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 Novem­ber 2025 at 09.30am

Present in person

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

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
• Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Services
• Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer
• Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Operations
• Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager (For­ward Planning)
• Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies

• Geva Black­ett
• Ann Ross
• Steve Mickle­wright

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Wel­come and introduction

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

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. The draft minutes from the meet­ing on 26 Septem­ber 2025 were approved with no amendments.

2. There were no mat­ters arising.

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
Update:
An inform­al dis­cus­sion on call-in cri­ter­ia was held fol­low­ing the Form­al Board meet­ing on 26 Septem­ber 2025, and an update will be repor­ted to Plan­ning Com­mit­tee on 12 Decem­ber 2025.
Paper 5 — Act­ive Cairngorms and end of sea­son vis­it­or report
At para 23a
i. Include key chal­lenges in mit­ig­a­tion and learn­ing in future papers.	Com­plete
At para 23c
ii. Stat­ist­ics on camp site and lux­ury camp­ing options with­in the Nation­al Park	Com­plete
Action Points from meet­ing on 28 March 2025:
Paper 2 – 2025⁄26 Budget and Oper­a­tion­al Plan
iii. 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
iv. Scope of extend­ing the work on spe­cies man­age­ment spe­cific­ally geese fur­ther up the Spey into Badenoch to be investigated.	Com­plete

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Update: Inform­a­tion is being sought for the num­ber of eco­lo­gic­al bar­ri­ers that are being removed on catch­ments, but not yet avail­able. This is one of the indic­at­ors in the Cairngorms Nature Index. Will be shared with the Board once available.

Action	Status
Action Points from meet­ing on 27 June 2025:
Paper 1 CEO Report
At para 6 c
i. Clerks to the Board to share the minutes from group meet­ings that Board Mem­bers sit on to the board portal.	Com­plete
Update:
Advis­ory group meet­ing minutes that have been approved have been added to the web­site and linked to via the Board Site. Out­stand­ing advis­ory group minutes will be added fol­low­ing the approv­al of the minutes at the next meeting.
Action points from meet­ing on 26 September
Paper 1 CEO Report
At para 8 e)
i. CEO to write to SG to request a change in LDP con­sulta­tion process.	Com­plete
Update: CEO has been in con­tact with SG. SG have also sched­uled a sum­mit event in early Decem­ber to look for ways to address cur­rent chal­lenges with the Evid­ence Report ​‘gat­echeck’ pro­cess. Park Author­ity Officers will provide views to feed into this event.
Paper 2 Revi­sion of Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders
At para 12 a)
i. Amend the word­ing in the Stand­ing Orders to read: Mem­bers should have their cam­era switched on (unless there is a spe­cif­ic tech­nic­al reas­on for that meeting).	Com­plete
Update: Word­ing amended and updated Stand­ing Orders published.
Paper 5 Agri­cul­tur­al land use and farm­ing activity

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At para 24 i)
i. Head of Land Man­age­ment will invest­ig­ate the fig­ures and amend the data, update paper and share fig­ures with Board Members.	Com­plete
Update:
The fig­ures being quer­ied were taken dir­ectly from inform­a­tion sup­plied by Rur­al and Envir­on­ment­al Sci­ence and Ana­lyt­ic­al Ser­vices Dir­ect­or­ate (RESAS). On con­tact­ing RESAS, the dis­crep­ancy is most likely due to respond­ents not sup­ply­ing com­plete inform­a­tion on age range.

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.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) A mem­ber con­grat­u­lated the team and praised them for enter­ing and win­ning the Her­ald and S1Jobs Top Employ­er award in the ​“Best Diversity and Inclu­sion Dynam­ic in the Work­place” cat­egory. She recog­nised the hard work the team had under­taken over the last few years. b) A mem­ber asked for an update on the pro­gress of trans­port activ­it­ies in Nethy Bridge and wheth­er the community’s reques­ted improve­ments would be imple­men­ted. CEO advised the next stage was for design­ers to review all the com­munity requests and points of feed­back that were col­lec­ted a couple of years ago and come up with a plan that details what could be prac­tic­ally imple­men­ted for the com­munity, to be con­sul­ted on as part of the com­munity roadshow.

