Draft Formal Board Minutes - 27 March 2026

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Draft minutes of the Form­al Board meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grantown-on-Spey

In per­son

27 March 2026 at 9.30am

Present in person

• Sandy Brem­ner (Con­vener)
• Jack­ie Brierton
• Kenny Deans
• Han­nah Grist
• John Kirk
• Lauren Mac­Cal­lum
• Fiona McLean
• Duncan Miller
• Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Convener)
• Peter Cos­grove
• Paul Gibb
• Rus­sell Jones
• Bill Lob­ban
• Ian McLar­en
• Steve Mickle­wright
• Derek Ross

In attend­ance

• Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer (until 11.00 am)
• Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services
• Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change
• Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place
• Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel
• Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Development
• Eilidh Todd, Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Manager
• Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Manager
• Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement
• Vicky Hilton, Out­door Access Officer
• Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies

• Geva Black­ett
• Michael Wil­li­am­son
• Ann Ross

Wel­come and introduction

1. Sandy Brem­ner, the Board Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. He praised and expressed huge grat­it­ude to Elean­or Mack­in­tosh, Deputy Con­vener for step­ping in to cov­er him while he had been recov­er­ing from an oper­a­tion. He advised that the CEO would be leav­ing at 11.00am to attend a funer­al. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were no mat­ters arising.
2. The Con­vener gave an update on the actions arising from the meet­ing as detailed in the table below.

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024:
Paper 1 — CEO Report
At para 6b
i. Review the Plan­ning call-in pro­tocol and dis­cuss at a future plan­ning committee.	Com­pleted
Action Points from meet­ing on 28 March 2025:
Paper 2 — 2025⁄26 Budget and Oper­a­tion­al Plan
Inform­a­tion on the num­ber of eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers that are being removed on catch­ments to be sought and cir­cu­lated to the Board and thought to be giv­en to put­ting this into a staff mem­bers for­ward work plan.	In hand
Action Points from meet­ing on 28 Novem­ber 2025:
Paper 1 — CEO Report
At para 8
i. Press and Journ­al columns writ­ten by Mal­colm Smith, Agri­cul­tur­al Officer to be cir­cu­lated to the Board prepublication.	Com­pleted
ii. CEO to seek an update on the devel­op­ment of a Cairngorms Nation­al Park app and cir­cu­late this to the Board.	In hand
Paper 3 — Act­ive Cairngorms
At para 16
ii. Risk Register to be updated to include com­ment­ary on each rating.	Com­pleted
iii. Fire bylaw guid­ance to be adap­ted for a ses­sion with the Board prov­ing prac­tic­al guid­ance out and about in com­munit­ies for when the bylaw comes into force.	Com­pleted
iv. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel to keep the Board abreast with devel­op­ments with Trans­port Scot­land on installing sig­nage on their train car­riages and at train stations.	In hand
Paper 6 — Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund – risk register
At para 31
i. Add risk and mit­ig­a­tion for pan­el members.	Com­pleted
ii. Adjust word­ing to reflect the dis­tinc­tion between cur­rent stage risk (cri­ter­ia devel­op­ment and com­munity reac­tion) and future stage risk (con­sequences of fund­ing decisions). Include a pro­cess to dis­til options into a work­able scale and cri­ter­ia, bal­an­cing open­ness with practicality.
iii. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­sider how to incor­por­ate a safe­guard clause, pos­sibly through key decision-mak­ing mile­stones or the risk register, ensur­ing the pro­ject does not pro­ceed if it is not work­ing as envisaged.
iv. Add a risk that if the pan­el lacks the right mix of skills, the pro­ject will be paused.
Update: All actions com­pleted and incor­por­ated into revised risk register presen­ted to March 2026 board meeting.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

CEO Report (Paper 1)

