Formal board meeting - paper 6: Cairngorms 2030 communities fund risk register - 28 November 2025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 6 28 Novem­ber 2025 Page 1 of 10

For decision

Title: Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund – risk register Pre­pared by: Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement

Back­ground

1. At the board busi­ness ses­sion on 26 Septem­ber 2025 at the High­land Wild­life Park, the Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment and Kelly McBride (Dir­ect­or at the Involve Found­a­tion) out­lined our approach to the cre­ation of a £1 mil­lion Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund.

2. The Com­munit­ies Fund will link with oth­er Cairngorm 2030 pro­jects to give com­munit­ies the power to define, design, fund and deliv­er pro­jects that help achieve the aims of Cairngorms 2030, ie: a) Trans­form­ing the way land is man­aged and used to bene­fit nature. b) Empower­ing com­munit­ies to shape the future of their loc­al area. c) Mak­ing get­ting around the Cairngorms easi­er, safer and green­er. d) Fos­ter­ing health­i­er, hap­pi­er com­munit­ies with well­being at their heart.

3. Com­munity groups and com­munit­ies of interest (both with­in and out­side the Nation­al Park) will be able to apply to a fund of £1 mil­lion from its launch in sum­mer 2026 until the end of the pro­gramme in 2028. The fund will be designed by a pan­el of 18 rep­res­ent­at­ives from the loc­al com­munity, with recruit­ment begin­ning in early Janu­ary 2026 and last­ing for six weeks. Our aim is for the pan­el to reflect a diverse range of audi­ences – from res­id­ents in gen­er­al to farm­ers, loc­al busi­nesses to young people and under-rep­res­en­ted groups – and for mem­bers to be drawn from a wide geo­graph­ic­al area.

4. To ensure the Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund deliv­ers on our core object­ives and to appro­pri­ately mit­ig­ate against poten­tial risks we have pulled togeth­er the below risk register for the pro­ject. Mem­bers are asked to review the below table, identi­fy any gaps and approve our over­all approach to this piece of work.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Risk register for the Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund

1. The fol­low­ing risk register has been developed by Park Author­ity officers, in col­lab­or­a­tion with our appoin­ted con­sult­ants the Involve Found­a­tion. It is designed to cap­ture the main risks facing the Park Author­ity from a recruit­ment, deliv­ery and repu­ta­tion stand­point, plus rel­ev­ant mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. This will be reviewed on a reg­u­lar basis as the pro­ject pro­gresses. Unless oth­er­wise stated, the risk own­er is the Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement.

