CNPA Annual Report and Accounts 2021-2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY ÙGH­DAR­RAS PÀIRC NAISEANTΑ Α’ MHON­AIDH RUAIDH

ANNU­AL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂

…AN OUT­STAND­ING NATION­AL PARK, ENJOYED AND VAL­UED BY EVERY­ONE, WHERE NATURE AND PEOPLE THRIVE TOGETHER…

AITH­ISG BHLIADH­NAIL AGUS CUN­NTAS­AN ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂

…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

I PER­FORM­ANCE REPORT 1.1 Key Per­son­nel and spon­sor­ing Body 2 1.2 Chief Executive’s For­ward 3 1.3 The Park Author­ity 5 1.4 Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ and bey­ond 8 1.5 Key issues and Risks 11 1.6 Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Sum­mary 12 1.7 Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary 15

2 ACCOUNT­AB­IL­ITY REPORT 2.1 Dir­ect­ors’ Report 26 2.2 State­ment of Nation­al Park Authority’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 30 2.3 State­ment of Board’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 31 2.4 State­ment of the Account­able Officer’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 31 2.5 Gov­ernance State­ment 32 2.6 Remu­ner­a­tion and staff report 39 2.7 Par­lia­ment­ary account­ab­il­ity dis­clos­ures (sub­ject to audit) 51 2.8 Inde­pend­ent auditor’s report to the mem­bers of the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity, the Aud­it­or Gen­er­al for Scot­land and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment 52

3 FIN­AN­CIAL STATE­MENTS 3.1 State­ment of Com­pre­hens­ive Net Expendit­ure 56 3.2 State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion 57 3.3 State­ment of Cash Flows 58 3.4 State­ment of Changes in Tax­pay­ers’ Equity 59 3.5 Notes to the Fin­an­cial State­ments 60

APPENDIX I Accounts Dir­ec­tion 74 APPENDIX 2 Facil­ity Time Data (Staff Uni­on) 75