1. Grant Moir, CEO, intro­duced the paper which was to high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by the Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er, with part­ners, the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. He offered spe­cial thanks to Roger Clegg who stepped down as Chair of the Cairngorms Trust. Roger had been Chair since the cre­ation of the Trust and pre­vi­ously the Loc­al Action Group. The CEO wel­comed Kar­en Der­rick into that role.
2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) A mem­ber quer­ied what work had been car­ried out with loc­al author­it­ies in rela­tion to the fire bylaws. CEO advised that ongo­ing work was tak­ing place with loc­al coun­cils, includ­ing devel­op­ment of per­man­ent road­side sig­nage. Sev­er­al coun­cils are also con­sid­er­ing their own fire man­age­ment meas­ures. It was noted that the Moray Fire Sum­mit took place approx­im­ately a month pri­or, where Moray Coun­cil agreed to observe how the Cairngorms fire man­age­ment bylaw is imple­men­ted over the sum­mer before decid­ing in the autumn wheth­er to pur­sue a sim­il­ar approach. b) Mem­bers asked for an update on brand­ing of the fire bylaw and wheth­er mes­saging would be con­sist­ent across Scot­land. CEO advised that two levels of com­mu­nic­a­tion were in oper­a­tion: a loc­al cam­paign led by the Nation­al Park Author­ity ensur­ing vis­it­ors under­stand the bylaw and their respons­ib­il­it­ies, and a nation­al cam­paign recently launched by Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vices (SFRS) along­side the Nation­al Wild­fire Action Plan. c) CEO also provided the reas­sur­ance that all nation­al vis­it­or-man­age­ment mes­saging is coordin­ated through the Nation­al Vis­it­or Man­age­ment Group, which includes NatureScot, Vis­itScot­land, both Nation­al Parks and oth­er key agen­cies. The Park Author­ity had presen­ted its com­mu­nic­a­tions approach to this group, and all part­ner mater­i­als have been shared. Vis­itScot­land will include the fire bylaw mes­saging in its nation­al con­tent relat­ing to the two Nation­al Parks, ensur­ing con­sist­ency. d) A mem­ber asked how com­mu­nic­a­tions in respect of the bylaw was being amp­li­fied. Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment advised that the digit­al advert­ising cam­paign, live since 16 March 2026, had reached 808,000 indi­vidu­als to date. e) Efforts include geo­graph­ic­al and demo­graph­ic tar­get­ing, spe­cif­ic out­reach to 18 – 23-year-olds via Snapchat, and planned part­ner­ships with influ­en­cers to reach audi­ences not typ­ic­ally engaged through core or part­ner chan­nels. The Board Con­vener added that a full, com­pre­hens­ive and impress­ive report on the com­mu­nic­a­tions of the fire bylaw had been dis­cussed at the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee earli­er that week. f) A mem­ber praised the work under­taken on the fire bylaw com­mu­nic­a­tions cam­paign and invited the team to make use of the Board’s wider net­work for cam­paign amp­li­fic­a­tion. g) A mem­ber expressed appre­ci­ation for the organisation’s well­being ini­ti­at­ives, high­light­ing in par­tic­u­lar the recently intro­duced endo­met­ri­os­is policy. h) A mem­ber quer­ied why the improved path sec­tion between Inver­u­glass and Insh stops short of com­plet­ing the full link. Was the inten­tion to com­plete the full route, or was fur­ther work planned? Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel advised that this pro­ject covered only one sec­tion of the route. The improved part had pre­vi­ously been in par­tic­u­larly poor con­di­tion, where­as the sec­tions on either side were already in reas­on­able shape, so the work did not extend bey­ond the tar­geted area. Mem­ber went on to ask if the remain­ing sec­tion would be reviewed for poten­tial future improve­ment. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel con­firmed that he would look into the mat­ter in more detail to assess wheth­er the remain­ing sec­tion requires addi­tion­al work and wheth­er fur­ther improve­ments should be con­sidered, and report back. i) A mem­ber asked if Board Mem­bers could be provided with a script to use when enga­ging with people who may be light­ing fires in the Nation­al Park? CEO advised that a form­al script would not be appro­pri­ate. The Park Author­ity was not seek­ing to enforce the bylaw through Board mem­ber inter­ven­tion. How­ever, key mes­sages which were on the Park Authority’s web­site could be provided to Board mem­bers, so they under­stand how to refer to the bylaw when speak­ing to the pub­lic inform­ally. j) A mem­ber asked if all rel­ev­ant Park Author­ity officers have received train­ing on how to engage with people light­ing fires? CEO con­firmed that all rangers have received train­ing, includ­ing con­flict-res­ol­u­tion guid­ance, as part of the bylaw imple­ment­a­tion. Train­ing was also being provided for estate staff and part­ners as needed. k) A mem­ber asked If there was offi­cial guid­ance on how to speak to the pub­lic about fires? CEO con­firmed that the Land Man­ager guid­ance, avail­able on the Park Author­ity web­site provides advice on how to engage with indi­vidu­als over fire-related issues. It was agreed to cir­cu­late the link to the guid­ance to the mem­ber. l) A mem­ber asked If the com­munit­ies fund pan­el mem­bers would have indi­vidu­al cairngorms emails? CEO advised that they would not, and that people would not be get­ting in con­tact with them. He added that there was a paper on today’s agenda cov­er­ing this top­ic and sug­ges­ted this be raised and dis­cussed as part of that paper. m) A mem­ber asked how much flex­ib­il­ity does the Park Author­ity have over its pro­cure­ment cri­ter­ia and how can pro­cure­ment sup­port loc­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment? Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices advised that the Park Author­ity must oper­ate with­in Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment pro­cure­ment reg­u­la­tions but uses its Pro­cure­ment Strategy to incor­por­ate loc­al pri­or­it­ies such as Fair Work First and oppor­tun­it­ies for loc­al busi­nesses. Pro­cure­ment can be struc­tured in appro­pri­ate lots to widen access, and the strategy would likely be updated in light of the Com­munity Wealth Build­ing Bill. n) A mem­ber asked if the Board would be hav­ing an oppor­tun­ity to dis­cuss the Com­munity Wealth Build­ing Bill in the future? CEO con­firmed that a future inform­al board ses­sion on this had been sched­uled as part of the NPPP devel­op­ment. o) A mem­ber quer­ied when would they know how suc­cess­ful the Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan had been, how suc­cess­ful diver­sion­ary feed­ing was and was it sus­tain­able? Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change advised that this was only year one of a five-year plan, so full res­ults were not yet avail­able. He explained that addi­tion­al lek counts are about to begin, which would provide fur­ther data. He went on to advise that diver­sion­ary feed­ing shows strong evid­ence of effect­ive­ness, with sev­er­al recent papers sup­port­ing its impact with­in the Nation­al Park. Most estates with caper­cail­lie are already under­tak­ing diver­sion­ary feed­ing, and more data will be avail­able as mon­it­or­ing con­tin­ues. p) A mem­ber asked if pred­at­or con­trol was part of the Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan and for an update on the pine marten sur­vey. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change con­firmed that the plan included an action to invest­ig­ate the effic­acy of dif­fer­ent pred­at­or man­age­ment approaches in rela­tion to breed­ing pro­ductiv­ity. This work will be taken for­ward this year. He added that NatureScot had recently com­pleted a 10 year review of caper­cail­lie SPAs, and that data would be shared once avail­able. q) Mem­ber asked if there would be fur­ther invest­ig­a­tion into pred­at­or con­trol meth­ods. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change con­firmed that the study would com­pare areas using leth­al pred­at­or con­trol, using diver­sion­ary feed­ing, and assess the pro­ductiv­ity out­comes asso­ci­ated with each method.

