate gov­ernance report Dir­ect­ors’ Report 27 State­ment of Nation­al Park Authority’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 29 State­ment of Board’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 30 State­ment of the Account­able Officer’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 31 Gov­ernance State­ment 31 Remu­ner­a­tion and staff report Remu­ner­a­tion report and key inform­a­tion on staff 37 Par­lia­ment­ary Account­ab­il­ity Dis­clos­ures Dis­clos­ures to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment 46 Inde­pend­ent Auditor’s report 47 PART 3 — FIN­AN­CIAL STATE­MENTS 51 State­ment of Com­pre­hens­ive Net Expendit­ure 52 State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion 53 State­ment of Cash Flows 54 State­ment of Changes in Tax­pay­ers’ Equity 55 Notes to the Fin­an­cial State­ments 56 APPEN­DICES Accounts Dir­ec­tion 68 Staff Uni­on Time 69 1

KEY PER­SON­NEL AND SPON­SOR­ING BODY BOARD MEM­BERS Peter Argyle Geva Black­ett — Deputy Con­vener (resigned as Deputy Con­ven­or 29^th July 2020) Car­o­lyn Cad­dick Deirdrie Fal­con­er Pippa Had­ley Janet Hunter John Kirk John Lath­am Douglas McAdam Dr Fiona McLean Anne Rae Mac­Don­ald Elean­or Mack­in­tosh – Chair Plan­ning Com­mit­tee lan Maclar­en Xan­der McDade — Con­vener Wil­lie McK­enna Wil­li­am Mun­ro – Chair Fin­ance and Deliv­ery Com­mit­tee Dr Gaen­er Rodger Derek Ross Judith Webb – Chair Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee 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 ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ and bey­ond 8 Key Issues and Risks 10 Per­form­ance Ana­lys­is Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Sum­mary 11 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 six­teenth year of oper­a­tion, from I April 2019 to 31 March 2020. The Park Author­ity has worked this year to pro­gress pri­or­ity object­ives set out in our Cor­por­ate Plan span­ning 2018 to 2022, our second year of deliv­ery against this stra­tegic deliv­ery plan approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters. 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. Like every cit­izen and organ­isa­tion in Scot­land, we were impacted by the pub­lic safety meas­ures put in place over March 2020 to respond to the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic, and before that had to risk man­age our work in the con­text of polit­ic­al reac­tions to the UK’s exit from the European Uni­on. Des­pite these peri­ods of unrest in our stra­tegic oper­at­ing envir­on­ment, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity has had anoth­er suc­cess­ful year in deliv­er­ing against our pri­or­it­ies and in man­aging a bal­anced budget pos­i­tion while doing so. The Park Author­ity is respons­ible for deliv­er­ing across con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and rur­al devel­op­ment. This involves us in provid­ing effect­ive and effi­cient pub­lic ser­vices cov­er­ing our stat­utory func­tions of plan­ning and access, and also in our wider roles work­ing with a wide range of part­ners across the full spec­trum of con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or ser­vices and rur­al devel­op­ment to deliv­er pro­jects on the ground that deliv­er on our out­comes. This has been achieved through lever­ing in sig­ni­fic­ant 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 ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀. https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​a​b​o​u​t​/​a​n​nual- reports/​Par­tic­u­lar high­lights in the year include the devel­op­ment of a Youth Action Team to fol­low up on the huge suc­cess of the 2018 Euro­parc Fed­er­a­tion con­fer­ence hos­ted by the Cairngorms NPA, which forms the first steps in real engage­ment of and with young people to inform the future devel­op­ment and con­ser­va­tion of their Nation­al Park. We also hos­ted the Net Zero with Nature Con­fer­ence in March 2020 which cemen­ted our long term com­mit­ment to find­ing fully sus­tain­able ways to live in, work in and vis­it the Cairngorms and which will con­tin­ue to be a key focus for us even as we work hard in the short­er term to sup­port the Cairngorms in its recov­ery from impacts of Cov­id-19. We remain com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that ​“our pub­lic ser­vices are high qual­ity, con­tinu­ally improv­ing, effi­cient and respons­ive to loc­al peoples’ needs.” We aim to deliv­er high stand­ards of ser­vice with­in our agreed budget alloc­a­tion while achiev­ing a break even fin­an­cial out­turn. 4

Fun­da­ment­ally we are determ­ined to set an ambi­tious, fully sus­tain­able long term vis­ion for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and 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 21 Octo­ber, 2020 5

