Formal board meeting - paper 4: final accounts and annual report ARC - 28 November 2025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 4 28 Novem­ber 2025 Page 1 of 3

For Inform­a­tion

Title: Annu­al report and accounts Pre­pared by: Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Operations

Pur­pose The paper 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.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Board is asked to: α) To note the draft annu­al accounts for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅

Stra­tegic context

1. The annu­al report and accounts report the per­form­ance of the Park Author­ity over the fin­an­cial year ended 31 March 2025 and its fin­an­cial pos­i­tion at that date. As well as provid­ing fin­an­cial inform­a­tion and dis­clos­ure in accord­ance with Inter­na­tion­al Fin­an­cial Report­ing Stand­ards, it provides a wealth of nar­rat­ive inform­a­tion on the Park Author­ity and its activ­it­ies dur­ing the year.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. Approv­al of the Annu­al Report and Accounts and the extern­al audit of the annu­al accounts is over­seen by the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee on behalf of the board, as set out in the terms of ref­er­ence for the board’s com­mit­tees. The draft accounts, which remain sub­ject to clear­ance by the Aud­it­or Gen­er­al for Scot­land and lay­ing in Par­lia­ment, are presen­ted at Annex 1 to this paper.

Review of the annu­al report and accounts

1. The annu­al report is pre­pared in three sec­tions: α) The Per­form­ance Report which provides inform­a­tion on the struc­ture of the Park Author­ity, its stra­tegic aims, the key risks faced, and its per­form­ance over the year (pp3-44).

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 4 28 Novem­ber 2025 Page 2 of 3

b) The Account­ab­il­ity Report, set­ting out mat­ters of gov­ernance and provid­ing inform­a­tion on remu­ner­a­tion and staff­ing, togeth­er with the audit opin­ion (pp45-88). c) The fin­an­cial state­ments (pp89-115).

1. The Per­form­ance Report includes the Per­form­ance Ana­lys­is (page 13) which provides inform­a­tion on the per­form­ance of the organ­isa­tion over the year, our aims and pri­or­it­ies, our achieve­ments and fin­an­cial res­ults. This report was developed from con­tri­bu­tions made by col­leagues from across the organ­isa­tion and provides a sum­mary of the high­lights for the year.

2. The Account­ab­il­ity Report, which includes the Gov­ernance State­ment and the Remu­ner­a­tion Report, sets out inform­a­tion on staff­ing and remu­ner­a­tion, includ­ing the Authority’s approach to equal­ity, diversity and inclu­sion (EDI), mat­ters around health and safety and staff con­sulta­tion, and fair pay dis­clos­ures. Board mem­bers’ fees and expenses are shown with­in pre­scribed mon­et­ary ranges, as is the remu­ner­a­tion of the Exec­ut­ive Team.

3. The Fin­an­cial State­ments com­mence on page 89 with The State­ment of Com­pre­hens­ive Net Expendit­ure, describ­ing the Park Authority’s fin­an­cial per­form­ance for the year. The Authority’s fin­an­cial pos­i­tion on 31 March 2025 is described in the State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion (page 90). Cash move­ments dur­ing the year are reflec­ted in the State­ment of Cash Flows (page 91).

4. The Author­ity applied funds provided through grant-in-aid to the pur­poses inten­ded and to meet the aims of the oper­a­tion­al plan and the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP). Pro­ject fund­ing was sim­il­arly dis­posed in accord­ance with the plans approved by funders.

5. Over­all, fund­ing through grant-in-aid (£12.120 mil­lion) was £0.336 mil­lion high­er than in the pre­vi­ous year. Total funds under man­age­ment were £13.912 mil­lion as com­pared with £14.562 mil­lion in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄. The com­ple­tion of the Caper­cail­lie pro­ject in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ res­ul­ted in the receipt of less extern­al fund­ing for projects.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 4 28 Novem­ber 2025 Page 3 of 3

1. Net expendit­ure of £12.230 mil­lion was fun­ded by the alloc­a­tion of grant-in-aid of £12.120 mil­lion and the release of £0.110 mil­lion from Tax­pay­ers’ Equity.

	£’000
Total net expnditure	12,230
Grant-in-aid for the year	12,120
Defi­cit	110
Release from Tax­pay­ers’ Equity	(110)
	0

1. We report our per­form­ance to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) in cash terms; the final res­ult for the year was an over­spend of £10,000 as shown in the table below:

	£’000	£’000
Grant-in-Aid		12,120
Net expendit­ure		(12,230) Per State­ment of Com­pre­hens­ive Net Expenditure
Deficet		(110)
Add back non-cash ele­ment of lease agreements		170 Non-cash transactions
Add back depreciation		315 Non-cash transactions
Sur­plus		375
Deduct expendit­ure on non-cur­rent assets
Tan­gible assets	(65)	Recor­ded on the State­ment of Fin­an­cial Performance
Intan­gible assets	(96)	(161)
Lease pay­ments — cash		(224)
Defi­cit		(10)

1. The over­spend of £10,000 rep­res­ents + 0.072% of total income, which is well with­in our KPI of +1% / ‑2% of total income.

Con­clu­sion

1. The signed accounts togeth­er with the report on the per­form­ance of the audit, will be sub­mit­ted by the aud­it­ors (Maz­ars) to the Aud­it­or Gen­er­al for Scot­land in due course. The tim­ing of this sub­mis­sion is not with­in the con­trol of the Park Authority.

2. The dead­line for the accounts to be laid before Par­lia­ment is 31 Decem­ber 2025.

Louise Allen 18 Novem­ber 2025 louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk