Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Draft minutes of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey Hybrid 12 June 2026 at 2.00pm

Present in person

• Kenny Deans (Chair)
• John Kirk
• Michael Wil­li­am­son
• Sandy Brem­ner
• Elean­or Mackintosh

Present online

• Steve Mickle­wright (Deputy Chair)
• Ann Ross

In attend­ance

• 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 Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030
• Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement
• Sarah Hen­shall, Head of Conservation
• Brid­get Trus­sell, Com­munity Grants Manager
• Adam Streeter-Smith, Recre­ation Access and Infra­struc­ture Manager
• Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies

• Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer

Wel­come and introduction

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

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The draft minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing held on 23 March 2026 were approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were not mat­ters arising.

Action	Status
Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meetings
12 Decem­ber 2025
Paper 4 — Cairngorms Nature Action Plan
At para 19f <br/​> i. Con­sider a new term for ​“com­munity benefits”.	In hand
Paper 2 – Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update: quarter three 2025 (July – September)
At para 9e <br/​> i. CEO to con­firm if applic­ants of the new fund are able to choose the ser­vices / pro­viders them­selves with the fund­ing allocated.	In hand
23 March 2026
Paper 1 – Deer Incent­ive Scheme
At para 7a <br/​> i. Head of Land Man­age­ment to reword the Key Per­form­ance Indic­at­or (KPI) to accur­ately reflect the inten­ded outcome.	Com­plete
Paper 2 – Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme Deliv­ery Update: Quarter Four 2 – 25 (Octo­ber – December)
At para 11e <br/​> i. Head of Cairngorms 2030 to attend the next Eco­nom­ic Steer­ing Group meet­ing to work with the Chair and the Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place to align Cairngorms 2030 eco­nom­ic out­puts with the Com­munity Wealth Build­ing Bill and inform future leg­acy planning.	Head of C2030 unavail­able at time of meet­ing. <br/​> Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place presen­ted update instead.
Paper 3 – Cairngorms 2030 restor­ing and enhan­cing landscape’s theme update Feb­ru­ary 2026
At para 15a <br/​> i. Cairngorms 2030 Nature Based Solu­tions Man­ager to raise and con­sider mon­it­or­ing of cattle wel­fare as part of planned graz­ing, includ­ing issues such as min­er­al sup­ple­ment­a­tion, addi­tion­al feed­ing or shel­ter, worm­ing, and poten­tial tick impacts, with a view to shar­ing rel­ev­ant learn­ing with the wider farm­ing industry.	Will be actioned when pro­ject commences.
At para 15d <br/​> i. Cairngorms 2030 Man­ager to arrange an intro­duct­ory meet­ing between Dr Claire Deveney and Board mem­ber (Jack­ie Brierton).	Meet­ing held on 21 May 26

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.
2. The Com­mit­tee Chair announced that Paper 4 would be taken first.

Bring­ing beavers back pro­ject (Paper 4)