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the largest Nation­al Park in the United King­dom and cov­ers 4,525 square kilo­metres, twice the size of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and 40% lar­ger than the Lake Dis­trict. The Park Author­ity is a Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Body sponsored by the Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, estab­lished under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 with the pur­pose of being a mod­el of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment work­ing towards achiev­ing four stat­utory aims: • 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 Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. The Plan sets the con­text for close cooper­a­tion and part­ner­ship across pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions in the Park towards an agreed set of shared pri­or­ity object­ives. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan sets out three long term out­comes for the Park, which have also 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 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 fol­low­ing Park Part­ner­ship Plan which will be put in place to com­mence from April 2022. 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, togeth­er with input to a range of nation­al lead­er­ship and stake­hold­er groups. Our com­mit­ment Fol­low­ing engage­ment with staff and our Board in 2016 we adop­ted a vis­ion, mis­sion state­ment and a set of val­ues, as part of our 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; 6

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 aspire to be the best small pub­lic body in Scot­land. Our staff sur­vey res­ults, under­taken every 2 years through ​“The Best Com­pan­ies Sur­vey” has shown that we are a people ori­ented organ­isa­tion per­form­ing well. We were delighted to once again be lis­ted in the Top 100 Not For Profit Organ­isa­tions in the UK wide sur­vey in Autumn 2019. We will con­tin­ue to build on our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy to imbed a high per­form­ance, high achiev­ing and high qual­ity 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 Part­ner­ship Plan. This will include con­tinu­ing our suc­cess in 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. We also con­tin­ue to strive for more effi­cient, and sus­tain­able work­ing prac­tices intern­ally through deliv­er­ing against the third phase of our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy. 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. We com­pile per­form­ance mon­it­or­ing reports twice each year to the Authority’s Board, with all of these reports avail­able on our web­site. The most recent report, togeth­er with detail of per­form­ance against each meas­ure, is avail­able 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​/​0​6​1​2​2​0​1​9​/​1​9​1​2​0​6​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r5AAC orporatePlanUpdateCover%20V.2.pdf Fur­ther detail on our most recent per­form­ance against our key per­form­ance meas­ures is avail­able in the Annexes to this report, avail­able at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​s​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​/​b​o​a​r​d​-2019 – 12-06/ 7

Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies We con­trib­ute to deliv­ery of the long term out­comes in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, through work­ing to achieve our agreed Cor­por­ate Plan stra­tegic object­ives. Our stra­tegic aims and pri­or­it­ies are set out across three Themes of Con­ser­va­tion, Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence and Rur­al Devel­op­ment. Each of these three themes set out a num­ber of pri­or­ity object­ives. Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Com­mu­nic­a­tions sup­port the main themes and their out­comes. Con­ser­va­tion her­it­age enhanced to be a spe­cial place for people and nature with nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al 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’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee in March 2020 can be found at: https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​s​/​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​/​p​l​a​n​n​i​n​g​-2020 – 02-21/ 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​9​/​1​8​0​6​1​5​C​N​P​A​B​d​P​a​p​e​r​4​Annex TRiskManagementStrategyV0.1.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 and fund­ing — total income for the year was £8.436m, an increase of £1.434m over ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉. £3.199m / 38% £4.967m / 59% £0.270m / 3% grant in aid pro­ject fund­ing / recov­er­ies oth­er fund­ing / recov­er­ies Grant-in-aid received in the year was £4.967m, made up of Resource grants £4.727m (2019: £4.565m) was received against oper­a­tion­al activ­it­ies, togeth­er with Cap­it­al grants of £0.240m (2019: £0.240m). Dur­ing the year the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment made addi­tion­al grant-in-aid avail­able to cov­er increased Civil Ser­vice pen­sion costs (£0.117m) and for peat­land recov­ery work (£.045m). Part­ner con­tri­bu­tions to pro­jects totalled £3.199m (2019: £1.585m) with income and grants from all oth­er sources com­ing to £0.270m (2019: £0.672m). 41% 59% 0.000 1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000 6.000 oth­er fund­ing grant in aid 11