1 I PER­FORM­ANCE OVER­VIEW 1.1 Key Per­son­nel and Spon­sor­ing Depart­ment Chief exec­ut­ive and account­able officer Grant Moir Dir­ect­ors Dav­id Camer­on — Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and deputy CEO Mur­ray Fer­guson — Plan­ning and Place Dr Peter May­hew — Con­ser­va­tion & Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence (resigned with effect from Novem­ber 2021) Andy Ford — Nature and Cli­mate Change (appoin­ted with effect from Novem­ber 2021) Con­ven­or Xan­der McDade, chair Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Board mem­bers Peter Argyle — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022 Chris Beat­tie — appoin­ted I Octo­ber 2022 Geva Black­ett Car­o­lyn Cad­dick, Deputy Con­ven­or — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022 Deirdrie Fal­con­er, Chair Resources Com­mit­tee Pippa Had­ley — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022 Janet Hunter — Deputy Con­ven­or – appoin­ted I Octo­ber 2022 Rus­sel Jones — appoin­ted I Octo­ber 2022 John Kirk John Lath­am — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022 Bill Lob­ban — appoin­ted I Octo­ber 2022 Douglas McAdam Dr Fiona McLean Anne Rae Mac­Don­ald Elean­or Mack­in­tosh lan Maclar­en — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022 Wil­lie McK­enna Wil­li­am Mun­ro, Chair Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Dr Gaen­er Rodger, Chair Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Ann Ross — appoin­ted I Octo­ber 2022 Derek Ross Judith Webb, Chair Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Spon­sor­ing body Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment 2 1.2 Chief Executive’s For­ward I have pleas­ure in present­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s (the Park Author­ity) Annu­al Report and Accounts cov­er­ing its eight­eenth year of oper­a­tion, from I April 2021 to 31 March 2022. The last year has again seen the Park Author­ity oper­ate primar­ily on the basis of remote, home, work­ing with much of our busi­ness under­taken on an on-line basis. With­in this con­text, we have suc­cess­fully delivered our object­ives, achiev­ing the great major­ity of our stra­tegic object­ives set out in our Cor­por­ate Plan des­pite two years of COV­ID 19 inter­rup­tions. Our deliv­ery over ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂, as covered in this annu­al report and accounts, rep­res­ents the final year of deliv­ery against the 2018 to 2022 Cor­por­ate Plan. Even with­in ongo­ing COV­ID 19 impacts to work, the Park Author­ity has made sig­ni­fic­ant step changes to our pres­ence on the ground with­in the Cairngorms. We fur­ther enhanced our Ranger Ser­vice over the course of the year, provid­ing a warm wel­come for vis­it­ors to the Park and also sup­port­ing our land man­age­ment part­ners with man­aging vis­it­or impacts on their oper­a­tions. The Park Author­ity has also sup­por­ted train­ing young and new entrants to its ranger ser­vice through the Kick­start ini­ti­at­ive. The Park Author­ity also delivered its first year of dir­ect respons­ib­il­ity for peat­land res­tor­a­tion through its Peat­land ACTION team’s invest­ment of almost £1.5 mil­lion whilst exceed­ing our res­tor­a­tion tar­get of 557 hec­tares to imple­ment res­tor­a­tion man­age­ment on 730 hec­tares in the year. Col­lect­ively our work in these areas have formed a corner­stone of the Park Author­ity devel­op­ing a ​‘Green Eco­nomy’ with­in the Cairngorms. Our imple­ment­a­tion of the Devel­op­ment Phase of the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme along­side a wide range of part­ners rep­res­ents a fur­ther sig­ni­fic­ant step change in the Park Authority’s scale of oper­a­tions over the course of ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. This Devel­op­ment Phase will invest £3.8m, inclus­ive of £1.7m of NLHF fund­ing, across more than 24 pro­jects in final­ising and estab­lish­ing plans for the 5 year, £39.4m deliv­ery phase which we expect to com­mence in 2023. Pro­jects cov­er cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adap­tion, nature recov­ery, rur­al regen­er­a­tion, com­munity engage­ment, and sus­tain­able trans­port amongst oth­er areas of work. The long-term object­ives for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park are set out in five-year Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plans (NPPP) agreed by the Park Author­ity board and approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters. The over-arch­ing NPPP estab­lishes the agreed policy dir­ec­tion for our NLHF fun­ded Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 work, as well as the oth­er work of the Park Author­ity and our pub­lic, private, vol­un­tary and com­munity part­ners. We came to the end of the exist­ing 5‑year NPPP on 31 March 2022 and have under­taken extens­ive pub­lic and stake­hold­er con­sulta­tion on the NPPP for 2022 to 2027. This con­sulta­tion was the most suc­cess­ful con­sulta­tion on a NPPP in the Cairngorms with over 1,400 responses received. The Plan was approved by the Park Author­ity board in June 2022, secur­ing anoth­er sig­ni­fic­ant mile­stone for the extens­ive work of the Park Author­ity over ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. The Plan was approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters in August. 3 The Park Author­ity con­tin­ued through­out the year to deliv­er across con­ser­va­tion, vis­it­or exper­i­ence and rur­al devel­op­ment. This involved 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 to deliv­er pro­jects on the ground that deliv­er on our out­comes. We have delivered these ser­vices and achieved our object­ives while mak­ing our con­tri­bu­tion to the nation­al pri­or­it­ies and chal­lenges of address­ing the cli­mate and natures crises, build­ing a well-being eco­nomy, and deliv­er­ing afford­able hous­ing. Our work over ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂, par­tic­u­larly in estab­lish­ing the long-term stra­tegic frame­work for the Cairngorms set out in the NPPP and key part­ner­ship deliv­ery pro­grammes such as Cairngorms 2030, stands us is good stead for tack­ling the big chal­lenges ahead, par­tic­u­larly around build­ing a ​‘Green Recov­ery’ and a green well-being eco­nomy, and tack­ling cli­mate change. It just remains for me to thank every­one, once again, who has helped over the past year to enable the Park Author­ity to con­tin­ue to deliv­er for this incred­ible place, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. I also take this oppor­tun­ity to thank the great com­mit­ment of the Park Authority’s staff group, who over two years of huge dis­rup­tion and change have con­tin­ued to show their ded­ic­a­tion and com­mit­ment to their work and to deliv­er­ing such a wide range of pos­it­ive out­comes for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive and Account­able Officer 16 Janu­ary, 2023 4 1.3 The Park Author­ity 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 has developed and extens­ively con­sul­ted on a new CNPPP to span 2022 to 2027 over the course of the last year. This new CNPPP was approved by the Park Authority’s board in June 2022 and by Scot­tish min­is­ters in August 2022. 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 2017 to 2022 CNPPP. 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 and oth­er rel­ev­ant nation­al strategies. 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. 5 Our com­mit­ment Our vis­ion, mis­sion state­ment and val­ues, are led by our board and staff and 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 aspire to be the best small pub­lic body in Scot­land. Our staff sur­vey res­ults, under­taken every two 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 2021. Early in 2021 we have also received recog­ni­tion as one of the Top 10 employ­ers in Scot­land in terms of our approach to flex­ible work­ing for our staff group, as awar­ded by Flex­ib­il­ity Works. This fol­lows pre­vi­ous accol­ades dur­ing the cur­rent cor­por­ate plan peri­od for the design of our work­ing prac­tices and staff policies, and also for the design of our office build­ing. We will con­tin­ue to build on our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy to imbed a high per­form­ance, high achiev­ing and high qual­ity cul­ture based on an equal­it­ies and staff focused cul­ture. The Park Author­ity will con­tin­ue to be innov­at­ive, quick to act, and empower staff to deliv­er the strategies put in place by our Board. New ways of work­ing: the impacts of COV­ID 19, cli­mate change and future oper­a­tions As has been the case for all organ­isa­tions across all sec­tors over the last two years, the impact of COV­ID 19 and con­sequen­tial lock­down arrange­ments has sig­ni­fic­antly changed the way the Park Author­ity has gone about its work. Our Board and staff arrange­ments have been sub­ject to our suc­cess­ful Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan­ning (BCP) arrange­ments, with all gov­ernance and staff oper­a­tions changed to a remote and vir­tu­al basis, primar­ily work­ing from home, and mak­ing use of video con­fer­ence and oth­er digit­al and inform­a­tion man­age­ment tech­no­lo­gies to deliv­er our busi­ness. As we have emerged from COV­ID 19 restric­tions, the Cairngorms NPA has adop­ted new work­ing mod­els and prac­tices which have sup­por­ted a range of suc­cess­ful out­comes over the year as we con­tin­ue to deliv­er against our exist­ing