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c)  A member praised the news that the CNPA Agriculture Officer, would be providing a regular column to the Press and Journal and asked if those articles could be sent onto the Board prepublication? CEO agreed.
d)  An update on the wildfire policy implementation was sought. CEO reported that a meeting had taken place between public sector bodies followed by another meeting which was chaired by Minister for Agriculture, Jim Fairlie in Grantown on Spey. He advised that the Director of Planning and Place had attended the Moray Council Community Planning Board recently and Moray Council may have their own wildfire plan and are considering having their own byelaw, with work still to be done on that.
e)  A member noted the increase in social media channels and asked if it would be possible to obtain some feedback and statistics on the engagement of the new website? Recognition that the Communications team make connections and responding to comments was that having an impact on team capacity and resources? CEO advised that a paper on that would be brought before the Performance Committee. He agreed that it has an impact on staff capacity, explained that the right balance was needed as the new website had driven up engagement which was also positive. The Board Convener praised the work of the Communications team.
f)   Member asked about the new signage to inform people of the fire bylaw coming into force on 1 April 2026 and asked for clarity on how communities would be brought up to speed? CEO advised that the managing for visitors group have been looking at this, working with an external company setting out assets during December. He added that they have spoken to the Cairngorms Business Partnership (CBP) who would be running a seminar for businesses in February/ March time and something similar would be run for communities. He added that there would be a communications campaign on fire byelaw implementation too.
g)  A member asked for further information on the working arrangements for current peatland projects. CEO advised that this year, peatland staff were directly delivering 50% and the remaining 50% had been contracted and outsourced programme managed. The headcount in the team would be unlikely to increase in future years; more would be put out to third parties to project manage. He explained that the Park Authority offer a grant of 10% of capital fees (capped) to cover project fees. He added that next year likely to be 40% our staff and 60% outsourced to third parties.

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h)  A member asked if the capercaillie emergency plan was working or was it too early to say? CEO advised that work was being done on diversionary feeding which was showing good signs, there was work on cattle in woodland and removal of fences at the moment, and that real impact would not be seen until next year's data and the year after that. He reminded members that the funding only came through this summer, therefore it was still too early for significant results to be seen.
i)   A member praised the bike busses and asked if other primary schools could apply to be involved? Colin Simpson, Head of Visitor Services and Active Travel advised that it began with Deshar and Aviemore schools and then was rolled out to Grantown. He explained that the tender for Nethy Bridge and Newtonmore had recently gone out and that discussions for introducing it in the Deeside and Donside side too were ongoing.
j)   Was there an update on the creation of an app for the Cairngorms National Park? CEO advised that he would seek an update from the Head of Communications and Engagement and circulate It to the Board after the meeting.

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

2. Action Points Arising: i. Press and Journ­al columns writ­ten by Mal­colm Smith, Agri­cul­tur­al Officer to be cir­cu­lated to the Board pre­pub­lic­a­tion. ii. CEO to seek an update on the devel­op­ment of a Cairngorms Nation­al Park app and cir­cu­late this to the Board.

Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan – Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025 (Paper 2)

1. Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager intro­duced the paper which seeks approv­al of the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025, as set out in Annex 1.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) A mem­ber noted that loc­al plans were men­tioned, could it be explained how many loc­al place plans there were in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and how many would be feed­ing into it? Plan­ning Man­ager con­firmed that there were

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no local place plans at the moment but the preparation of new community action plans being carried out by Voluntary Action Badenoch and Strathspey (VABS), and Marr Area Partnership (MAP) would be fed into the Local Development Plan (LDP).

1. The Board approved the Devel­op­ment Plan Scheme 2025.

2. Action Point Arising: None.

Act­ive Cairngorms (Paper 3)

1. Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel intro­duced the paper which sets out the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan which is one of a series of plans that sit below the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP). Along with the Sus­tain­able Tour­ism and Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Plans, these plans col­lect­ively describe the Park Author­ity and part­ners’ work in rela­tion to tour­ism, vis­it­or facil­it­ies and ser­vices and the man­age­ment of vis­it­or impacts on the Cairngorm Nation­al Park. This report gives Board mem­bers over­sight of pro­gress towards the plan’s object­ives and is being presen­ted to the Board in autumn to give a timely over­view of vis­it­or related activ­ity that took place over the pre­ced­ing sum­mer season.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) The Con­vener raised con­cerns around the times­cales to meet requests in time for deliv­ery? Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel advised that there was lots of cooper­a­tion with loc­al author­it­ies how­ever weath­er con­di­tions may prove chal­len­ging, b) A mem­ber quer­ied the reduc­tion in fires repor­ted by our Ranger ser­vice while part­ners have repor­ted the num­ber of fires hav­ing doubled. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices repor­ted that to some extent it was unknown as we do not have detailed access to the inform­a­tion our part­ners have. How­ever, in cases such as Nation­al Trust for Scot­land (NTS) who have focussed their patrols much more on fire related incid­ents and put­ting people out into these loc­a­tions at times when it is more likely fires are being lit that will feed though into the fire stat­ist­ics being recorded.