Grant-in-aid rep­res­ents 59% of the fund­ing of the Park Authority’s work, mean­ing that for every £1 of dir­ect Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fund­ing and addi­tion­al 40p comes from oth­er pub­lic bod­ies, both UK and European, and third parties. All the pro­jects, LEAD­ER and the Her­it­age Fund pro­jects, are enter­ing the final phases of deliv­ery and so expendit­ure and fund­ing will reduce in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁. It is expec­ted, but not yet con­firmed, that the pro­jects may be exten­ded to allow for the back­log of work to be com­pleted due to the impact on nor­mal oper­a­tions of the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic arrange­ments. Our expendit­ure — total expendit­ure for the year on oper­a­tion­al costs was £8.444m, an increase of £1.503m over ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉: £2,028m / 24% £2.238m / 26% £0.649m / 8% £0.797m/9% £0.338m / 4% £3.113m/37% core staff expenses pro­ject expenses run­ning expenses £0.148m / 2% pro­ject staff expenses oper­a­tion­al expenses depre­ci­ation Pro­ject income and expendit­ure levels for the year have again increased on 2019 levels as a res­ult of the increase in activ­ity in both the LEAD­ER pro­gram and on NLHF sup­por­ted pro­jects. As a per­cent­age of grant in aid received only, staff costs, includ­ing Board fees, account for 70% of the spend Our expendit­ure on main themes 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 sum­mar­ies below 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 our report­ing.) 12

Con­ser­va­tion and land man­age­ment Vis­it­or exper­i­ence Hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion £0.164m / 12% Glen­more £0.243m/13% Pri­or­ity spe­cies £0.800m / 56% ✔ Infra­struc­ture £0.688m / 36% Moor­land man­age­ment £.391m / 27% Act­ive Cairngorms £0.415m / 22% Catch­ment man­age­ment £.069m / 5% Vis­it­or exper­i­ence £0.548m / 29% Con­ser­va­tion and land man­age­ment £1.424m 17% Vis­it­or exper­i­ence £1.894m 22% Rur­al devel­op­ment and plan­ning £3.373m 41% Cor­por­ate ser­vices £1.310m 16% Com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment £0.365m 4% £8.366m Rur­al devel­op­ment and plan­ning Cor­por­ate ser­vices Plan­ning £0.773m / 23% OD strategy £0.213m / 16% ■ Eco­nom­ic strategy £0.534m / 16% Facil­it­ies and acco­mod­a­tion £0.023m / 2% ■T & G regen­er­a­tion £1.645m / 49% Ser­vice improve­ment £0.747m/57% Com­munity sup­port £0.421m / 12% Gov­ernance & com­munty £0.327m / 25% Our oper­a­tion­al plan expendit­ure rose by £1.4m. over ¹⁸⁄₂₉, due to large pro­jects such as the Spey­side Way exten­sion, the enhance­ment of the car park and facil­it­ies at the Muir of Din­net in con­junc­tion with Nature Scot­land, and path enhance­ments in Glen­more in con­junc­tion with Forestry Scot­land. The last 2 pro­jects were fun­ded by Vis­it­or Scot­land through the Rur­al Trans­port Infra­struc­ture Fund (RTIF). Sig­ni­fic­ant work was com­pleted in the year on the Blairfindy, Scalan and Access pro­jects which are part of the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund sup­por­ted Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship and mark the com­plete of the 3 largest build pro­jects. This pro­ject is set to com­plete by Decem­ber 2020. Fur­ther inform­a­tion on the activ­it­ies under­taken dur­ing the year are noted below in the Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary and key per­form­ance indic­at­ors. 13

Our out­turn We are trans­fer­ring (£0.079m) for the year (2019: £0.61m) to Tax­pay­ers’ equity (Table 1). After account­ing for cap­it­al invest­ment cre­at­ing £0.065m in new tan­gible and intan­gible assets, and cap­it­al grants of £0.165m, the planned break­even out­turn for the year was not achieved with an under­spend on resource spend­ing of £.005m. How­ever, we con­sider this a more an accept­able out­turn giv­en the many chal­lenges to our oper­a­tions, and those of our many part­ners because of the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic which severely impacted oper­a­tion in the run up to the end of the fin­an­cial year. Table I £,000 Resource and cap­it­al DEL received 4,967 Less net expendit­ure (includ­ing cap­it­al grants) (4,897) Cap­it­al grant and Resource under­spend 70 Less depre­ci­ation (149) Trans­fer for year to Tax­pay­ers’ equity (79) The accounts for the year to 31 March 2020, set out on pages 52 to 66, 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. 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 £,000 £,000 £,000 £,000 £,000 Budget 4,727 240 4,967 150 5,117 Expendit­ure Net resource expendit­ure (4,722) (4,722) (4,722) Cap­it­al grants (175) (175) (175) Non-cur­rent assets bought (65) (65) (65) Depre­ci­ation (149) (149) (4,722) (240) (4,962) (149) 5,111 Out­turn [under­spend] 5 0 5 1 6 0.11% 0.0% 0.10% .67% 0.12% *per­cent­ages are cal­cu­lated on the total per com­pon­ent 14