stra­tegic object­ives. An increas­ing amount of our busi­ness is now con­duc­ted by ​“hybrid” meet­ings, blend­ing in per­son and vir­tu­al attend­ance at meet­ings and events. All key Board and gov­ernance meet­ings are now 6 held as hybrid meet­ings, with screen­ing of meet­ings on-line and also at a com­munity cinema to enable any­one on-line to access our busi­ness meet­ings. In addi­tion to deliv­ery of our estab­lished object­ives, we have also con­tin­ued to pur­sue our agreed added stra­tegic focus for our work first estab­lished in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁: a nature based, green recov­ery from COV­ID 19 impacts that seeks a sus­tain­able, nature based eco­nom­ic recov­ery with­in the Cairngorms while deliv­er­ing urgent action to address cli­mate change. Our ​‘Net Zero With Nature Strategy’ was adop­ted just before the pan­dem­ic caused lock­down to com­mence, while our Green Recov­ery Strategy was approved by our Board as early as June 2020, just three months into the nation­al man­age­ment of COV­ID 19. We delivered a second phase of the Green Recov­ery Grant Fund through which £250,000 in fund­ing was alloc­ated by a part­ner­ship pan­el to sup­port com­munity and busi­ness based green recov­ery pro­jects. We have con­tin­ued to build and con­sol­id­ate new ser­vices as we sig­ni­fic­antly increase the scale of our oper­a­tions. Our own Ranger Ser­vices star­ted in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ have been enhanced over the course of the last year with full time rangers, togeth­er with youth and new entrant train­ee rangers. We also took on respons­ib­il­ity for dir­ect deliv­ery of peat­land res­tor­a­tion work in the Cairngorms in the last year, employ­ing a Peat­land ACTION team to work with and grant fund land man­agers in sup­port of peat­land man­age­ment and cli­mate action. Our invest­ment of almost £1.5m delivered in excess of our res­tor­a­tion tar­get of 557 hec­tares, to imple­ment res­tor­a­tion man­age­ment on 730 hec­tares in the year. Both these ini­ti­at­ives have com­bined to sig­ni­fic­antly increase the scale of the Park Authority’s work­force and sphere of oper­a­tions. Over­all, the Park Authority’s respons­ib­il­ity for funds under man­age­ment, primar­ily made avail­able by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, increased from £7.1m in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ to £10.3m for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. Look­ing For­ward This dynam­ic, respons­ive organ­isa­tion­al eth­os will con­tin­ue. 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 col­lab­or­at­ing 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. Our future fund­ing has received a fur­ther sig­ni­fic­ant boost from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and from extern­al fund­ing part­ners for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃, with fur­ther step change increases in fund­ing sup­port­ing con­tinu­ation of the COV­ID 19 responses and more per­man­ent changes to the Park Authority’s ways of work­ing. The Sea­son­al Ranger Ser­vice will con­tin­ue for a third year, while we aug­ment this sup­port for vis­it­ors with cap­it­al invest­ment in vis­it­or infra­struc­ture. Over ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ we will fur­ther build our capa­city to deliv­er peat­land res­tor­a­tion and through this work act on cli­mate change. 7 We also secured approv­al in the year from Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) to the Her­it­age Hori­zons 2030 Pro­gramme. Our imple­ment­a­tion of the Devel­op­ment Phase of the NLHF Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme, along­side a wide range of part­ners com­menced in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂, rep­res­ents a fur­ther sig­ni­fic­ant step change in the Park Authority’s scale of oper­a­tions. This Devel­op­ment Phase will invest £3.8m, inclus­ive of £1.7m of NLHF fund­ing, across more than 20 pro­jects in scop­ing, tri­al­ling, and final­ising plans for the 5‑year, £39.4m deliv­ery phase, which we expect to com­mence in 2023. Pro­jects cov­er con­ser­va­tion, rur­al regen­er­a­tion, access, and sus­tain­able trans­port amongst oth­er areas of work. Our budget approved by the board in March 2022 for the ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ fin­an­cial year high­lights this fur­ther step change increase in the scale of oper­a­tion of the Cairngorms NPA, with total funds under man­age­ment for the year ahead of £14.9m com­pared with £10.3m in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. The board has approved a 1‑year trans­ition­al plan for deliv­ery of ongo­ing stra­tegic object­ives, pending devel­op­ment of our next 4‑year Cor­por­ate Plan which will span 2023 to 2027. 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 Park Authority’s Board, with all of these reports avail­able on our web­site. The status of our deliv­ery against agreed Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­ors at the end of the Cor­por­ate Plan peri­od was repor­ted to our board on 25 March 2022. This report is avail­able at: 220325CNPABdPaper3Annex2CorporatePlanKPIs (cairngorms​.co​.uk) Fur­ther detail on our most recent per­form­ance against our key per­form­ance meas­ures and report­ing on that is avail­able in the papers for the 25 March board meet­ing, avail­able at: Meet­ing — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity PER­FORM­ANCE REPORT: PER­FORM­ANCE ANA­LYS­IS 1.4 Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ and bey­ond 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 cur­rent stra­tegic aims and pri­or­it­ies are set out across three Themes of Con­ser­va­tion, Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence and Rur­al Devel­op­ment. Each of these three themes sets out a num­ber of 8 pri­or­ity object­ives. Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Com­mu­nic­a­tions sup­port the main themes and their out­comes. From ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ the Park Author­ity has moved to new stra­tegic themes of Nature, People and Place in line with the final draft of the next Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan sub­mit­ted to Scot­tish Min­is­ters for approv­al. 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’s Nat­ur­al Health Ser­vice; • cre­ate ​‘A Park for All’ by encour­aging people from all back­grounds to come and enjoy recre­ation, learn in, or vis­it the Nation­al Park. Rur­al devel­op­ment – a sus­tain­able eco­nomy sup­port­ing thriv­ing busi­nesses and com­munit­ies 9 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. 10 Com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment Com­mu­nic­at­ing with vis­it­ors, com­munit­ies and stake­hold­ers is vital for the work of the 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. 1.5 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 was con­sidered by the Board as part of their review of cor­por­ate per­form­ance and risk man­age­ment over ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ in March 2022: 220325CNPABdPaper3Annex3StrategicRiskRegisterV9 0 (cairngorms​.co​.uk) 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 IRiskManagementStrategyV0.1.pdf Our busi­ness con­tinu­ity plan­ning and oper­a­tion­al man­age­ment dur­ing the peri­od of COV­ID 19 restric­tions in par­tic­u­lar has been sup­por­ted by a spe­cif­ic risk man­age­ment approach and a ded­ic­ated risk register, repor­ted on reg­u­larly through our pro­ject man­age­ment team, organ­isa­tion­al Seni­or Man­age­ment Team and Board Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee. We have also estab­lished sep­ar­ate risk registers to sup­port the deliv­ery of oth­er major pro­grammes of activ­ity, for example the Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme. 11 1.6 Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Sum­mary This sec­tion provides a sum­mary of the Park Authority’s fin­an­cial per­form­ance for the year against the Board approved budget and grant-in-aid awar­ded by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The main sources of the Park Authority’s fund­ing for the year were grant-in-aid fund­ing from the spon­sor­ing body the Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, of the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The Park Author­ity also acted 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 (T&GLP), Great Place Badenoch (GPB), the deliv­ery phase of the Caper­cail­lie Frame­work and the devel­op­ment phase of the Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 Pro­ject. The LEAD­ER, T&GLP and GPB pro­jects all com­pleted in the year. Our total fund­ing for the year grew by £3.295m from 2020/​21to £10.421m reflect­ing the con­tin­ued com­mit­ment of our spon­sor­ing depart­ment and part­ners. While grant-in-aid grew by £3.550m part­ner fund­ing fell by £0.255m as a res­ult of the redu­cing activ­it­ies of the pro­jects suc­cess­fully com­pleted in the year. Grant-in-aid received in the year was £8,965m, an increase of £3.550m. Resource grants, to cov­er oper­a­tion­al costs, increased by £1.857m, with Cap­it­al grants increas­ing by £1,493m. The increase in cap­it­al grant included fund­ing for Peat­land ACTION, peat­land recov­ery work, of £1,408m, and for work on biod­iversity with­in the Park of £0.172m. Oper­at­ing Income 1,400 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 0 Oper­at­ing income