1. Sarah Hen­shall, Head of Con­ser­va­tion intro­duced the paper which presents the latest deliv­ery updates on the Bring­ing beavers back project.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A Board Mem­ber high­lighted that there had been a beaver spot­ted in Nethy Bridge. Head of Con­ser­va­tion explained Officers were noti­fied about this on Monday, and Officers iden­ti­fied the site on Tues­day. It was explained this area will be mon­itored on a weekly basis to estab­lish if the beaver is mov­ing through the area or estab­lish­ing a ter­rit­ory. b) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned the staff­ing and resources avail­able for man­aging and mit­ig­a­tion of impacts of the expan­sion of beavers bey­ond the bound­ar­ies of the Nation­al Park. Head of Con­ser­va­tion explained that the beaver pop­u­la­tion is largely in the upper Spey, with only two indi­vidu­als mov­ing out of this area. It was noted that a pre­vi­ous example of a beaver out­with the Nation­al Park bound­ary was repor­ted to the Park Author­ity by a ghil­lie and Officers under­took a site vis­it and provided ini­tial advice then steered the land man­ager towards NatureScot and the Nation­al Man­age­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion scheme. The focus of Park Author­ity budget / resources is to mit­ig­ate and man­age beaver impacts with­in the Park bound­ary. c) Dis­cus­sions were had around con­cern that the Red Amber Green (RAG) per­form­ance indic­at­or rat­ings are all green, which seems to miss wider aspects of con­cern that remained with some stake­hold­er groups. Officers accep­ted this, sug­gest­ing that an addi­tion­al indic­at­or should be added around how the expand­ing beaver pop­u­la­tion is being received by land man­age­ment, farm­ing and com­munity groups. It was agreed this could be explored and Officers would mon­it­or and report back to the Com­mit­tee. d) A Board Mem­ber sug­ges­ted adding landown­er impacts to the risk register. Head of Con­ser­va­tion explained that the pro­posed indic­at­or would be hard to meas­ure, how­ever it was recog­nised this is sub­ject­ive but could be brought in as a risk to provide an update to papers with views. e) Dis­cus­sions were had around no go zones if this would be con­sidered. Head of Con­ser­va­tion explained fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with NatureScot, no go zones were not an option and not licens­able, the focus is man­aging impacts on indi­vidu­al sites apply­ing the Nation­al Man­age­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion frame­work — that to date is work­ing well. f) Dis­cus­sions were had around tour­ism and vis­it­or bene­fits from beaver, ques­tion­ing if there was any­thing to quanti­fy this in the Nation­al Park. Head of Con­ser­va­tion explained that coun­ters have recently been installed at Rothiemurchus trail, the com­bin­a­tion of the trail and café are expec­ted to increase vis­it­or bene­fits for the estate, and there are already fig­ures on this site being gathered. It was noted that some wild­life tours are already incor­por­at­ing the beaver trail into their tours, and the Park Author­ity are advising on how to view safely and min­im­ise dis­turb­ance. g) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned com­pens­a­tion / fund­ing for landown­ers repair­ing land / destruc­tion from beavers and who is expec­ted to pay for this. Head of Con­ser­va­tion explained the Nation­al Man­age­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion does not provide com­pens­a­tion fund­ing; how­ever, the Park Author­ity can sup­port land man­agers with licens­ing and can under­take bur­row filling, dam remov­al and flow devices. Addi­tion­ally the Park Author­ity can provide mater­i­als for and cov­er the cost of tree wrap­ping and pro­tec­tion. This is a good approach to have and landown­ers are pleased with the sup­port for licens­ing and car­ry­ing out work, if they wish the sup­port. It was high­lighted that these are low-cost meas­ures and dam remov­al is a func­tion that the Park Author­ity can carry out train­ing with landown­ers or gil­lies to deliv­er. h) Dis­cus­sions were had about the pre­vi­ous Beaver Man­age­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion meet­ing being can­celled. Head of Con­ser­va­tion explained this was reques­ted from Cairngorms Crofters and Farm­ers Com­munity (CCFC) due a busy time of year, how­ever there is an upcom­ing meet­ing on 24 June and anoth­er one in September.
3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Pro­gress towards the project’s object­ives. b) Any stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan and Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP). c) Any mater­i­al impacts on the Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk management.
4. Action Points Arising: i. Head of Con­ser­va­tion to update the pro­ject risk report to include landown­er impacts and show how expan­sion being received by land man­age­ment, farm­ing and com­munity groups.

Sarah Hen­shall left the meet­ing at 2.29pm

Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update: quarter one 2026 (Janu­ary to March) (Paper 1)

1. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) intro­duced the paper which presents the status of the C2030 pro­gramme and risk man­age­ment, based on inform­a­tion in pro­ject reports for the peri­od from Janu­ary to March 2026, and updated where appro­pri­ate to reflect cur­rent pos­i­tion as at the time of writ­ing, and the planned work to end June 2026.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Board Mem­bers con­grat­u­lated the C2030 Team on the deliv­ery to date, not­ing the hard work and suc­cess from the pro­jects. b) The com­mit­tee dis­cussed Trans­port Scot­land and expressed con­cern regard­ing the recur­ring issue of late budget con­firm­a­tions. It was noted that an agree­ment is in place, and mem­bers felt this mat­ter should be form­ally raised with Trans­port Scot­land. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained the Park Author­ity are caught with­in an annu­al­ised pub­lic sec­tor fund­ing régime, there­fore there is a lim­it­a­tion to what steps can be taken, how­ever the Park Author­ity CEO has been in touch with Trans­port Scotland’s CEO this week to accel­er­ate the decision mak­ing and this risk can be fur­ther escal­ated at the Form­al Board meet­ing if required. Com­mit­tee Chair asked for this to be taken to the Form­al Board meet­ing in Septem­ber if still a risk at that stage, as the Com­mit­tee need to raise aware­ness about this issue. c) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned what is at risk in terms of deliv­ery and how will Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) react to this. Head of C2030 explained the Park Author­ity have reg­u­lar meet­ings / updates with NLHF and these are mainly focused on trans­port. It was noted Act­ive Com­munit­ies in Boat of Garten, Aviemore, New­ton­more and Nethy Bridge would be at risk, how­ever the con­struc­tion phase would be unlikely to be turned down in the event that fur­ther design phase fund­ing is approved. The Head of C2030 Pro­gramme con­firmed that NLHF were there­fore fully briefed on the status of the pro­ject. d) Dis­cus­sions were had about focus­ing on deliv­er­ing bet­ter trans­port sys­tem for tour­ism. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place explained the C2030 pro­gramme is not plan­ning to dra­mat­ic­ally change the trans­port sys­tem but encour­age a beha­vi­our­al change in people using bikes and improv­ing roads and pave­ments for walk­ing and cyc­ling. Oth­er areas such as park and ride, the High­land Coun­cil are lead­ing on not­ing vis­it­or trans­port is a key part of pub­lic ser­vices in the Strath. e) A Board Mem­ber asked for examples of com­munity wealth build­ing. Head of C2030 said that Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion (SLC) is work­ing with three estates, Dor­back, Dal­nac­ar­doch and Angus Glens sup­port­ing estates to work with com­munit­ies to identi­fy land man­age­ment oper­a­tions and their poten­tial for com­munity wealth build­ing impacts. Dis­cus­sions are under­way with SLC on the pos­sib­il­ity of extend­ing this for a fur­ther two years.
3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Note pro­gress to date and future 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.
4. Action Points Arising: i. Trans­port Scot­land fund­ing issues impact­ing C2030 Trans­port pro­gramme to be added to stra­tegic risk con­sid­er­a­tions for the Form­al Board Agenda in Septem­ber if the pro­ject fund­ing status requires escal­a­tion at that point.

