Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Draft minutes of the Form­al Board meeting

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

In per­son

28 March 2025 at 10.00am

Present in person

Sandy Brem­ner (Con­vener) Geva Black­ett Peter Cos­grove Paul Gibb John Kirk Fiona McLean Duncan Miller

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh (Deputy Con­vener) Jack­ie Brier­ton Kenny Deans Rus­sell Jones Bill Lob­ban Steve Mickle­wright Derek Ross

In attend­ance

Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager (For­ward Plan­ning and Ser­vice Improve­ment) Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer Jeff Pyrah, Seni­or Plan­ning Officer Heath­er Trench, Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Officer Kate Christie Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies

Chris Beat­tie Lauren MacCallum

Han­nah Grist Ann Ross

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Michael Wil­li­am­son

Wel­come and introduction

1. Sandy Brem­ner, the Board Con­vener, wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The draft minutes of the meet­ing held on the 22 Novem­ber 2024 were approved with no amendments.

2. The draft minutes of the last meet­ing held on 14 Feb­ru­ary 2025 were approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were no mat­ters arising.

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 22 March 2024:
Paper 1 CEO report
At para 7
i. CEO, to pre­pare a brief­ing note on farm­ing activ­ity and stat­ist­ics with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and dis­trib­ute to the Board.	In hand
Update:
Pre­lim­in­ary data received, staff capa­city to pro­gress is lim­ited by vacancy in Agri­cul­tur­al Officer post. Recruit­ment for that post is about to begin.

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 13 Septem­ber 2024:
Paper 1 – CEO Report
At para 9
i. Board ses­sion to be sched­uled to allow mem­bers to reflect, con­sider and adopt the organ­isa­tion­al values.	In hand
Update:
CEO, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, and Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment to discuss.

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Paper 2 – Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan

At para 13 i. Future report on car­bon foot­print to be cir­cu­lated to the Board and pub­lished on the web

In hand

ii. Future updates to include more detailed traffic light

ratings to clearly show activities at risk of being
delivered.

Update:

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.	In hand
At para 6c
ii. Give an update on Brand use at a future meeting.	Com­pleted
Update:
Call-in pro­tocol — This will be brought to the board in a future Board Busi­ness Session.

Brand use Over 200 busi­nesses across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park are now signed up to our brand charter scheme, which gives part­ners access to a range of free pro­mo­tion­al mater­i­als (includ­ing the use of a ​‘proud to be part of’ logo). The scheme was refreshed as part of the brand work in 2022 and has been pro­moted extens­ively since then, includ­ing a work­shop at the CBP con­fer­ence in Novem­ber and a series of videos for busi­nesses (eg https://​vimeo​.com/​9​4​3​2​4​6​6​9​6​/​3​c​2​9​1​5​0​f​94?suvia=got&login=true#=_ pro­moted through Vis­it­Cairngorms chan­nels. We are part­ner­ing with CBP over the com­ing months to pro­mote the charter fur­ther, includ­ing a spe­cif­ic work­shop with loc­al pro­du­cers to explore the use of a ​‘made in’ brand stamp for products made in the Cairngorms. The find­ings from this work­shop will be brought to the board for fur­ther dis­cus­sion ahead of any scheme being rolled out.

Paper 3 — Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan — Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme

At para 15a

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i. Share report from Kin­gussie High School. Completed

Update:

Reports for loc­al devel­op­ment plan engage­ment with pupils at Kin­gussie High School.

• https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​4​/​1​2​/​K​i​n​g​u​s​s​i​e​-​H​i​g​h​-​S​c​h​o​o​l​-​S​c​hool- S1-Geography-Students-Place-Standard-Tool-Engagement-2024.pdf
• https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​4​/​1​2​/​K​i​n​g​u​s​s​i​e​-​H​i​g​h​-​S​c​h​o​o​l​-​S​c​hool- S3-Geography-Students-Place-Standard-Tool-Engagement-2024.pdf
• https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​4​/​1​2​/​K​i​n​g​u​s​s​i​e​-​H​i​g​h​-​S​c​h​o​o​l​-​S​c​hool- Higher-Criminology-Students-Place-Standard-Tool-Engagement-2024.pdf

Paper 4 — Review of Board Stand­ing Orders

At para 19a ii. Remove point 53b in annex 1 Com­plete At para 19b iii. Add in the addi­tion­al word­ing to allow flex­ib­il­ity to allow phone calls if this is the only pos­sib­il­ity. Complete

At para 19b iv. At para­graph 32 amend tele­phone link to video call to for con­tinu­ity in the paper. Complete

Update:

All amend­ments made and Stand­ing Orders issued.