Oper­a­tion­al LEAD­ER Oth­er income Tom­ntoul & Great Place Caper Her­it­age Staff costs plan Glen­liv­et LP Badenoch Deliv­ery Hori­zons recovered ■19/20 ■20/21 ■21/22

Oper­at­ing income again reduced over ²⁰⁄₂₁ owing to the reduc­tion in activ­ity as major pro­jects com­pleted. T&GLP and GPB were both ori­gin­ally due to com­plete in ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁ and were exten­ded as agreed responses to COV­ID 19. T&GLP com­pleted in May 2021, GPB in Octo­ber 2021, with the LEAD­ER pro­gramme clos­ing on 31 Decem­ber 2021. All the final grant claim sub­mis­sions were made in year and all claims were received in full. The Caper­cail­lie Frame­work Deliv­ery work con­tin­ued and spend increased. The devel­op­ment phase of Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 com­menced with only min­im­al oper­at­ing costs incurred. 12 Oper­at­ing expendit­ure Oper­at­ing expendit­ure (exclud­ing depre­ci­ation) 4,500 3,500 2,500 1,500 500 ‑500 Board and Oper­a­tion­al LEAD­ER Tom­ntoul & Great Place Caper Her­it­age Run­ning costs staf costs plan Glen­liv­et LP Badenoch Deliv­ery Hori­zons ■19/20 ■20/21 ■21/22