Dav­id Clyne left the meet­ing at 2.48pm

Wrap up of Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ (Paper 2)

1. Brid­get Trus­sell, Com­munity Grants Man­ager intro­duced the paper which presents the status of the Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund as it com­pletes deliv­ery of year two (2025÷26) and looks for­ward to deliv­ery of year three (2026÷27).
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A Board Mem­ber com­men­ded the team for giv­ing all applic­ants guid­ance and an altern­at­ive des­tin­a­tion for fund­ing bids if intern­al funds are not suit­able and ques­tioned if this would be an oppor­tun­ity to work with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) regard­ing wild­fire fund­ing. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place explained last year there was some fund­ing for fire­fight­ing equip­ment, how­ever if the demand for this con­tin­ues this should be con­sidered regard­ing the mer­its of sep­ar­at­ing wild­fire fire­fight­ing equip­ment to anoth­er grant fund, as this is a sep­ar­ate issue and there is a spe­cif­ic main­ten­ance of assets require­ment. b) A Board Mem­ber noted that less farm­ers applied this time for fund­ing, ques­tion­ing if there was a reas­on for this. Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place explained the Park Author­ity are spec­u­lat­ing that the grant requires a degree of cer­tainty of what applic­ants want to do with the funds, and expres­sion of interests that are vague are asked to provide more inform­a­tion which can res­ult in no fur­ther response from the applic­ant. Some applic­a­tions have not made it through as the funds are required to be spent with­in that year which would not be achiev­able. A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned how this inform­a­tion can be shared bet­ter with farm­ers, eg in farm­ing news­let­ters. It was agreed that ongo­ing review of our com­mu­nic­a­tions on avail­ab­il­ity of grant funds would be bene­fi­cial. It was noted that wide­spread pro­mo­tion­al activ­ity had taken place. c) It was high­lighted that a lot of the con­tact with the grants team are from new cus­tom­ers who are not used to sub­mit­ting applic­a­tions, which is a pos­it­ive as this is allow­ing them to learn and gain know­ledge about how to request and bene­fit the fund­ing they have access to.
3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Review the deliv­ery of the fund and note how the applic­a­tion pro­cesses and cri­ter­ia have changed to respond to capa­city and user exper­i­ence. b) Review and note the impact of two years of funding.
4. Action Points Arising: None.

Adam Streeter-Smith joined at 3.05pm

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment update (Paper 3)

1. Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment intro­duced the paper which presents an update of cur­rent com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment activ­ity, plus out­lines a num­ber of key pri­or­it­ies for the next quarter. It also includes a stra­tegic risk register and accom­pa­ny­ing mit­ig­a­tion measures.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Board Mem­bers praised the work car­ried out by the Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment team, spe­cific­ally the fire byelaw cam­paign, not­ing this was excep­tion­al. b) Clar­ity was sought regard­ing a recent fire at Loch Garten beach, report­ing that a loc­al res­id­ent called Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds (RSPB) and spoke to someone dir­ectly as this was on their land. How­ever, it was explained no one was on duty. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel explained that the guid­ance is that if there is an incid­ent, then pub­lic should con­tact the fire ser­vice or the police – not Rangers of the Park Author­ity or oth­er organ­isa­tions. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel offered to reach out to RSPB to sug­gest an out of office hours recor­ded mes­sage to give guid­ance for pub­lic in these cir­cum­stances. Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment noted that there is a part­ner tool kit avail­able with all this inform­a­tion and mater­i­als, how­ever the team with reit­er­ate this with part­ners to ensure sim­il­ar does not hap­pen in the future. c) A Board Mem­ber high­lighted that the tem­por­ary road sig­nage at Blair Atholl is only par­tially work­ing at the moment. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel agreed to look into this.
3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Review activ­ity across a range of com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment chan­nels in the past three months and dis­cuss the iden­ti­fied pri­or­it­ies for quarter three of 2026. b) Review the accom­pa­ny­ing risk register to ensure key risks are cap­tured and that mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are appropriate.
4. Action Points Arising: i. Reach out to part­ners to reit­er­ate to share with pub­lic if they see an incid­ent to con­tact the fire ser­vice or police.

