Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

19 June 2026

Draft minutes of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee meeting

Held online

19 June 2026 at 10.00am

Present

• Fiona McLean (Chair)
• Geva Black­ett
• Duncan Miller
• Ian McLar­en (Vice Chair)
• Bill Lob­ban
• Paul Gibb

In attend­ance

• Tom Reid, For­vis Maz­ars LLP
• Peter Clark, wbg
• Shaun Rod­dan, wbg
• Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO
• Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Operations
• Sandy Allan, Inform­a­tion Sys­tems Man­ager until
• Eilidh Todd, Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Manager
• Brid­get Trus­sell, Com­munity Grants Manager
• Mikko Saari, Pro­cure­ment Officer
• Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies

• Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer

Wel­come and apologies

1. Fiona McLean, Chair of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee, wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The draft minutes of the pre­vi­ous Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee meet­ing held on 13 March 2026 were approved with no amendments

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

Ref	Action Detail	Who	When	Status
13/03/26	At Para 18i Refresh­er Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee train­ing to be organised	Dav­id Cameron	Fol­low­ing dir­ectly elec­ted elec­tions March 2027
13/03/26	At Para 28i) Fol­low up audit on pro­ject ini­ti­ation to be car­ried out in 2027/2028.	Intern­al auditors	2027⁄28

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions referred to Paper 3 Intern­al audit review: New fin­ance sys­tem that was brought to the Com­mit­tee at their last meet­ing on 13 March 2026, which stated that out of office levels of author­ity were set appro­pri­ately. She had tried to put this con­trol in place it but it did not work as anti­cip­ated and there­fore con­sultancy will be needed to put that in place. She apo­lo­gised to the Com­mit­tee for hav­ing giv­en them the wrong inform­a­tion, as she had draf­ted the report before try­ing to do the work. She added that the expenses sys­tem was now up and run­ning and mak­ing a dif­fer­ence. Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Chair acknow­ledged the update and advised there was no need for con­cern and said it was great to hear it was all in hand.
2. There were no oth­er mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

Intern­al audit annu­al report 2025/2026 (Paper 1)

1. Peter Clark, wbg intro­duced the paper which sum­mar­ises the con­clu­sions and key find­ings from the intern­al audit work under­taken at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity dur­ing the year ended 31 March 2026, includ­ing the Intern­al Auditor’s over­all opin­ion on Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s intern­al con­trol system.
2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) The Chair quer­ied bench­mark­ing per­form­ance, not­ing that res­ults did not com­pare favour­ably. Assur­ance was provided by Peter Clark, wbg that there was no cause for con­cern, as the bench­mark­ing was based on a lim­ited sample size (two reviews). b) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO noted that while res­ults appeared slightly weak­er, this was likely reflect­ive of the organisation’s ongo­ing growth and devel­op­ment. It was acknow­ledged that, although the pos­i­tion is not con­sidered a cause of imme­di­ate con­cern, it would con­tin­ue to be kept under review. c) Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions raised a query regard­ing the basis of bench­mark­ing, spe­cific­ally wheth­er com­par­is­ons were made against organ­isa­tions of a sim­il­ar size or against imple­ment­a­tions of com­par­able com­plex­ity, not­ing the increased com­plex­ity of the recent fin­ance sys­tem imple­ment­a­tion. Peter Clark, wbg advised that bench­mark­ing was primar­ily under­taken against sim­il­ar organ­isa­tions; how­ever, as many com­par­able organ­isa­tions have exper­i­enced sim­il­arly com­plex sys­tem imple­ment­a­tions, this factor was con­sidered to be impli­citly reflec­ted with­in the bench­mark­ing. d) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO com­men­ted on the repor­ted weak­ness in fol­low-up actions, not­ing the pres­ence of sev­er­al long-stand­ing recom­mend­a­tions. It was acknow­ledged that some earli­er recom­mend­a­tions by Azets, the pre­vi­ous intern­al aud­it­ors, had been broad in scope and required longer-term action to reach com­ple­tion. Assur­ance was provided that this issue was recog­nised and is being act­ively man­aged, with a focus on pro­gress­ing and clos­ing out­stand­ing actions over the com­ing year. It was fur­ther agreed that to date, recom­mend­a­tions from wbg have been more clearly defined and focused, and this has been help­ful in sup­port­ing their timely implementation.