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c)  A member asked for clarity on the action plan, with several activities on hold for no reason given, was this a staffing issue or something else? Head of Visitor Services and Active Travel advised that staff had been devoting time to fire byelaw preparation in recent months, so guidance and communications had been put on hold as want to wait until we have the bylaw information. CEO agreed to update the table so there is commentary against the yellow rated items.
d)  Reassurance sought that there would be training for rangers to ensure that they feel capable and confident to implement the bylaw. Head of Visitor Services and Active Travel advised that there would be, and training would be carried out with partners too.
e)  A member asked if there would be training for Board members out and about in the community coming across someone lighting a fire, or advice to give at a Community Council meeting. Head of Visitor Services and Active Travel advised that he would be happy to adapt guidance in development and do a presentation on practical information to the Board in an informal session.
f)   Reassurance sought that the Park Authority would have enough rangers recruited to enforce the bylaw. Head of Visitor Services and Active Travel confirmed that they would.
g)  With regards to the fire bylaw were there any plans to have signage at rail stations and within carriages and had Transport Scotland been approached for permission. Head of Visitor Services and Active Travel advised that conversations have started and agreed to keep the Board abreast with developments as that progressed.
h)  Plea made for the message to be delivered into local schools as much as possible. Head of Visitor Services and Active Travel confirmed that the Park Authority rangers go into schools across the National Park, over the winter months and responsible approaches to use of fires is part of the information they get,
i)   A member queried the metrics provided by partners, we were showing litter down and number of dogs off leads down, and partners showing upward trend on both those statistics resulting in a huge variation. Head of Visitor Services and Active Travel advised that it was down to interpretation of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code which was not too precise: 'under close control' as interpreted by conservation partners may likely differ from non-

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conservation focused partners and their statistics recorded consequentially differ.
j)   Regarding the steam railway, would they need to follow guidance set out in the fire bylaw during periods of its enforcement and switch to diesel power? Head of Visitor Services and Active Travel advised that their work was high risk, and the bylaw does not directly affect them as they follow their own cautious protocols.

1. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Note the pro­gress towards deliv­ery of the object­ives con­tained with­in the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan. b) Note the report on the vis­it­or focussed activ­it­ies of the Park Author­ity and part­ner ranger ser­vices dur­ing the 2025 sum­mer season.

2. Action Points Arising: i. Risk Register to be updated to include com­ment­ary on each rat­ing. ii. Fire bylaw guid­ance to be adap­ted for a ses­sion with the Board provid­ing prac­tic­al guid­ance out and about in com­munit­ies for when the bylaw comes into force. iii. 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.

Annu­al report and accounts (Paper 4)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions intro­duced the paper which presents the Park Authority’s final signed annu­al report and accounts to the Board, fol­low­ing their approv­al by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee. The extern­al audit is com­plete, and the fin­an­cial state­ments have been giv­en a clean audit report.

2. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices provided a point of clar­ity that the draft final accounts (Annex 1) was the ver­sion that would be laid in Par­lia­ment sub­ject to the Board’s approval.

3. Fiona McLean, Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Chair on behalf of the Com­mit­tee made the fol­low­ing point:

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a)  Thanks to Deputy CEO and Head of Finance and Corporate Operations and team for work over the year, recognizing it had been a challenging year.

1. Rus­sell Jones Resources Com­mit­tee Chair com­men­ted that it was an inter­est­ing and excit­ing read and praised the staff for their work over the past year.

2. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: b) Praise for the fant­ast­ic doc­u­ments, recog­ni­tion of the hard work that had gone into com­pil­ing it. Mem­ber asked if it was eas­ily access­ible via the Park Author­ity web­site as it provided a good over­view of the work of the Park Author­ity and could be used to pro­mote the organ­isa­tion? Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions advised that was too big to be appeal­ing in a gen­er­al sense how­ever pro­du­cing high­lights could be con­sidered. CEO advised that the inform­a­tion with­in it was at this stage, sev­en months old; and has already been com­mu­nic­ated out­ward dur­ing that time. a) Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices added that he had been look­ing at mak­ing improve­ments through the NPPP mon­it­or­ing and per­form­ance frame­work to make the sec­tions deal­ing with per­form­ance against cor­por­ate object­ives more like a live data­base to inform what was being done in real time.

3. The Board noted the draft annu­al accounts for the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

4. Action Point Arising: None.

There was a short com­fort break at 10.21am that resumed at 10.38am.