The T&GLP, GPB and LEAD­ER pro­grammes came to a close dur­ing the year with a con­com­it­ant reduc­tion in activ­ity and expendit­ure. The com­ple­tion of the T&GLP pro­ject marks the end of a pro­ject star­ted in 2015 with £3.746m inves­ted in many pro­jects in the Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et area. Sim­il­arly, Great Place Badenoch saw £0.401m inves­ted in pro­jects with­in the Badenoch com­munity. LEAD­ER saw a total invest­ment of £4.6m in the Park. Staff costs, includ­ing Board fees, accoun­ted for 40.7% of total income (2020÷21 53.3%). As a per­cent­age of spend of resource grant-in-aid received this was 61.8% (2020÷21 70.2%). Out­turn to budget (exclud­ing depre­ci­ation and non-cash alloc­a­tions) A budget is agreed with the spon­sor­ing depart­ment with an agreed level of fund­ing sup­port rep­res­ent­ing the Park Authority’s alloc­a­tions of 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. Budget* Actu­al Vari­ance £,000 £,000 £,000 Total income ** 9,585 10,303 718 Staff cost (4,284) (4,195) 89 Office run­ning costs (710) (762) (52) Oper­a­tion­al plan costs (4,600) (5,187) (587) Out­turn (9) 159 168