3. The Com­mit­tee con­sidered and noted the Intern­al Auditor’s over­all opin­ion as set out in page 4 of the report and endorsed the inclu­sion of that opin­ion with­in the Gov­ernance State­ment for 2025 – 26.

4. Action Points Arising: None.

Intern­al audit review – IT dis­aster recov­ery advis­ory (Paper 2)

1. Shaun Rod­dan, wbg presen­ted the res­ults of the Intern­al Auditor’s advis­ory review on IT dis­aster recov­ery pro­ced­ures. The pur­pose of the review was to assess the Park Authority’s IT Dis­aster Recov­ery (DR) arrange­ments in the con­text of cur­rent hybrid work­ing, cloud-based ser­vices, and recent digit­isa­tion. The review focused on the prac­tic­al effect­ive­ness of recov­ery plan­ning, sup­port­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion, and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures, provid­ing prag­mat­ic recom­mend­a­tions to strengthen IT resi­li­ence going for­ward. This review formed part of our ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ Intern­al Audit Annu­al Plan.
2. Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity staff made the fol­low­ing points: a) Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions repor­ted it had been a really pos­it­ive exper­i­ence work­ing with Shaun Rod­dan and noted that devel­op­ment of the DR plan was some­thing the team needed helped with. She went on to recog­nise the know­ledge and skill with­in the team but that there is a need to doc­u­ment pro­cesses and pro­ced­ures. b) Sandy Allan, Inform­a­tion Sys­tems Man­ager explained he had found it a very use­ful pro­cess, high­lighted what the team already knew and iden­ti­fied a clear need around doc­u­ment­a­tion. c) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO provided con­text link­ing the work on IT dis­aster recov­ery to the wider Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan, not­ing that this area has remained a red-rated stra­tegic risk. He explained that the cur­rent work would con­trib­ute to a broad­er pro­gramme, incor­por­at­ing com­mu­nic­a­tions and organ­isa­tion­al response plan­ning, to devel­op an updated Busi­ness Con­tinu­ity Plan. The Chair wel­comed this joined-up, ​“twin-track” approach to risk man­age­ment and busi­ness continuity.
3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A query was raised regard­ing the risk of staff inad­vert­ently act­ing on appar­ently legit­im­ate emails, par­tic­u­larly where com­mu­nic­a­tions appear to ori­gin­ate from trus­ted intern­al sources, and how con­sist­ent vigil­ance was main­tained. Inform­a­tion Sys­tems Man­ager advised that com­pre­hens­ive train­ing was in place, sup­por­ted by reg­u­lar aware­ness-rais­ing and staff com­mu­nic­a­tions. Plans are also in place to intro­duce sim­u­lated phish­ing exer­cises and enhanced test­ing to rein­force good prac­tice. It was acknow­ledged that cyber threats are increas­ingly soph­ist­ic­ated and that some resid­ual risk remains; how­ever, a strong cul­ture of aware­ness and ongo­ing train­ing provides assur­ance that this risk is being act­ively man­aged. b) The Chair thanked Shaun Rod­dan for the thor­ough and detailed report and praised the thor­ough­ness of intern­al audit review, not­ing the value of under­tak­ing advis­ory audits like these where appro­pri­ate. She exten­ded her thanks to the intern­al IT Team.
4. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: c) Con­sider the intern­al auditor’s report and find­ings d) Endorse the man­age­ment responses to recom­mend­a­tions for future action and improvements
5. Action Point Arising: None.

