Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025 Page 1 of 10

Draft Minutes of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee meeting

Held online 14 March 2025 at 01.30pm

Present online Kenny Deans (Chair) Steve Mickle­wright (Deputy Chair) Sandy Brem­ner Elean­or Mack­in­tosh Chris Beat­tie John Kirk Ann Ross

In attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer 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 McCle­an Head of Land Man­age­ment Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 Alan Smith, Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies None

Wel­come and introduction

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing of the Per­form­ance Committee.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025 Page 2 of 10

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The draft minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing held on 13 Decem­ber 2024 were approved with the requests of the amend­ment to change the ref­er­ence to the bus stop to New­ton­more, not Kin­gussie at 10c.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were not mat­ters arising.

ACTION	Status
Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ing 13 Decem­ber 2024
Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update quarter 3 2024 (July – Septem­ber) (Paper 1) At para 8 i. Azets report when final­ised to be brought to a future meet­ing of the per­form­ance com­mit­tee for information.	Open
Cairngorms 2030 trans­port theme over­view (Paper 2) At para 12 i. Unre­li­ab­il­ity of buses and pro­vi­sion of cycle friendly buses to be raised with bus pro­viders as part of the project.	Closed
Bring­ing beavers back pro­ject (Paper 3) At para 16 ii. Head of Con­ser­va­tion to share monthly updates provided to landown­ers with Board Mem­bers at their request.	Closed
AOCB At para 26 i. Paper on youth action to com­ple­ment a paper on com­munity loc­al led devel­op­ment to be sched­uled for Septem­ber 2025. ii. Ranger ser­vice update to be incor­por­ated into the Act­ive Cairngorms action plan paper.	Closed – covered March 25 Open

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025 Page 3 of 10

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

01.36pm John Kirk joined the meeting

Cairngorms Trust and Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment Update (Paper 6)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the work of the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group Trust (‘the Cairngorms Trust’) and the col­lect­ive work of the Cairngorms Trust and the Park Author­ity in Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) activity.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) A board mem­ber sought clar­ity on the CLLD budgets. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices stated that CLLD was pre­vi­ously covered by LEAD­ER pro­grammes until 2022, and Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) con­tin­ue to provide budget across annu­al­ised alloc­a­tions. It was noted that SG have dif­fer­ent cri­ter­ia to meet each year and there are one-year alloc­a­tions which will be primar­ily of cap­it­al nature. b) Board Mem­bers expressed their dis­ap­point­ment that fund­ing from SG would be purely cap­it­al for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆, not­ing that pro­jects are look­ing for more than just cap­it­al. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions agreed this was lim­it­ing, not­ing these com­ments have been shared with SG offi­cials. c) Dis­cus­sions were had around lead in times and how these will be affected for cap­it­al fund­ing for Trust and com­munity pro­jects, ques­tion­ing if lead in times can be star­ted earli­er. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions cla­ri­fied that the Park Author­ity and the Trust have star­ted to advert­ise that funds will be avail­able a month ago, not­ing there are pro­mo­tions on both web­sites for expres­sions of interest, and to encour­age people to come for­ward with ideas, there­fore allow­ing work with com­munit­ies to start devel­op­ing those ideas. Lead time starts in Feb­ru­ary instead of March / April to allow applic­ants more time. d) Chris Beat­tie offered to put Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions in con­tact with officers from Angus Coun­cils, to offer sup­port with voluntary

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025 Page 4 of 10

giv­ing. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions agreed this would be help­ful sug­gest­ing they could attend work­ing group meet­ings or discussions.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Wheth­er the pro­grammes of activ­ity are mak­ing the expec­ted con­tri­bu­tion to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s agreed stra­tegic out­comes. b) Wheth­er the deliv­ery updates sug­gest any stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s agreed per­form­ance object­ives. c) Wheth­er any mater­i­al impacts on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures arise from assess­ment of pro­gramme delivery.
2. Action Points Arising: None

Cairngorms Nation­al Park ven­ison sub­sidy scheme ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ (Paper 1)

1. Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s ven­ison sub­sidy scheme.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) CEO gave fur­ther con­text around deer, not­ing that Cairngorms Nation­al Park has had a high­er take up than oth­er tri­al areas how­ever, this is a learn­ing exper­i­ence, and the Park Author­ity will share learn­ing with oth­er areas as look­ing to year two of the schemes. It was noted that pro­jects such as this can take two or three years for res­ults to fil­ter through there­fore this will be re- eval­u­ated again in the future, mak­ing the neces­sary tweaks to make it bet­ter, even though it is prov­ing prom­ising. Board Mem­bers agreed and were happy that changes are able to be made to allow more suc­cess, encour­aging more land man­agers to come onboard. b) A board mem­ber reques­ted an update on the deer lar­ders in High­land Perth­shire regard­ing how this began and where the fund­ing was sourced from. Head of Land Man­age­ment explained it began with a con­sulta­tion with landown­ers exper­i­en­cing agri­cul­tur­al dam­age and large amounts of deer but unable to cull due to no lar­der facil­it­ies, there­fore the idea of com­munity lar­ders was intro­duced. The pro­gramme is fun­ded by Cairngorms 2030 with