• The budget is that presen­ted to the Board on 12 March 2021, and excludes pro­jects costs and recov­er­ies, the net effect of which is nil reflect­ing full recov­ery of costs. ** Total income is grant-in-aid less cap­it­al expendit­ure cap­it­al­ised. 13 Out­turn to grant-in-aid alloc­a­tion Cash Non- Total Resource Cap­it­al Total Cash DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL £,000 £,000 £,000 £,000 £,000 Grant-in-aid 6,785 2,180 8,965 340 9,305 Expendit­ure Resource expendit­ure 6,771 6,771 6,771 Cap­it­al grants 1,917 1,917 1,917 Depre­ci­ation 171 171 Com­pre­hens­ive net expendit­ure 6,771 1,917 8,688 171 8,859 Non-cur­rent assets bought 118 118 118 6,771 2,035 8,806 171 8,977

Grant-in-aid (under)/overspend (14) (145) (159) (169) (328)

---

0.2% 6.7% 1.5% 49.7%

• The cap­it­al grants awar­ded included £1.408m for Peat­land Recov­ery, £.172m for Nature Biod­iversity with £1.294m and £.141m were spent respect­ively. The under­spend is largely due to the con­tin­ued impact of COV­ID 19 which delayed the grant approv­al pro­cesses, plan­ning, avail­ab­il­ity of con­tract­ors and access to sites. ** The non-cash alloc­a­tion is made up of 2 com­pon­ents: depre­ci­ation which was to cov­er the depre­ci­ation of cap­it­al­ised tan­gible and intan­gible assets, depre­ci­ation on cap­it­al­ised leases under IFRS 16. Imple­ment­a­tion of IFRS 16 for NDPBs was again post­poned due to COV­ID 19 and is now due to be intro­duced for account­ing peri­ods com­men­cing I April 2022. Trans­fer to Taxpayer’s funds We are trans­fer­ring (£0.106m) for the year (2021: £0.058m) to Tax­pay­ers’ equity, sum­mar­ised in the table below. After account­ing for cap­it­al invest­ment cre­at­ing £0.118m in new tan­gible and intan­gible assets, and cap­it­al grants of £1.917m, the poten­tial small budget over­spend at the com­mence­ment of the year was man­aged to a small under­spend on resource spend­ing of £0.159m which is con­sidered an excel­lent out­turn pos­i­tion in anoth­er dif­fi­cult year where the COV­ID 19 pan­dem­ic severely impacted our and part­ners’ oper­a­tions. £,000 Total cash grant-in-aid received 8,965 Less net expendit­ure (8,688) Less depre­ci­ation (171) Trans­fer for year to Tax­pay­ers’ equity 106

The accounts for the year to 31 March 2022, set out on pages 56 to 59, are pre­pared on a going con­cern basis, and in a format dir­ec­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters in accord­ance with the 14 Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. A copy of the Accounts Dir­ec­tion is repro­duced in Appendix 1. Changes in non-cur­rent assets Move­ments in non-cur­rent assets are shown in notes 9 and 10. 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 2022, the time taken to pay cred­it­ors achieved an aver­age of 9.07 days (2021: 10.9 days) against a tar­get of 10 days (2021: 10 days), with 67.4% (2021: 66.3%) of pay­ments being made by the tar­get date. Anti-bribery and cor­rup­tion The Park Author­ity has adop­ted a zero-tol­er­ance policy against, fraud, bribery and cor­rup­tion reflec­ted in clear policies on con­duct expec­ted from staff and on hos­pit­al­ity. There were no reports of fraud in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ or ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁. Min­is­teri­al Dir­ec­tion There were no min­is­teri­al dir­ec­tions received from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. 1.7 Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary As set out in the pre­lim­in­ary sec­tions of this report, des­pite ongo­ing COV­ID 19 dis­rup­tions over the course of the year com­bined with man­aging the trans­ition of the organ­isa­tion into new meth­ods of work­ing as we emerge from these restric­tions, the Cairngorms NPA has made sig­ni­fic­ant, pos­it­ive pro­gress in the real­isa­tion of our stra­tegic object­ives in the final year of the four-year Cor­por­ate Plan. The Park Authority’s Board receives quarterly updates from the Chief Exec­ut­ive on activ­it­ies and per­form­ance to sup­ple­ment the cor­por­ate per­form­ance reports linked above. The most recent such report 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​/​1​0​0​6​2​0​2​2​/​2​2​0​6​1​0​C​NPABd