Sandy Allan and Shaun Rod­dan left the meet­ing at 10.38am

Intern­al audit review – com­plaints pro­ced­ure (Paper 3)

1. Peter Clark, wbg presen­ted the res­ults of the Intern­al Auditor’s review on the Park Authority’s com­plaints pro­ced­ure. The pur­pose of the review was to con­sider the com­plaints hand­ling arrange­ments with­in the Park Author­ity, to assess wheth­er these are suf­fi­cient, fol­low good prac­tice, and adhere to cur­rent legis­la­tion and guid­ance. This review formed part of the ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ Intern­al Audit Annu­al Plan.
2. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices made a com­ment on the com­plaints hand­ling review, not­ing the need to bal­ance trans­par­ent com­plaints pro­cesses with the organisation’s quasi-judi­cial plan­ning respons­ib­il­it­ies. He high­lighted that some com­plaints may be vex­a­tious or inap­pro­pri­ate, poten­tially pla­cing unne­ces­sary demands on resources. Assur­ance was provided that the recom­mend­a­tions have been accep­ted and that work would be under­taken to strengthen pro­cesses, includ­ing earli­er iden­ti­fic­a­tion of vex­a­tious com­plaints, while main­tain­ing a fair and appro­pri­ate approach to all val­id com­plaints. The import­ance of this bal­ance, giv­en leg­al con­sid­er­a­tions, was acknow­ledged by the Chair.
3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) The Chair noted and wel­comed the import­ance of clearly defin­ing vex­a­tious com­plaints and the asso­ci­ated pro­cess. She con­sidered the report to be clear and provided appro­pri­ate assur­ance, with only minor recom­mend­a­tions iden­ti­fied. b) No fur­ther ques­tions were raised.
4. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: c) Con­sider the intern­al auditor’s report and find­ings d) Endorse the man­age­ment responses to recom­mend­a­tions for future action and improvements
5. Action Point Arising: None.

Extern­al audit update (Paper 4)

1. Tom Reid, For­vis Maz­ars LLP presen­ted the extern­al auditor’s pro­gress report set­ting out the pro­gress on the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ final accounts audit.
2. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions provided an update on the audit pro­cess: a) Draft accounts are pro­gress­ing well and at an advanced stage. b) Com­mit­ted to sub­mit­ting them to extern­al aud­it­or by the end of the month. c) Audit pro­cesses expec­ted to begin the fol­low­ing week. d) An on-site vis­it is planned towards the end of the audit. e) This vis­it should help resolve any out­stand­ing issues effi­ciently. f) Over­all pos­i­tion: nearly ready to proceed.
3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) The Chair com­men­ted the planned on-site audit vis­it is wel­comed as bene­fi­cial for respond­ing to quer­ies. She acknow­ledged the good pro­gress on pre­par­a­tions b) No ques­tions raised by mem­bers. c) The Chair looked for­ward to receiv­ing the final report by October.
4. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted the update.
5. Action Point Arising: None.

Extern­al audit assur­ances (Paper 5)

1. Louise intro­duced the paper and sum­mar­ised what the annexes detail. Tom Reid, Maz­ars presen­ted the Request for inform­a­tion from Man­age­ment and Those Charged with Gov­ernance pre­pared by Mazars.
2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and agreed they were happy with it.
3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Endorse the man­age­ment responses to recom­mend­a­tions for future action and improvements
4. Action Point Arising: None.

Stra­tegic risk registers (Paper 6)

1. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices presen­ted the paper which sup­ports a review by the Com­mit­tee of the Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment position.
2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ment and obser­va­tion: a) The Chair quer­ied why the Com­munit­ies Fund does not appear on the stra­tegic risk register and sought con­firm­a­tion that no risks have been iden­ti­fied requir­ing escal­a­tion. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO con­firmed that the Com­munit­ies Fund pro­ject risk register has been reg­u­larly repor­ted to the Board at recent meet­ings and would be con­sidered again at the next meet­ing. He added that, to date, no risks iden­ti­fied with­in the pro­ject risk register have been con­sidered sig­ni­fic­ant enough to war­rant escal­a­tion to the stra­tegic risk register. While Board dis­cus­sions have res­ul­ted in actions to update and refine the pro­ject risk register, it was agreed that the cur­rent approach remains appro­pri­ate. The Com­mit­tee noted this position.