Cor­por­ate plan deliv­ery update (Paper 5)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced the paper which draws the per­form­ance report for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ against our cor­por­ate plan object­ives spe­cific­ally to the board’s atten­tion. This takes a more focused look at the Park Authority’s deliv­ery toward agreed stra­tegic object­ives in the con­text of the wider update on Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) deliv­ery con­sidered by the Board at its pre­vi­ous meeting.

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1. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: b) A mem­ber raised Per­form­ance Indic­at­or B10: A Park for All, with cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought on why com­ment­ary focused on encour­aging more access by black and eth­nic minor­it­ies while with a Nation­al Park which still appeared to have a con­cen­tra­tion of middle aged, white, reas­on­ably well-off people vis­it­ing, what about low income Scot­tish cit­izens who were out­priced com­ing into the Nation­al Park? CEO advised that vis­it­or sur­vey data sets out who the vis­it­ors are to the Nation­al Park. Vis­it­or sur­vey data shows an increase in ABC1 vis­it­ors and a decrease in CDE vis­it­ors, driv­en by afford­ab­il­ity issues. Board mem­ber stressed that going for­ward the Author­ity needs to make it clear what we are doing to make It a Park for All. CEO con­firmed that would be looked at again when look­ing at next Cor­por­ate Plan (CP) and NPPP. a) A mem­ber quer­ied why per­form­ance indic­at­or C1, C2c and C3 are amber and not classed as red, des­pite the hous­ing crisis. CEO advised the rationale is that the LDP has alloc­ated suf­fi­cient land for devel­op­ment, which is with­in the Authority’s gift, and these indic­at­ors are assess­ing the Park Authority’s own con­trol­lable con­tri­bu­tion to the wider hous­ing sector.

2. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) To review the status of deliv­ery toward Cor­por­ate Plan object­ives as set out in the Per­form­ance Report included in the Annu­al Report. b) To con­sider any actions needed to address deliv­ery of those Cor­por­ate Plan object­ives, par­tic­u­larly those cor­por­ate object­ives high­lighted as at increased deliv­ery risk.

3. Action Point Arising: None.

Louise Allen left the meet­ing at 10.48 am.

Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund – risk register (Paper 6)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced the paper which sets out the out­line approach to the cre­ation of the £1 mil­lion Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund, with the pro­ject risk register derived from pre­vi­ous board dis­cus­sions show­ing key areas for awareness.

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Mari­aan Pita joined the meet­ing at 10.51am.

1. The Board con­sidered the detail in the Paper and dis­cus­sions took place around the fol­low­ing: a) A mem­ber high­lighted the import­ance of the reten­tion of pan­el mem­bers interest to avoid them drop­ping out. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices agreed and advised he would ensure reten­tion was brought into the risk man­age­ment of the recruit­ment pro­cess. b) A mem­ber raised con­cern about the decision makers alloc­at­ing funds. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices cla­ri­fied the decision-mak­ing pro­cess-was yet to be determ­ined, and as with oth­er ele­ments of this pro­ject would require bal­an­cing co-design with the Nation­al Park Authority’s account­ab­il­ity as the Lot­tery fund lead. He provided reas­sur­ance that it would come back to Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee and the full Board with fur­ther updates in due course. c) Sug­ges­tion made to change the word­ing at point 4 set­ting out what the pri­or­it­ies are, expect­a­tion man­age­ment and what the out­puts could look like. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices agreed work­able cri­ter­ia should be brought in. d) A mem­ber raised con­cern around the cur­rent stage risk related to account­ab­il­ity in the co-design pro­cess, ensur­ing clar­ity that decisions are imple­men­ted and sup­por­ted. The future stage risk would involve con­sequences of unpop­u­lar or unsuc­cess­ful fund­ing decisions, which would be sep­ar­ate from the cur­rent pro­cess. Mem­ber sug­ges­ted emphas­ising trans­par­ency and clear word­ing about account­ab­il­ity at this stage. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices agreed to include a pro­cess to dis­til options into a work­able scale and cri­ter­ia, bal­an­cing open­ness of the pro­cess to co-design with prac­tic­al­ity of imple­ment­a­tion. He noted that the imme­di­ate repu­ta­tion­al risk was tied to cri­ter­ia devel­op­ment for assess­ment of grant applic­a­tions and com­munity reac­tion to pub­lished grant cri­ter­ia, not final decisions. He agreed that word­ing would be adjus­ted to reflect this dis­tinc­tion. e) Mem­ber sug­ges­ted there should be a clause where if the pro­ject devel­op­ment and co-design does not work out as envis­aged, it should not be developed fur­ther? Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices provided reas­sur­ance that we wouldn’t go on ahead regard­less, if the co-design of the