Kate Christie left room at 9.56 am

1. The Board noted the paper. The Con­vener thanked the CEO and all staff on behalf of the Board.
2. Action Points Arising: i. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel to review the remain­ing unim­proved sec­tion of the path between Inver­u­glass and Insh, assess wheth­er fur­ther improve­ments are required, and report back on wheth­er addi­tion­al work should be con­sidered. ii. CEO to cir­cu­late the link to the Land Man­age­ment Guid­ance in respect of the fire bylaw to the mem­ber (Paul Gibb). iii. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change to cir­cu­late the data cap­tured in NatureScot’s 10-year review of Caper­cail­lie SPA’s when available.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ budget (Paper 2)

1. The Con­vener stated that this was the largest budget for the Nation­al Park in its his­tory. It would allow the Park Author­ity to con­tin­ue the deliv­ery of the Park Plan and the Cor­por­ate Plan. And there was a sig­ni­fic­ant update to the paper regard­ing the Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund.
2. Grant Moir, CEO high­lighted a few points: a) The budget this year was made up of roughly 50% core fund­ing from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, 50% from oth­er sources and recog­ni­tion that it was a good place to be in terms of being able to attract fur­ther fund­ing. b) He announced that since the writ­ing of the paper, the Nature Res­tor­a­tion fund­ing has been confirmed.
3. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced the paper which sets out the Park Authority’s pro­posed budget for the ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ fin­an­cial year. It provides the Board with the oppor­tun­ity to con­sider the over­all budget pos­i­tion, togeth­er with the impact of any key assump­tions made in estab­lish­ing budget estimates.
4. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) Board Con­vener com­men­ted that it was a healthy pos­i­tion to be in. b) Board Deputy Con­vener raised con­cerns from loc­al busi­nesses regard­ing cur­rent levels of sup­port, par­tic­u­larly via Grow­Biz and the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship (CBP), and sought cla­ri­fic­a­tion on fund­ing with­in the Skills and Train­ing budget and wheth­er addi­tion­al sup­port could be provided in-year. Officers advised that fund­ing for Grow­Biz and CBP remains broadly con­sist­ent with pre­vi­ous years. Busi­ness sup­port is also provided through oth­er Oper­a­tion­al Plan strands, includ­ing Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment fund­ing, the Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund, and pro­cure­ment sup­port to help loc­al busi­nesses access Park Author­ity con­tracts. Dis­cus­sions are ongo­ing with Grow­Biz to explore secur­ing addi­tion­al extern­al fund­ing to extend sup­port. c) A mem­ber asked about the poten­tial short-term impact of infla­tion­ary pres­sures on deliv­ery, par­tic­u­larly rising costs for staff­ing and resources, and the Authority’s capa­city to absorb these with­in exist­ing budgets. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices advised that there is sig­ni­fic­ant eco­nom­ic uncer­tainty and that a 1% increase in infla­tion equated to approx­im­ately £10k in addi­tion­al run­ning costs. Infla­tion cur­rently sits at around 3%, align­ing with planned staff pay awards under the exist­ing three-year set­tle­ment, with addi­tion­al awards already made in response to cost-of-liv­ing pres­sures. If infla­tion were to rise fur­ther, pay and oth­er budget pres­sures would be reviewed. As resources are fixed, increased costs may require repri­or­it­isa­tion, with some areas reduced to ensure core com­mit­ments are fully fun­ded. Budgets will con­tin­ue to be act­ively mon­itored through the Resources Com­mit­tee, with sig­ni­fic­ant changes repor­ted to the Board as required. d) A mem­ber high­lighted that there is a wide range of extern­al sup­port avail­able to busi­nesses, includ­ing assist­ance from HIE, Scot­tish Enter­prise, Busi­ness Gate­way, High­land Oppor­tun­ity, Skills Devel­op­ment Scot­land, and the Work­force North pro­gramme. While sup­port is avail­able, it can be com­plex for busi­nesses to nav­ig­ate and under­stand eli­gib­il­ity. e) A mem­ber com­men­ted that access to sup­port can vary by busi­ness type, with retail busi­nesses often facing