Eilidh Todd arrived at 10.53 am Brid­get Trus­sell arrived at 10.56am and left at 10.57am Brid­get Trus­sell arrived at 10.58am

1. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Con­sider the cov­er­age and adequacy of the Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment pos­i­tion and advise on any gaps or amend­ments required to the cur­rent stra­tegic risk register. b) Con­sider the cov­er­age and adequacy of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme risk man­age­ment pos­i­tion and advise on any gaps or amend­ments required to the cur­rent pro­gramme risk register.
2. Action Point Arising: None.

Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund Devel­op­ment (Paper 7)

1. Eilidh Todd presen­ted the update on the work of the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) Com­munit­ies Fund Pan­el, sup­por­ted by our appoin­ted con­sult­ants, Involve, and the staff team, in devel­op­ing the C2030 Com­munity Grants Fund. The paper is brought to the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee at this point to sup­port a dis­cus­sion on the risk man­age­ment of this pro­ject in advance of con­sid­er­a­tion of the status of the pro­ject by the full board at its meet­ing on 26 June 2026. Since writ­ing the paper Eilidh advised of a couple of devel­op­ments: a) One final online ses­sion remain­ing with the pan­el which would take place next Wed­nes­day 24 June 2026. b) Behind the scenes, staff are work­ing tire­lessly to pre­pare the ideas formed by the pan­el into a tan­gible and real­ist­ic doc­u­ment to present back to them at the final session.