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grant scheme wasn't working. He advised he would have a think of how to draw that in perhaps through key decision-making milestone or risk register.
f)   A member raised concern about ensuring the correct people with the right mix of skills and experience were on the panel and avoiding places being filled for the sake of it. Deputy CEO and Director of Corporate Services agreed and advised this could be brought into the risk register and designed panel with requirement to cover specified range of skills and experience, and mitigation in place to hold back on the project until this has been satisfied.
g)  A member queried if only community projects would be eligible, and wanted to ensure social enterprises, small businesses, business partnerships, would not be excluded. Deputy CEO and Director of Corporate Services confirmed this grant program is expected to be open to all community entities. There is an open field in this regard, with the panel codesigning the process being the group that will consider the eligibility of applicants.
h)  A member stated that the Park Authority would need to be clear about what our process was, what we can manage in participatory design, have got right mix of panel members and that we cannot make a back track if we don't like the decisions the panel makes.
i)   A member warned about the reputational risk should the application process be too complex for community volunteers and then the limited timing being available for applications and project delivery. Deputy CEO and Director of Corporate Services provided reassurance that he was aware it was an issue, he advised it was a real opportunity for the Cairngorms National Park to offer a grant programme to the breadth of communities, businesses, and social enterprise over multiple financial years, which tended not to be available through other funding routes. He agreed the need for a reasonable lead time between idea lead in, application development funding and delivery.
j)   A member queried the fund being open to people inside and outside the National Park. Deputy CEO and Director of Corporate Services advised that the co-design panel would come up with the answers to those questions, but the parameters are expected that grant funded actions would need to be a Cairngorms centred activity.
k)  A member recognised that there were lots of risks associated and an innovative approach was required and sought reassurance that there was a plan B if it did not all go to plan. CEO advised that whatever is taken forward would need signed off from the National Heritage Lottery Fund, and the

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£1million would be reallocated within the communities' side of the Cairngorms 2030 programme.

1. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) To review the risks and accom­pa­ny­ing mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures iden­ti­fied and approve our over­arch­ing approach.

2. Action Points Arising: i. Add risk and mit­ig­a­tion for pan­el mem­bers 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.

Elec­tion of Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Chair (Paper 7)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced the paper which noti­fies the Board that the cur­rent Chair of Audit and Risk Committee’s term will come to an end 31 Janu­ary 2026. This paper sets out pro­posed arrange­ments for under­tak­ing the elec­tion of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Chair.

2. The Board agreed the elec­tion pro­cess for the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Chair as set out in this paper.

3. Action Point Arising: None.

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Board Committee’s annu­al reports to the Board (Paper 8)

1. Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager intro­duced the paper which presents the annu­al report of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee, Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee and Resources Com­mit­tee to Board mem­bers for comment.

2. Fiona McLean, Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Chair made obser­va­tions of the great work of the intern­al aud­it­ors and advised that they had now been replaced with new aud­it­ors. She praised the new con­trols put in by staff as a res­ult of aud­it­ors recom­mend­a­tions and thanked Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee mem­bers staff teams.

3. The Board noted the annu­al reports to the Board from the: a) Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee b) Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee c) Resources Committee

4. Action Point Arising: None.

Com­mit­tee Minutes (Paper 9)

1. Sandy Brem­ner, intro­duced the paper which the minutes for meet­ing between 14 June 2025 to 12 Septem­ber 2025 and the con­fid­en­tial minutes for the meet­ings from 20 June 2025 to 12 Septem­ber 2025

2. The Board noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Note the minutes of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee, Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee and Resources Com­mit­tee. b) Note the con­fid­en­tial minutes of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee and Resources Committee.

3. Action Point Arising: None.

AOCB

1. None

Page 16 of 17

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 27 March 2026 in person.

2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 11.15am

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.
Action Points from meet­ing on 28 March 2025:
Paper 2 – 2025⁄26 Budget and Oper­a­tion­al Plan
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.
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.
i. CEO to seek an update on the devel­op­ment of a Cairngorms Nation­al Park app and cir­cu­late this to the Board.
Paper 3 — Act­ive Cairngorms
At para 16

Page 17 of 17

i. Risk Register to be updated to include com­ment­ary on each rating.
i. 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.
ii. 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.
Action	Status
Paper 6 — Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund – risk register
At para 31
i. Add risk and mit­ig­a­tion for pan­el members.
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.