Net incom­ing resources The net incom­ing resources for the year to 31 March 2020 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. Char­it­able dona­tions There were no char­it­able dona­tions made in the year or pre­vi­ous year. 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 2020, the time taken to pay cred­it­ors achieved an aver­age of 9.1 days (2019: 7.4 days) against a tar­get of 10 days (2019: 10 days), with 71.0% (2019: 89.6%) of pay­ments being made by the tar­get date. Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ Activ­ity High­lights Our achieve­ments and key areas of work in the second year of our four year Cor­por­ate Plan included the vari­ous high­lights set out in the fol­low­ing sec­tions. We also high­light here the cur­rent status of deliv­ery against our adop­ted Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­ors (KPIs). As this report is writ­ten while we con­tin­ue to vary our oper­a­tions in response to the Cov­id-19 emer­gency, for­ward look­ing com­ments on deliv­ery expect­a­tions are giv­en in terms of our cur­rent plans while liable to ongo­ing change as we con­tin­ue to modi­fy and adapt our oper­a­tion­al plans to suit cur­rent cir­cum­stances. We provide reg­u­lar updates on our activ­it­ies on our web­site and through quarterly reports by our Chief Exec­ut­ive to our Board. The most recent such report is avail­able at: https://cairngorms.co.uk/resource/docs/boardpapers/27032020/200327CNPABdPaper|AAC EOReport%20GM.pdf Con­ser­va­tion • Wood­land Expan­sion Tar­gets work com­mis­sioned from the James Hut­ton Insti­tute to determ­ine the area of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park suit­able for wood­land expan­sion and able to con­trib­ute toward deliv­ery of the nation­al tar­get of 12,000 ha (hec­tares) per year has con­firmed our ori­gin­al annu­al tar­get of 5,000 ha per year as an appro­pri­ate object­ive. At this rate, only 20% of the Cairngorms would be wood­land by 2045: high­light­ing an aspir­a­tion­al while achiev­able object­ive to 15

con­trib­ute to nation­al cli­mate con­trol object­ives, while mak­ing only min­im­al impacts on open hab­it­ats. This import­ant piece of research was repor­ted at the Cairngorms Cli­mate Con­fer­ence in March 2020. • Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship is now into the final year of the pro­ject deliv­ery. As well as host­ing an event in Perth with oth­er Nation­al Lot­tery fun­ded pro­jects the emphas­is has been on com­plet­ing pro­jects and on devel­op­ing appro­pri­ate mech­an­isms to ensure the leg­acy of the pro­ject. The major pro­jects are now com­plete includ­ing the sta­bil­isa­tion work at Blairfindy Castle, the Spey­side Way spur, res­tor­a­tion of the Scalan Mills, the hid­den sem­in­ary, with the Dis­cov­ery Centre now estab­lished as a focal point for vis­it­ors fol­low­ing the Snow Road. Remain­ing major work focuses on inter­pret­a­tion and com­plet­ing water-envir­on­ment pro­jects and ripari­an wood­land. The pro­gramme is due to com­plete by Septem­ber 2020, although the Pro­ject Board has agreed to seek a three month exten­sion to this dead­line in order to deal with inter­rup­tions to deliv­ery as a res­ult of Cov­id-19 response meas­ures. • Peat­land Action Achiev­ing peat­land res­tor­a­tion on the ground in remote and chal­len­ging high alti­tude ter­rain, along­side a short­age of avail­able skilled con­tract­ors and a lengthy fund­ing approv­al pro­cess, brings many chal­lenges. Des­pite this, our team are cur­rently over­see­ing over 600 hec­tares of res­tor­a­tion work with anoth­er 965 hec­tares at the feas­ib­il­ity study stage. • • East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship (ECMP), fun­ded and sup­por­ted by 6 Estates and the Park Author­ity, our part­ners in the ECMP have pre­pared a work pro­gramme includ­ing 9 poten­tial pro­jects, includ­ing action on wader mon­it­or­ing, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, muir­burn plans and rap­tor stud­ies. Deer man­age­ment and Moor­land man­age­ment work has included the ini­ti­ation of a key piece of work to be com­pleted in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁: a Cairngorms Nation­al Park-wide deer count will take place, to include heli­copter counts over open areas and extra­pol­a­tion of num­bers into wood­land areas. This will rep­res­ent a key step toward achiev­ing our cor­por­ate pri­or­ity of sup­port­ing deer pop­u­la­tion mod­el­ling and herb­i­vore impact assess­ments. • Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Frame­work, sup­por­ted by The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund and LEAD­ER, com­pleted 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” in March 2020 and was fol­lowed by the Deliv­ery Phase applic­a­tion. The extremely pos­it­ive res­ults from the com­munity listen­ing work car­ried out by Dr Alistair Bath in Car­rbridge has giv­en the com­munity group a great boost and strong man­date to go ahead with draw­ing up a com­munity- led action plan. Learn­ing and out­comes from this devel­op­ment phase on how to sup­port fur­ther com­munit­ies of place and interest through a sim­il­ar pro­cess estab­lishes the basis of the next phase applic­a­tion for the pro­ject, along with pro­pos­als for rais­ing aware­ness and under­stand­ing, hab­it­at expan­sion and enhance­ment, pred­at­or man­age­ment and genet­ic ana­lys­is. • Cairngorms Nature Action Plan Deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nature Action Plan’s three pri­or­it­ies of ​‘land­scape-scale con­ser­va­tion’, ​‘action for pri­or­ity spe­cies’ and ​‘involving people’ con­tin­ues to be on-track with no sig­ni­fic­ant risks or bar­ri­ers iden­ti­fied at this early stage. Fund­ing via the Biod­iversity Chal­lenge Fund is deliv­er­ing nature-friendly farm­ing, fresh­wa­ter res­tor­a­tion and spe­cies con­ser­va­tion pro­jects across the Park. 16