Paper 5 — Act­ive Cairngorms and end of sea­son vis­it­or report

At para 23a i. Include key chal­lenges in mit­ig­a­tion and learn­ing in future papers.

To be included in 2025 report

At para 23c ii. Stat­ist­ics on camp site and lux­ury camp­ing options with­in the Nation­al Park. In hand

At para 23^d iii. Share final­ised report on water access guid­ance. Completed

Update:

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. The Stand­ards Com­mis­sion have agreed a dis­pens­a­tion for all mem­bers cov­er­ing Item 7, Paper 3.

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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.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the paper and a dis­cus­sion took place around the fol­low­ing: α) CEO con­firmed that loc­al busi­nesses had been giv­en the oppor­tun­ity to bid on the Cairngorms 2030 pro­jects through open pub­lic pro­cure­ment. Depend­ing on the project’s size, dif­fer­ent pro­cure­ment routes were fol­lowed, as out­lined in the intern­al Pro­cure­ment Guid­ance approved by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee last sum­mer. b) Request made for the list of Cairngorms 2030 pro­jects that have recently gone through pro­cure­ment pro­cesses to be cir­cu­lated to the Board. This was agreed.

3. The Board noted the paper. The Con­vener thanked the CEO and all staff on behalf of the Board.

4. Action Point Arising: i. List of Cairngorms 2030 pro­jects cur­rently going through pro­cure­ment pro­cesses to be cir­cu­lated to the Board.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ budget and operational

plan (Paper 2)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions intro­duced the paper, which sets out the Park Authority’s pro­posed budget for the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ fin­an­cial year, provid­ing the Board with the oppor­tun­ity to con­sider the over­all budget pos­i­tion, togeth­er with the impact of any key assump­tions made in estab­lish­ing budget estim­ates. The paper also presents the pro­posed oper­a­tion­al plan for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ (Annex 4) to allow mem­bers to scru­tin­ise, and take assur­ance on, the alloc­a­tion of avail­able resources, both fin­an­cial and staff resources. The budget alloc­a­tions seek to provide a bal­anced approach to deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s agreed strategic

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object­ives, as set out in the approved Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and Cor­por­ate Plan.

1. The Board con­sidered the detail in the paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) Resound­ing praise for the remark­able fig­ures and clear, well explained paper. b) The CEO explained that the fund­ing alloc­a­tion for the upcom­ing fin­an­cial year is very pos­it­ive, although we await final con­firm­a­tion from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. With the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment­ary elec­tion next year, there is a degree of uncer­tainty over future budget alloc­a­tions, and it is increas­ingly import­ant for the staff to focus on secur­ing addi­tion­al fund­ing from oth­er sources. c) The dis­cus­sion focused on the organ­isa­tion­al changes made to deliv­er the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme and con­cerns about man­age­ment of staff and staff­ing levels, includ­ing the loss of pro­ject staff once the pro­gramme ends. The CEO noted that the changes had been pos­it­ive, mod­ern­ising pro­cesses and sys­tems. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO, men­tioned that the work­force man­age­ment strategy was being updated and would be presen­ted to the Resources Com­mit­tee in the next six months. This would take a long-term approach seek­ing to estab­lish approaches to handle staff­ing at the end point of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme. He also explained that recruit­ment for roles is now typ­ic­ally on three-year fixed-term con­tracts, poten­tially allow­ing per­man­ent Cairngorms 2030 staff to trans­ition into pos­i­tions when the pro­gramme con­cludes. d) A dis­cus­sion on oper­a­tion­al plan alloc­a­tions focused on fresh­wa­ter eco­lo­gic­al res­tor­a­tion, primar­ily through ripari­an plant­ing and large woody struc­tures. It was noted that remov­ing bar­ri­ers on rivers was a key res­tor­a­tion strategy, and there was interest in track­ing how many eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers are being removed in vari­ous catch­ments. Mar­ine Scot­land had assessed all catch­ments and part­ners are work­ing toward imple­ment­a­tion. CEO agreed to con­sider integ­rat­ing this into a for­ward work pro­gram and will update the Board at the next meet­ing. e) Com­ment was made on expect­a­tions that Nation­al Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund (NHLF) would be keen to see pro­jects con­tinu­ing even after cur­rent NHLF fund­ing for Cairngorms 2030 had ceased, and mem­bers would wel­come the Park Author­ity think­ing ahead on that. CEO provided reas­sur­ance that the