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025 Page 5 of 10

Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund­ing (NLHF). It was noted that a por­tion of the cull goes to food­banks, from Blair­gowrie to Edin­burgh and oth­er por­tion goes to school din­ner pro­grammes in Perth and Kinross, Strath­spey, Spey­side, Aber­deen­shire and Angus, and High­land Coun­cil are now inter­ested to be involved as well. There has been a lot of pos­it­ive media responses from this pro­ject so far.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the pro­gress of the ven­ison sub­sidy scheme.
2. Action Points Arising: None

Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update, quarter four 2024 (Octo­ber – Decem­ber) (Paper 2)

1. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 intro­duced the paper which presents the status of pro­gramme and risk man­age­ment, based on inform­a­tion in pro­ject reports for the peri­od from Octo­ber to Decem­ber 2024, and updated where appro­pri­ate to reflect cur­rent pos­i­tion as at the time of writ­ing, and the planned work to end March 2025.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) A board mem­ber asked for future reports to answer the ques­tions of what change is hap­pen­ing and what dif­fer­ence is this mak­ing to people’s lives. Head of Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) noted the paper already includes details of deliv­ery impact (such as the deer lar­der pro­ject) and that the five-year mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation, will track and report on over­all pro­gramme impact. The reports will be shared with the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee on annu­al basis. b) Clar­ity was sought regard­ing train­ing volun­teers and how this works. Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager noted that the C2030 team works with volun­teers to identi­fy fur­ther volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and provide train­ing required to allow them to carry out their pro­ject. An example was giv­en for a key pro­ject cur­rently under­way; bike bus in Badenoch and Strath­spey, volun­teer train­ing is avail­able to provide rid­ing skills and keep­ing chil­dren safe

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025 Page 6 of 10

c) on the roads. As new oppor­tun­it­ies are avail­able, these are shared with volun­teers to help improve pro­jects. A board mem­ber ques­tioned what work is being car­ried out on the Spey and Dee through C2030. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change respon­ded there are a num­ber of pro­jects involving the Spey and Dee; res­tor­a­tion of River Quoi­ch, Brae­mar, River Dulain at Slug­gan, and explor­ing fur­ther oppor­tun­it­ies on the Esk.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note pro­gress to date and future plans for C2030 deliv­ery b) Note spe­cif­ic points of C2030 deliv­ery risk c) High­light any issues arising that mem­bers may feel need spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion by staff from a stra­tegic and board perspective.
2. Action Points Arising: None.

Cairngorms 2030: Health and Well­being (Paper 3)

1. Alan Smith, Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager and Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the pro­gress made against the object­ives of the Pub­lic Health and the Out­doors and Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre pro­jects, part of the Health and Well­being Theme in the Cairngorms 2030 Programme.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) A board mem­ber ques­tioned the num­ber of incom­plete refer­rals. Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager noted these were from people who either do not show up or respond. It showed the import­ance of more hours being vital, to allow staff more time to fol­low up and over­come these dif­fi­culties, while also judging the num­ber of times to con­tact a per­son before mark­ing is unre­spons­ive. It was high­lighted that all unre­spons­ive people will be repor­ted back to where their ori­gin­al refer­ral comes form. b) Dis­cus­sions were had around how sus­tain­able some of the C2030 pro­jects would be in the long term and if they would be man­age­able for oth­ers to take on. Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager noted this was a core part of

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025 Page 7 of 10

c) the Nation­al Park work, and the aim is to make them routine and man­age­able work for core staff through­out the Nation­al Park to con­tin­ue. Dis­cus­sions were had around the fact this was a fant­ast­ic ini­ti­at­ive. How­ever, ques­tions were raised if this was up to the Park Author­ity to be respons­ible for. Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager noted our respons­ib­il­ity was to use the NLHF fund­ing to pion­eer new pro­jects that key part­ner organ­isa­tions have wanted to tri­al, take onboard the Park Authority’s res­ults, find­ings and learn­ings and move for­ward, integ­rat­ing this into their core ser­vices. d) Dis­cus­sions were had around cur­rent budget lim­it­a­tions and if this is part of the Park Authority’s core budget. CEO high­lighted that over the next four years, fund­ing does not come out of the Park Authority’s core budget as it comes through the C2030 from the NLHF. It was noted the idea of C2030 was to tri­al new ini­ti­at­ives to see how they improve the Nation­al Park and to make it sus­tain­able for organ­isa­tions such as NHS to pick these up and roll them out to oth­er areas in Scot­land as well as the Nation­al Park. e) Head of Cairngorms 2030 noted that due to the pion­eer­ing work car­ried out in the Nation­al Park, a new out­door demen­tia centre has opened up in Edinburgh.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note pro­gress to date and future plans for C2030 deliv­ery b) Note spe­cif­ic points of C2030 deliv­ery risk c) High­light any issues arising that mem­bers may feel need spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion by staff from a stra­tegic and board perspective.
2. Action Points Arising: None.

Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme (Paper 4)

1. Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which updates on the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ and presents early-stage plans for the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ pipeline of activity.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025 Page 8 of 10

α) Dis­cus­sions were had around the addi­tion­al budget, Board Mem­bers agreed it was a good idea to use the addi­tion­al money to plan for three to four years ahead. Ques­tions were raised if there was scope to use the money towards train­ing or recruit­ment for loc­al con­tract­ors. Head of Land Man­age­ment com­men­ted that the amount of con­tract­ors have now increased; a mix of loc­al and lar­ger civil firms. It was noted that there was a new entrant scheme this year. The increase in the peat­land budget across Scot­land will mean there is more work for con­tract­ors, and this may test con­tract­or capa­city in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆. b) CEO high­lighted that the Peat­land team in the Cairngorms have a good nation­al repu­ta­tion, receiv­ing good feed­back from the Dir­ect­or of SG, as well as oth­ers. It was noted that over the next few years, the peat­land work will become trick­i­er as sites become remoter etc. The Park Author­ity can­not fin­an­cially do all the work and must be real­ist­ic on what can be achieved. Board Mem­bers agreed the work car­ried out has been of a high qual­ity by the Peat­land team and praised their work.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note pro­gress against pro­gramme tar­gets for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ b) Note the plans for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆
2. Action Points Arising: None.

Lag­gan Hydro­logy pro­ject update (Paper 5)

1. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change intro­duced the paper which updates the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee on the deliv­ery of the Lag­gan hydro­logy engage­ment event as a com­pon­ent of deliv­ery of the Spey Catch­ment Man­age­ment Plan. The paper is presen­ted at the request of the Com­mit­tee Chair, as an aspect of the board’s role in scru­tiny of pro­ject deliv­ery where this may have wider impacts on stra­tegic risk man­age­ment and repu­ta­tion­al damage.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) Dis­cus­sions were had around the pre­vi­ous Lag­gan hydro­logy engage­ment event and an over­view was shared to update Com­mit­tee Mem­bers. It was explained that a report was com­mis­sioned and fun­ded by the Park Authority

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025 Page 9 of 10

b) to gath­er the evid­ence to allow the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive to deliv­er the Spey Catch­ment Man­age­ment Plan and liaise with landown­ers on the res­ults. Fur­ther dis­cus­sions were had to under­stand the reas­ons behind why some land man­agers were dis­ap­poin­ted with the report. It was dis­cussed that this was due to a per­ceived lack of com­mu­nic­a­tion with landown­ers by the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive and there not being suf­fi­cient over­sight by the Park Authority’s Seni­or Man­age­ment Team ahead of the res­ults being presen­ted pub­licly. c) Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change agreed these were val­id points that have been reflec­ted in the paper and going for­ward, fol­low­ing the recom­mend­a­tions in the paper, there will be a change at oper­a­tion­al levels to ensure reports are being reviewed by Seni­or Man­age­ment Teams before being issued. d) Dis­cus­sions were had around pre­vi­ous reports that might be rel­ev­ant to the over­all work of the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive. John Kirk offered to share the 1990 Cuth­burt High­land report. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change offered to share this with the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive. e) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if there was any oppor­tun­ity to claw­back money from the authors of the report. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change explained that this would be unlikely due to the con­tract being fin­ished and the report being signed off. It was noted that the Park Author­ity will make improve­ments to its pro­cess for the future.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the update on the pro­ject b) Con­sider wheth­er there are any sig­ni­fic­ant risk implic­a­tions arising from pro­ject deliv­ery to date.
2. Action Points Arising: None

AOCB

1. None

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 13 June 2025 in person.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Minutes 14 March 2025

1. The meet­ing con­cluded at 02.58pm

ACTION	Status
Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ings 13 Decem­ber 2024
Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update quarter 3 2024 (July – Septem­ber) (Paper 1) At para 8 i. Azets report when final­ised to be brought to a future meet­ing of the per­form­ance com­mit­tee for information.	Open
AOCB At para 26 i. Ranger ser­vice update to be incor­por­ated into the Act­ive Cairngorms action plan paper.	Open
Action points arising from today’s meet­ing 14 March 2025
None
Page 10 of 10