Con­ser­va­tion Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­ors Indic­at­or Tar­get Update Deliv­ery Risk Area of new nat­ive 1,000 2,948 ha cre­ated through Green, on tar­get wood­land hec­tares (ha) Scot­tish Wood­land Grant each year Scheme since 2017 Area of peat­land 1,000 Fund­ing secured for 10 Amber, behind res­tor­a­tion hec­tares (ha) pro­jects cov­er­ing 1,052 ha. A sched­ule each year total of 600 ha res­tor­a­tion work in pro­gress with 965 ha at feas­ib­il­ity study stage Deer dens­ity across Reduc­tions ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ Oper­a­tion­al Plan Amber, some deer man­age­ment towards or con­tains resource to uncer­tainty on groups less than 10 under­take a major study of cur­rent data per km² deer dens­ity Num­ber of 1,200 by No change — nation­al count Amber, some caper­cail­lie 2022 expec­ted 2021. uncer­tainty on cur­rent data Num­ber of wild­life Zero each Wild­life crime con­tin­ues to Red, zero crime incid­ents in year occur. We have worked with tol­er­ance Cairngorms NP SNH and Brit­ish Trust for ambi­tion not Orni­tho­logy (BTO) to devel­op achieved a new rap­tor track­er which is planned for roll out in 2020 Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence • • • Volun­teer­ing and Health Walks in the Cairngorms: the Park Author­ity, with sup­port from Paths for All and NHS High­land, obtained a three year LEAD­ER fund­ing pack­age to sup­port the devel­op­ment of volun­teer­ing and organ­ised walks to sup­port phys­ic­al and men­tal health, with the second year of the pro­ject suc­cess­fully delivered over ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀. Long Dis­tance Routes (1) Spey­side way after 16 years since an ini­tial study on the Long Dis­tance Route, it is now com­plete and offi­cially open. We are now devel­op­ing new maps and inter­pret­a­tion boards to be installed at key sites along the route and work­ing with New­ton­more Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation to devel­op a start/​finish sculp­ture in the vil­lage. (2) Deeside Way The route from Aber­deen to Bal­later is also pro­moted as NCN195 by Sus­trans. We con­tin­ue to work with part­ners to find fund­ing to improve the route and extend it to Brae­mar, and also work to rein­vig­or­ate efforts to find fund­ing for seg­ments of the route which already have plan­ning con­sent. The Moun­tains and People Pro­ject sup­por­ted by the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund cov­ers invest­ment in the moun­tain path net­work, accred­ited train­ing, volun­teer­ing and inter­pret­a­tion work in both Loch Lomond & the Trossachs Nation­al Park and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park is due to com­plete in 2020. 82% of the paths iden­ti­fied in the Cairngorms were com­pleted by Octo­ber 2019 includ­ing the Beinn a Ghlo path in High­land Perth­shire which was opened by John Swin­ney in September

1. This pro­ject along with its pre­de­cessor, the Cairngorms Moun­tain Her­it­age Pro­ject, have upgraded 144km of key moun­tain paths. We are now refin­ing our 17

• • • part­ner­ship with Out­door Access Trust for Scot­land to ensure that paths improved in Cairngorms over the last 15 years are main­tained. Act­ive Travel: we con­tin­ue to work on a wide range of pro­ject devel­op­ments pro­mot­ing and sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of more act­ive travel in the Cairngorms. This includes our work as