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staff were look­ing at pos­sible fund­ing sources avail­able to deliv­er the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. He added that with regard to the leg­acy from the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme, pro­jects the Author­ity is doing in the Cairngorms are being repeated else­where; he gave the example of the Alzheimer’s centre at Bad­aguish, and the second centre that has opened recently south of Edin­burgh, there­fore bene­fit­ing Scot­land as a whole as an early leg­acy impact from Cairngorms 2030. f) Spe­cies man­age­ment, spe­cific­ally geese were men­tioned, and ques­tions were asked if con­tin­ued fund­ing would be avail­able to extend the work fur­ther up the Spey into Badenoch. CEO advised that he invest­ig­ate it.

1. Rus­sell Jones, Con­vener of the Resources Com­mit­tee thanked Louise Allen for her work through­out the year at the Resources Com­mit­tee and Sandy Brem­ner, Board Con­vener endorsed those comments.

2. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Approve the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s budget and oper­a­tion­al plan for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ 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.

3. Action Points Arising: i. 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. ii. Scope of extend­ing the work on spe­cies man­age­ment spe­cific­ally geese fur­ther up the Spey into Badenoch to be investigated.

Louise Allen left the meet­ing at 10.30 am

Con­sulta­tion response to High­land Coun­cil Vis­it­or Levy Proposal

(Paper 3)

1. Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place and Heath­er Trench, Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Officer intro­duced the paper which allows the board to dis­cuss and agree a response to the High­land Coun­cil Vis­it­or Levy con­sulta­tion. The High­land Coun­cil are the first

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Loc­al Author­ity with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park to bring for­ward a pro­pos­al under the Vis­it­or Levy (Scot­land) Act 2024.

1. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: c) A Board mem­ber advised that no decision had yet been taken by the High­land Coun­cil on wheth­er to pro­gress with the vis­it­or levy: it still had to be debated by the High­land Coun­cil. A Board mem­ber added that Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil were not far behind how­ever there was real con­cern around the impact of col­lect­ing the money would push busi­nesses, par­tic­u­larly small busi­nesses, over the value added tax (VAT) threshold and as a res­ult may see a reduc­tion in the avail­ab­il­ity of room num­bers. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place noted that the way the levy is recog­nised in tax terms was a com­mon con­cern being raised by busi­nesses and the busi­ness com­munity. He added there were oppor­tun­it­ies for coun­cils to make excep­tions for cer­tain types or scales of busi­ness if they con­sidered neces­sary. d) CEO advised that dis­cus­sions were ongo­ing between Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and His Majesty’s Rev­en­ue and Cus­toms (HMRC) regard­ing the VAT implic­a­tions in Scot­land and the poten­tial of bring­ing them in line with Eng­land. CEO agreed to keep the Board updated on any updates shared with the Park Author­ity on that front. e) Mem­ber com­men­ted that it was as good a response that could be made at this early stage, not­ing eco­nom­ic impact assess­ment work is still to be car­ried out and the struc­ture provides dis­pro­por­tion­ate dis­ad­vant­age to smal­ler accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders. f) Clar­ity sought on the timeline, after High­land Coun­cil had dis­cussed the con­sulta­tion responses would it go out to a second con­sulta­tion? Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place advised that it appeared likely that High­land Coun­cil would modi­fy their pro­pos­als and re-con­sult and agreed to add in a sen­tence at the end of the response which says: If there are sig­ni­fic­ant changes pro­posed by High­land coun­cil to the cur­rent scheme we would wel­come fur­ther con­sulta­tion with the Park Author­ity. g) A board mem­ber asked if the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity could con­sider the feed­back from rur­al busi­nesses as part of the nation­al debate of the 5% level as opposed to the approach under­stood in Eng­land of a flat rate.