Mikko Saari arrived at 11.02am

1. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A mem­ber asked what themes would be fun­ded and how was the over­lap with exist­ing funds being avoided? Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager advised that the pan­el were giv­en clear para­met­ers and inform­a­tion on exist­ing funds at the out­set to avoid duplic­a­tion. They focused on broad themes aligned with Cairngorms 2030 rather than spe­cif­ic pro­jects. b) A mem­ber asked what the four main fund­ing themes are? Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager con­firmed these were the four main C2030 Themes of: Empower com­munit­ies to share the future of their loc­al area. c) Trans­form the way land is man­aged and used to bene­fit nature. d) Make get­ting around the Cairngorms easi­er, safer and green­er. e) Foster health­i­er, hap­pi­er com­munit­ies with well­being at their heart f) empower­ing com­munit­ies, health and well­being, trans­form­ing trans­port, and nature. g) A mem­ber asked if spe­cif­ic pro­jects or fund­ing pri­or­it­ies already defined? Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager con­firmed they had not. She advised that pan­el has only set broad cri­ter­ia and prin­ciples; spe­cif­ic pro­jects would be determ­ined by com­munit­ies and their applic­a­tions after the fund opens for applic­a­tions. h) A mem­ber asked if there would be more detailed guid­ance on eli­gible pro­jects? Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager con­firmed that fur­ther detail would be avail­able and presen­ted at the Board meet­ing the fol­low­ing week. i) The Chair asked wheth­er the Com­munit­ies Fund approach, which gives com­munit­ies broad con­trol over fund­ing, was effect­ive; how the themes had been defined; and wheth­er the mod­el could be repeated without duplic­at­ing exist­ing funds. The Com­munity Grants Man­ager con­firmed that it could. She explained that the fund had been designed around four broad Cairngorms 2030 themes, with the pan­el giv­en clear para­met­ers and inform­a­tion on exist­ing fund­ing avail­ab­il­ity to avoid duplic­a­tion. At this stage, only high-level prin­ciples and cri­ter­ia had been set, with spe­cif­ic pro­jects to emerge once applic­a­tions open. The approach had demon­strated strong com­munity engage­ment, brought in new voices, and proved valu­able as a pro­cess in itself. It was con­sidered rep­lic­able in future, poten­tially with less reli­ance on con­sult­ants, and could be applied more widely across oth­er areas. j) The Chair asked what has been learned from the Com­munit­ies Fund pro­cess, par­tic­u­larly as an innov­at­ive test mod­el, and how has it worked in prac­tice? She acknow­ledged that the Com­munit­ies Fund has provided valu­able learn­ing as an innov­at­ive test bed, attract­ing interest from part­ners such as the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund as a mod­el that could be applied in oth­er con­texts. The pro­cess has demon­strated strong poten­tial for wider use, both with­in oth­er nation­al parks and more broadly. Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager advised that while over­all pro­gress had been pos­it­ive, it had also involved chal­len­ging dis­cus­sions, which were seen as an import­ant and neces­sary part of the pro­cess. A key strength was the use of inde­pend­ent facil­it­a­tion, allow­ing open and hon­est dia­logue without the Park Author­ity lead­ing dis­cus­sions. This cre­ated space for par­ti­cipants, includ­ing some ini­tially scep­tic­al of the Park Author­ity, to engage con­struct­ively and recog­nise its com­mit­ment to improve­ment. Over­all, it was repor­ted that the exper­i­ence has gen­er­ated import­ant insights into com­munity engage­ment, col­lab­or­a­tion, and future deliv­ery approaches. k) A mem­ber argued that the wider com­munity had not yet been engaged, only a small group of rep­res­ent­at­ives ie the Com­munity Fund Pan­el con­sist­ing of 18 mem­bers. Com­munity Grants Man­ager con­firmed that engage­ment thus far has been with the reflect­ive pan­el (approx. 18 mem­bers plus an advis­ory group), not the full com­munity. Wider com­munity involve­ment would come when the fund opens for applic­a­tions. l) A mem­ber asked what the pan­el has been asked to do. Com­munity Grants Man­ager advised that the pan­el have been tasked with design­ing the fund­ing pro­cess and prin­ciples, not select­ing pro­jects or mak­ing fund­ing decisions. m) A mem­ber raised con­cerns that suc­cess was being over­stated before the fund had been delivered. Com­munity Grants Man­ager acknow­ledged that the pro­ject was still in early stages; suc­cess so far relates to the innov­at­ive design pro­cess, with out­comes yet to be proven through deliv­ery. n) A mem­ber asked what the key achieve­ment so far was and how would effect­ive­ness be demon­strated? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO advised that the fund has been designed by a reflect­ive group of poten­tial users, which is seen as a sig­ni­fic­ant and innov­at­ive shift from tra­di­tion­al cent­rally designed fund­ing mod­els. Com­munity Grants Man­ager advised that effect­ive­ness would be demon­strated through future deliv­ery; by assess­ing demand, applic­a­tions received, and how well fun­ded pro­jects align with the fund’s cri­ter­ia. o) A mem­ber asked what hap­pens next. Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager explained the next steps were clear com­mu­nic­a­tion of the cur­rent stage, fol­lowed by open­ing the fund, enabling applic­a­tions, and eval­u­at­ing out­comes over time. p) The Chair asked how the Com­munit­ies Fund would be mon­itored and sought assur­ance that there was con­fid­ence in the pro­posed approach. The Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager explained that mon­it­or­ing would be under­taken in two parts:

   i.  The process (how the panel and design stage operated), supported by a structured evaluation programme.
   ii. The grants delivery (how funding is used and what outcomes are achieved), which will include built-in monitoring of outputs and impacts.
   Community Grants Manager provided reassurance that there was confidence in the approach, as monitoring and evaluation are established practices, and systems will be developed alongside the next stage of delivery.
   

   q) The Chair thanked the staff for this inform­a­tion and asked if mon­it­or­ing would be integ­rated into the next phase of the fund? Com­munity Grants Man­ager con­firmed that mon­it­or­ing require­ments would be built into the design of the fund­ing pro­cess and future decision-mak­ing stages ensur­ing out­comes are tracked effect­ively. r) A mem­ber sought clar­ity on how the pan­el was made inclus­ive for dif­fer­ent demo­graph­ics and work­ing pat­terns. Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager provided reas­sur­ance that a mix of even­ing online ses­sions and week­end in-per­son meet­ings was used, along­side pay­ment, expenses, and child­care sup­port, enabling broad par­ti­cip­a­tion across ages and life­styles, includ­ing typ­ic­ally harder to reach groups like work­ing par­ents. s) The Chair asked what the risks were in trans­ition­ing from the design phase to the deliv­ery phase, and how would they be man­aged? Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager advised that there were recog­nised risks around loss of momentum and con­tinu­ity when mov­ing from design to deliv­ery, par­tic­u­larly as the panel’s role fin­ishs; these risks have been iden­ti­fied, and fur­ther detail on mit­ig­a­tion and man­age­ment will be developed and presen­ted at the next Board meet­ing on 26 June 2026. t) A mem­ber reques­ted that fur­ther inform­a­tion be presen­ted to the Board next week, which included clear and fixed timelines should be estab­lished, includ­ing a defined applic­a­tion win­dow (e.g. four weeks) and a rap­id decision-mak­ing peri­od (e.g. one to two weeks). This would provide applic­ants with timely feed­back and great­er cer­tainty, help­ing them coordin­ate applic­a­tions along­side oth­er fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and man­age lar­ger pro­jects effectively