Brid­get Trus­sell left the meet­ing at 3.24pm

Deliv­ery of stat­utory duties as con­ferred by the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (Paper 5)

1. Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel, and Adam Streeter-Smith, Recre­ation Access and Infra­struc­ture Man­ager intro­duced the paper which presents an update to mem­bers on deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s stat­utory duties under the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003. While activ­ity is delivered by officers with annu­al report­ing to the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF), as this is a stat­utory func­tion it is also con­sidered appro­pri­ate that there is an ele­ment of Board over­sight and scru­tiny of related casework.
2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Dis­cus­sions were had around a review of the access code regard­ing the wild camp­ing pro­vi­sions. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel explained that there is nation­al dis­cus­sion regard­ing this, how­ever they would not be able to only update one aspect of the out­door access code, this would involve review­ing every area and there was no polit­ic­al appet­ite for this at present. It was noted that there were nation­al dis­cus­sions about chan­ging guid­ance and legis­la­tion, how­ever this was a top­ic that was much wider than the Nation­al Park, but the Park Author­ity are involved in the nation­al groups hav­ing these dis­cus­sions. b) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if the issue of no volun­teers to Chair the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF) would be resolved. Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel explained that it was sug­ges­ted to LOAF that if a new per­son did not volun­teer, then there could be an exten­sion on the cur­rent Con­vener, how­ever this was not a long-term solu­tion, a new volun­teer is encour­aged. c) Recre­ation Access and Infra­struc­ture Man­ager updated the Com­mit­tee that there was a meet­ing being held over the week­end gath­er­ing Cairngorms Nation­al Park path groups togeth­er for shar­ing know­ledge, inform­a­tion, skills and train­ing, to drive for­ward improve­ments. The Park Author­ity would be host­ing the first meet­ing of 18 people from eight path groups in Kin­gussie to launch their access­ib­il­ity path tool kit which was fund­ing through the Cairngorms Trust, which will help to audit their paths and identi­fy improve­ments and fund­ing avail­able to ensure paths for all.
3. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Note the sum­mary of access case­work under­taken by the Access and Infra­struc­ture Team. b) Con­sider find­ings, trends and oth­er rel­ev­ant issues arising.
4. Action Points Arising: None

AOCB

1. None

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 11 Septem­ber 2026 online.

2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 3.33pm

Action	Status
Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meetings
12 Decem­ber 2025
Paper 4 — Cairngorms Nature Action Plan
At para 19f <br/​> ii. Con­sider a new term for ​“com­munity benefits”.	In hand
Paper 2 – Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update: quarter three 2025 (July – September)
At para 9e <br/​> iii. CEO to con­firm if applic­ants of the new fund are able to choose the ser­vices / pro­viders them­selves with the fund­ing allocated.	In hand
23 March 2026
Paper 3 – Cairngorms 2030 restor­ing and enhan­cing landscape’s theme update Feb­ru­ary 2026
At para 15a <br/​> iv. Cairngorms 2030 Nature Based Solu­tions Man­ager to raise and con­sider mon­it­or­ing of cattle wel­fare as part of planned graz­ing, includ­ing issues such as min­er­al sup­ple­ment­a­tion, addi­tion­al feed­ing or shel­ter, worm­ing, and poten­tial tick impacts, with a view to shar­ing rel­ev­ant learn­ing with the wider farm­ing industry.	Will be actioned when pro­ject commences.
12 June 2026
Paper 4 – Bring Beaver Back project
At para 7d <br/​> i. Head of Con­ser­va­tion to update the pro­ject risk report to include landown­er impacts and show how expan­sion being received by land man­age­ment, farm­ing and com­munity groups.
Paper 1 — Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update: quarter one 2026 (Janu­ary to March)
At para 11b <br/​> i. Trans­port Scot­land fund­ing issues impact­ing C2030 Trans­port pro­gramme to be added to stra­tegic risk con­sid­er­a­tions for the Form­al Board Agenda in Septem­ber if the pro­ject fund­ing status requires escal­a­tion at that point.
Paper 3 — Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment update
At para 19b <br/​> i. Reach out to part­ners to reit­er­ate to share with pub­lic if they see an incid­ent to con­tact the fire ser­vice of police.