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α) Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place advised that the legis­la­tion had estab­lished that vis­it­or levy was cal­cu­lated as a per­cent­age rather than fixed sum and at the time that par­lia­ment had con­sidered the legis­la­tion argu­ments had been made by vari­ous parties for and against both per­cent­ages and fixed rates. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment was not con­sult­ing on any changes to the legis­la­tion at this stage. Loc­al Author­it­ies con­sid­er­ing vis­it­or levy pro­pos­als were required to con­sult on a per­cent­age-based levy and the Park Author­ity was respond­ing to a con­sulta­tion from High­land Coun­cil on a pro­posed scheme. The Park Author­ity hadn’t under­taken research into the pro and cons of each poten­tial levy rate so wouldn’t be a strong pos­i­tion to com­ment on the bene­fits or dis­be­ne­fits of per­cent­ages com­pared to fixed fees. d) A Board mem­ber felt strongly about not being sup­port­ive of imple­ment­ing a vis­it­or levy and pro­posed an amend­ment. There was no second­er to this amendment.

1. The Board agreed and approved the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity response to High­land Council’s Vis­it­or Levy con­sulta­tion with the addi­tion of the fol­low­ing sen­tence at the end of the response: a) If there are sig­ni­fic­ant changes pro­posed by the High­land Coun­cil to the cur­rent scheme, we would wel­come fur­ther con­sulta­tion. Paul Gibb’s dis­sent to this pos­i­tion was noted.

2. Action Points Arising: i. Sen­tence to be added to end of con­sulta­tion response as detailed in para­graph 18α. ii. CEO to keep the Board abreast with any devel­op­ments in the dis­cus­sions between HMRC and the UK Gov­ern­ment with regards to the impact any future tour­ism levy would have on VAT thresholds in Scotland.

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 – Deliv­ery Pro­gramme (Paper 4)

1. Jeff Pyrah, Seni­or Plan­ning Officer and Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager intro­duced the paper which presents the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2021 – Deliv­ery Pro­gramme 2025. The Deliv­ery Pro­gramme is an import­ant pro­ject man­age­ment tool. It is instru­ment­al to achiev­ing an out­comes-focused approach to devel­op­ment plan­ning. All loc­al plan­ning author­it­ies are required to pub­lish a Deliv­ery Pro­gramme by 31 March 2025.

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1. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) A mem­ber com­men­ted that it was an inter­est­ing report that was detailed and help­ful. b) Query around the fin­an­cial con­tri­bu­tions around com­munity gain, with some very detailed and some not at all: why was this? Jeff Pyrah, Seni­or Plan­ning Officer con­firmed that this reflec­ted the detail available.

2. The Board noted the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan — Deliv­ery Pro­gramme 2025 and approved its sub­mis­sion to Scot­tish Ministers.

3. Action Point Arising: None.

Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan update (Paper 5)

1. Heath­er Trench, Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Officer and Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place intro­duced the paper which sets out to update the Board on deliv­ery of the Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan 2022 — 27 and give wider con­text on asso­ci­ated policy developments.

2. The Board noted the pro­gress in deliv­ery of the Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan 2022 — 27.

3. Action Point Arising: None.

Kate Christie joined the meet­ing at 11.05am

Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty Report (Paper 6)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment intro­duced the paper which explains that the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity is a lis­ted pub­lic author­ity that is required to meet the Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty. There are a num­ber of oblig­a­tions under this duty, includ­ing a require­ment to report on main­stream­ing the equal­ity duty. There is also a require­ment to pub­lish pro­gress on deliv­ery of a vari­ety of respons­ib­il­it­ies under that duty, includ­ing devel­op­ing a set of equal­ity out­comes every four years, and report­ing on them every two years. The over­arch­ing report demon­strat­ing what the Park Author­ity has been doing to meet the Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty is now due to be pub­lished in April 2025.

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1. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: α) A Board mem­ber praised the organisation’s lead­er­ship in equal­it­ies work, not­ing that oth­er pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies look to them as an good example. She high­lighted the con­sultat­ive approach and the broad list of achieve­ments in this area. She also com­men­ded the Cairngorms Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el for its role in guid­ing the pro­cess. It was noted that the pan­el is chaired by Board Mem­ber Han­nah Grist who also advises the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Equal­it­ies Pan­el. Resound­ing thanks were giv­en to Kate Christie and Oliv­er Dav­ies for the excel­lent report and mak­ing the Park Author­ity exem­plar in the sub­ject. b) A board mem­ber sug­ges­ted hold­ing work­shops that oth­er organ­isa­tions could attend. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment advised that they planned to do stor­ies of the work that is being done and so oth­er organ­isa­tions can learn from these.

2. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the report and Annex 1. b) Note the achieve­ments in our work on equalities.

3. Action Point Arising: None.

Board Committee’s annu­al reports to the Board (Paper 7)

1. Mari­aan Pita intro­duced the paper which presents the annu­al report of the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee, Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee and Resources Com­mit­tee to Board mem­bers for comment.

2. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) To note the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee annu­al report b) To note the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee annu­al report c) To note the Resources Com­mit­tee annu­al report

3. Action Point Arising: None.

Board Com­mit­tee Minutes (Paper 8)

1. Sandy Brem­ner intro­duced the paper which presents the approved minutes and con­fid­en­tial minutes of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee, 20 Septem­ber and 13

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Decem­ber, Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee, 27 Septem­ber and Resources Com­mit­tee, 04 October

1. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) The minutes of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee, Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee and Resources Com­mit­tees. b) The con­fid­en­tial minutes of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee and Resources Committees.

2. Action Point Arising: None.

AOCB

1. There were no items presented.

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 27 June 2025 in per­son, in Ballater.

2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 11.17 am

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 22 March 2024:
Paper 1 CEO report
At para 7
i. CEO, to pre­pare a brief­ing note on farm­ing activ­ity and stat­ist­ics with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and dis­trib­ute to the Board.	In hand
Update:
Pre­lim­in­ary data received, staff capa­city to pro­gress is lim­ited by vacancy in Agri­cul­tur­al Officer post. Recruit­ment for that post is about to begin.

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 13 Septem­ber 2024:
Paper 1 – CEO Report
At para 9
In hand

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ii. Board ses­sion to be sched­uled to allow mem­bers to reflect, con­sider and adopt the organ­isa­tion­al values.
Update:
CEO, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, and Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment to discuss.

Paper 2 – Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan
At para 13
iii. Future report on car­bon foot­print to be cir­cu­lated to the Board and pub­lished on the web	In hand
iv. Future updates to include more detailed traffic light rat­ings to clearly show activ­it­ies at risk of being delivered.
Update:

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024:
Paper 1 — CEO Report
At para 6b
V. Review the Plan­ning call-in pro­tocol and dis­cuss at a future plan­ning committee.	In hand
Update:
Call-in pro­tocol — This will be brought to the board in a future Board Busi­ness Session.
Paper 5 — Act­ive Cairngorms and end of sea­son vis­it­or report
At para 23a
vi. Include key chal­lenges in mit­ig­a­tion and learn­ing in future papers.	To be included in 2025 report
At para 23c
v. Stat­ist­ics on camp site and lux­ury camp­ing options with­in the Nation­al Park.	In hand
Update:

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Page 14 of 15

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 13 Septem­ber 2024:
Paper 1 – CEO Report
At para 9
vii. Board ses­sion to be sched­uled to allow mem­bers to reflect, con­sider and adopt the organ­isa­tion­al values.	In hand
Update:
CEO, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, and Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment to discuss.

Paper 2 – Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan
At para 13
viii. Future report on car­bon foot­print to be cir­cu­lated to the Board and pub­lished on the web	In hand
ix. Future updates to include more detailed traffic light rat­ings to clearly show activ­it­ies at risk of being delivered.
Update:

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 28 March 2025:
Paper 1 — CEO Report
At para 10
i. List of 80 Cairngorms 2030 pro­jects cur­rently going through pro­cure­ment pro­cesses to be cir­cu­lated to the Board.	In hand

Paper 2 – 2025⁄26 Budget and Oper­a­tion­al Plan
At para XX
i. Inform­a­tion on the num­ber of eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers that are being removed on catch­ments to be sought and

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Page 15 of 15

cir­cu­lated to the Board and thought to be giv­en to put­ting this into a staff mem­bers for­ward work plan.
ii. Scope of extend­ing the work on spe­cies man­age­ment spe­cific­ally geese fur­ther up the Spey into Badenoch to be investigated.
Paper 3 ‑Con­sulta­tion response to High­land Coun­cil Vis­it­or Levy Proposal
i. Sen­tence to be added to end of con­sulta­tion response as detailed in para­graph 18a.
ii. CEO to keep the Board abreast with any devel­op­ments in the dis­cus­sions between HMRC and the UK Gov­ern­ment with regards to the impact any future tour­ism levy would have on VAT thresholds in Scotland.