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee agreed to the recommendations.
3. Action Points Arising: i. Detailed guid­ance on eli­gible pro­jects to be provided as part of Board present­a­tion on 26 June 2026 (para 34^d). ii. Devel­op and present a detailed mit­ig­a­tion and man­age­ment plan to address risks of loss of momentum and con­tinu­ity dur­ing the trans­ition from design to deliv­ery at the Board meet­ing on 26 June 2026 (para 34^o). iii. Set fixed applic­a­tion and decision timelines to provide timely feed­back and cer­tainty, to be presen­ted at the next Board meet­ing on 26 June 2026 (para 34p).

Brid­get Trus­sell and Eilidh Todd left the meet­ing at 11.29am.

Draft annu­al pro­cure­ment report (Paper 8)

1. Mikko Saari, Pro­cure­ment Man­ager presen­ted the paper.
2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ment: u) A mem­ber asked how year on year stat­ist­ics on loc­al sup­pli­er con­tracts should be inter­preted, giv­en that vari­ations in work could affect num­bers? Pro­cure­ment Man­ager con­firmed that fig­ures could fluc­tu­ate due to many vari­ables (e.g., type of work, reg­u­la­tions), so while increas­ing loc­al sup­pli­er use was desir­able, decreases may also be legit­im­ate; efforts are under­way to optim­ise con­sist­ency through con­sulta­tion with loc­al suppliers.
3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted the report.
4. Action Point Arising: None.

Mikko Saari left the meet­ing at 11.52am

Draft gov­ernance state­ment (Paper 9)

1. Louise Allen presen­ted the draft gov­ernance statement.
2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and agreed they were con­tent with it.
3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee agreed the draft gov­ernance statement.
4. Action Points Arising: None.

Inform­a­tion requests and com­plaints update (Paper 10)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices presen­ted the paper.
2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Com­ment made that there were not too many recur­ring themes which was pos­it­ive. b) The Chair gave thanks to the Inform­a­tion Man­ager for pre­par­ing the report.
3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted the update.
4. Action Points Arising: None.

AOCB

1. There were no items of business.
2. Motion to take the next items in con­fid­en­tial session.

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 2 Octo­ber 2026 online.
2. The pub­lic part of the meet­ing con­cluded at 11.55 am

Ref	Action Detail	Who	When	Status
13/03/26	At Para 18i Refresh­er Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee train­ing to be organised	Dav­id Cameron	Fol­low­ing dir­ectly elec­ted elec­tions March 2027
13/03/26	At Para 28i) Fol­low up audit on pro­ject ini­ti­ation to be car­ried out in 2027/2028.	Intern­al auditors	2027⁄28
19/06/2026	At Para 34d Detailed guid­ance on eli­gible projects	Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Manager	Board present­a­tion on 26 June 2026
19/06/2026	At Para 34o Devel­op and present a detailed mit­ig­a­tion and man­age­ment plan to address risks of loss of momentum and con­tinu­ity dur­ing the trans­ition from design to delivery	Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Manager	Board present­a­tion on 26 June 2026
19/06/2026	At Para 34p Set fixed applic­a­tion and decision timelines to provide timely feed­back and certainty	Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Manager	Board present­a­tion on 26 June 2026