par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place advised the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship (CBP), as the Cham­ber of Com­merce, has a key role in com­mu­nic­at­ing avail­able sup­port to its mem­bers and the wider busi­ness com­munity. Board Con­vener con­firmed that this issue would be raised at an upcom­ing meet­ing with the CBP Chair and Chief Exec­ut­ive. f) A mem­ber sought cla­ri­fic­a­tion on the split with­in the Skills and Train­ing budget between Grow­Biz and Coun­tryside Learn­ing, not­ing the value of Coun­tryside Learn­ing activ­ity for young people and skills reten­tion with­in the Nation­al Park. He also high­lighted a per­ceived gap in sup­port for people tak­ing the next step from skills devel­op­ment into start­ing new busi­nesses. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place advised that sup­port for start-ups was already provided through a range of mech­an­isms, includ­ing Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment fund­ing via the Cairngorms Trust, Busi­ness Gate­way grants, and work under­way to explore addi­tion­al loan-based fund­ing for early-stage start-ups. He noted the import­ance of bal­an­cing activ­ity with school capa­city when deliv­er­ing edu­ca­tion-based ini­ti­at­ives. CEO added that Grow­Biz has sig­ni­fic­ant engage­ment with start-ups, with 28% of sup­por­ted cli­ents classed as start-ups and 36% of activ­ity in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ focused on start-up busi­nesses with­in the Nation­al Park. CEO noted the com­plex­ity of the wider busi­ness sup­port land­scape and the import­ance of ensur­ing CNPA fund­ing is tar­geted, com­ple­ment­ary and focused par­tic­u­larly on micro-busi­nesses where nation­al schemes are less act­ive. It was agreed that there was a need to ensure clar­ity on how skills, train­ing and busi­ness sup­port fund­ing is tar­geted, with a con­tin­ued focus on micro-busi­nesses and start-ups, and to avoid duplic­a­tion with oth­er nation­al and region­al sup­port pro­grammes. g) A mem­ber who is Chair of the Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group noted that the major­ity of busi­nesses and start-ups with­in the Nation­al Park are micro-busi­nesses (typ­ic­ally few­er than five employ­ees), where sup­port from nation­al agen­cies is more lim­ited. She high­lighted the import­ance of Grow­Biz and CBP in address­ing this gap and sug­ges­ted that great­er insight into start-up activ­ity by sec­tor would help inform future Board decisions. She also reit­er­ated the import­ance of improv­ing access to fin­ance, such as loan or grant schemes, to enable small busi­nesses to grow. Sug­ges­tion was made to include a short sum­mary of busi­ness start-up activ­ity and sec­tors with­in the Chief Executive’s report, draw­ing on exist­ing Grow­Biz data. h) Mem­bers also emphas­ised the value of great­er trans­par­ency on fund­ing alloc­a­tions to Grow­Biz and CBP and sug­ges­ted that under­stand­ing what addi­tion­al out­comes could be achieved with mod­est increases in fund­ing would be help­ful. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place advised that grant dis­cus­sions with deliv­ery part­ners are ongo­ing, includ­ing explor­a­tion of how sup­port could be improved or adap­ted, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on micro-busi­nesses. i) A mem­ber high­lighted ongo­ing chal­lenges for start-ups in access­ing tra­di­tion­al bank fin­ance and reit­er­ated interest in small-scale loan or access-to-fin­ance schemes.
5. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Approve the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s budget and oper­a­tion­al plan for ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ as set out in this paper. b) Con­sider the impact of the budget and oper­a­tion­al plan on the stra­tegic risk register and any amend­ments arising.
6. Action Points Arising: i. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to con­tin­ue close mon­it­or­ing of infla­tion­ary impacts on staff­ing, pro­cure­ment and deliv­ery costs, and report any sig­ni­fic­ant budget implic­a­tions through the Resources Com­mit­tee and to the Board. ii. Board Con­vener and CEO to engage with CBP to improve coordin­a­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion of avail­able extern­al busi­ness sup­port, and to explore clear­er sign­post­ing tailored to dif­fer­ent busi­ness sizes and sectors.

Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund – risk register (Paper 3)

1. Eilidh Todd, Com­munit­ies and Devel­op­ment Man­ager intro­duced the paper which updates Board mem­bers on the pro­gress of a £1 mil­lion Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) Com­munit­ies Fund, which will be co-designed by a wide range of the com­munit­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, and to review the pro­ject risk register.
2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) A mem­ber wel­comed the suc­cess­ful recruit­ment of the pan­el and the com­pre­hens­ive approach to risk man­age­ment. Com­ments focused on Risk 7 (trans­par­ency and influ­ence) and Risk 12 (pan­el reten­tion), emphas­ising the import­ance of clear com­mu­nic­a­tion through­out the pro­cess on the role of pan­el­lists, how influ­ence is man­aged, and how trans­par­ency is main­tained without attrib­ut­ing decisions to indi­vidu­als. The need to reflect these mit­ig­a­tions more clearly in the risk register was high­lighted. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed that the pan­el itself had raised sim­il­ar con­cerns and is com­mit­ted to trans­par­ency. Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager advised that they were final­ising demo­graph­ic inform­a­tion to share an anonymised snap­shot of the pan­el and would issue fur­ther com­mu­nic­a­tions shortly to the Board. It was agreed that mit­ig­a­tions around trans­par­ency of pro­cess and clar­ity of roles would need to be strengthened in the risk register. b) A mem­ber also noted that pan­el reten­tion risks extend bey­ond logist­ics to include trust in the pro­cess, facil­it­a­tion of dis­cus­sions, and man­age­ment of dom­in­ant voices, and that these factors should be reflec­ted in mit­ig­a­tions. c) Mem­bers dis­cussed engage­ment with com­munit­ies, includ­ing com­mu­nic­a­tions around the fund launch, explan­a­tion of decision-mak­ing pro­cesses, and the role of the pan­el in shar­ing out­comes. Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment con­firmed that engage­ment and com­mu­nic­a­tions were being developed in part­ner­ship with Involve, with fur­ther dis­cus­sions sched­uled with the pan­el. d) A mem­ber sought cla­ri­fic­a­tion into the situ­ation where out­comes from the pan­el may dif­fer from tra­di­tion­al approaches and that this reflects the Authority’s risk appet­ite in deliv­er­ing genu­ine par­ti­cip­at­ory demo­cracy. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices acknow­ledged this and con­firmed that risk appet­ite would be more expli­citly artic­u­lated in future report­ing. CEO reaf­firmed that, while decision-mak­ing is devolved, the Author­ity remains the account­able body for pub­lic funds and pro­pos­als must align with Cairngorms 2030 themes and pub­lic fin­ance requirements.

3. The Board: a) Reviewed the risk register, iden­ti­fied any gaps and agreed the over­all approach to this piece of work.

4. Action Points Arising: i. Officers to update the risk register to strengthen mit­ig­a­tions on trans­par­ency, com­mu­nic­a­tion and pan­el reten­tion, includ­ing pro­cess trust and facil­it­a­tion dynam­ics. ii. Officers to reflect the Authority’s risk appet­ite for par­ti­cip­at­ory demo­cracy expli­citly in future Board reporting.

The meet­ing paused at 10.45 am for a com­fort break. Grant Moir, CEO left the meet­ing. Oliv­er Dav­ies left the meet­ing. Eilidh Todd left the meet­ing. Vicky Hilton and Mari­aan Pita joined the meet­ing at 11.03am The meet­ing recon­vened at 11.04am

Core Paths Plan Review – form­al con­sulta­tion (Paper 4)

1. Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel intro­duced the paper explain­ing that, under the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003, the Park Author­ity is required to review its Core Paths Plan, fol­low­ing a min­is­teri­al dir­ec­tion. The exist­ing plan, adop­ted in 2015, must be updated to ensure con­tin­ued reas­on­able pub­lic access across the Nation­al Park. The report set out pro­posed changes and sought Board approv­al to pub­lish a draft Core Paths Plan for the stat­utory 12-week pub­lic consultation.
2. The Board Con­vener advised that there would be an inform­al Board busi­ness ses­sion in August to dis­cuss the details and the final core path plan would come back for form­al approv­al by the Board after the consultations.
3. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: b) A mem­ber raised con­cerns regard­ing the con­di­tion and main­ten­ance of some core paths