#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion	Com­ments
1	Insuf­fi­cient interest in the pro­ject leads to a smal­ler / less rep­res­ent­at­ive group than anticipated.	Low	High	• Tar­geted recruit­ment efforts last­ing sev­er­al months, identi­fy­ing spe­cif­ic part­ners and indi­vidu­als with­in each of our six tar­get audi­ences across the whole Nation­al Park geo­graphy. • Sense-check­ing applic­a­tions on at least a fort­nightly basis to quickly identi­fy gaps and tar­get future comms / engage­ment effort. • Work­ing with sub­ject area experts (Involve Found­a­tion) who have sig­ni­fic­ant exper­i­ence in deliv­er­ing sim­il­ar pro­jects at scale. • Advis­ory group estab­lished made up of c. eight rep­res­ent­at­ives from organisations	Sig­ni­fic­ant learn­ing (and con­tacts) gained from pre­vi­ous large-scale engage­ment activ­ity, eg fire byelaws, Part­ner­ship Plan, LDP.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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| 2. | Dif­fi­culty recruit­ing ​‘less heard’ voices, lead­ing to a lack of bal­ance on the co-design pan­el. | Low | High | whose work dir­ectly over­laps with the fund (eg com­munity coun­cils, interest groups, cham­ber of com­merce etc). • All par­ti­cipants to be remu­ner­ated for their time at roughly 1.5 x Real Liv­ing Wage, recog­nising the sig­ni­fic­ant time com­mit­ment people will need to make. • Travel expenses and child­care / caring costs also reim­bursed to encour­age those who oth­er­wise would not be able to attend. • Spe­cif­ic strand of our comms and engage­ment activ­ity will tar­get under- rep­res­en­ted com­munit­ies and those who are typ­ic­ally ​‘time poor’ (eg by going to the spaces they reg­u­larly fre­quent, rather than expect­ing them to come to us). | • As part of Cairngorms 2030 we have developed a net­work of con­tacts in organ­isa­tions across the Nation­al Park – these net­works will be essen­tial in help­ing spread the word about both the fund and the co-design oppor­tun­ity. | | 3. | Final co-design pan­el does not rep­res­ent the var­ied geo­graphy and interests of the Nation­al Park. | Low | High | • Spe­cif­ic, pub­lished cri­ter­ia – includ­ing par­ti­cipant pro­files – explain­ing how the 18 pan­el­lists will be selec­ted and what we are look­ing for. • Soft ​‘tar­gets’ for each tar­get audi­ence (com­munity groups, land man­agers, | • Census data for the Nation­al Park will give us an ini­tial steer for geo­graphy, with a small num­ber (roughly 10%) of participants |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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| 4. | Dif­fi­culty in bal­an­cing mul­tiple dif­fer­ent pri­or­it­ies iden­ti­fied by co-design par­ti­cipants. | Medi­um | Medi­um | busi­nesses, young people etc) and over­all geo­graph­ic­al spread. • Size­able recruit­ment effort to try and secure hun­dreds of applic­a­tions, giv­ing us the largest pos­sible pool of can­did­ates to select from. • Ele­ment of ran­dom / blind selec­tion in the pro­cess to lim­it sub­ject­ive decision-mak­ing. • Size­able funds avail­able (£1 mil­lion), with plenty of oppor­tun­it­ies for a wide vari­ety of pro­jects to be fun­ded. • Train­ing and devel­op­ment provided by Involve Found­a­tion for all par­ti­cipants in how co-design works. • Clear facil­it­a­tion of all ses­sions from industry experts (Involve Found­a­tion). • Par­ti­cipants encour­aged to share ideas and per­spect­ives in a ​‘safe space’, where all view­points are wel­come. They will also hear from third-party experts as required to help shape their decisions. | com­ing from out­side the Nation­al Park but with sig­ni­fic­ant con­nec­tion to it. • This is a risk inher­ent in any co-design pro­cess, which is why we have appoin­ted expert con­sult­ants to help guide us (and the pan­el) through this pro­cess. • The pan­el are prin­cip­ally tasked with design­ing what the fund looks like at first, rather than what spe­cif­ic pro­jects it will |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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| 5. | Poten­tial con­flict of interest for co-design pan­el­lists who may wish to apply for fund­ing them­selves. | Low | Medi­um | • Trans­par­ent code of con­duct agreed from the out­set for all par­ti­cipants. • Poten­tial con­flicts of interest cap­tured at an early stage and repor­ted trans­par­ently. • Clear pro­cess developed by the pan­el – pub­lished in full on the Park Authority’s web­site — which sets out how con­flicts of interest will be handled with­in the pro­cess they design (eg pan­el­lists absent them­selves from dis­cus­sions about pro­jects they are involved in). • Learn­ing from sim­il­ar pro­jects – through Involve, Park Author­ity-led funds and via part­ners such as the Cairngorms Trust – applied and fed back to co-design pan­el­lists. | fund. This should help reduce dir­ect con­flicts between dif­fer­ent par­ti­cipants / pri­or­it­ies. • As the Cairngorms Nation­al Park has a largely remote, rur­al geo­graphy, we believe it would be unreal­ist­ic (and likely unhelp­ful) to bar co-design pan­el­lists from poten­tially apply­ing for fund­ing in future. What we will do instead is estab­lish clear and trans­par­ent para­met­ers for this to take place. |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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| 6. | Con­fu­sion between this fund and a range of oth­er com­munity funds (includ­ing those run by the Park Author­ity / Cairngorms Trust). | Medi­um | Medi­um | • New ded­ic­ated fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies sec­tion with­in the Nation­al Park web­site, bring­ing all funds togeth­er in one place. • Single, stream­lined pro­cess for all Park Author­ity and Cairngorms Trust-led funds, with the same grants team help­ing ful­fil all of them. • We will work closely with the co-design pan­el to ensure the fund word­ing (and accom­pa­ny­ing comms / engage­ment activ­ity) is writ­ten in plain Eng­lish and that what is in / out of scope is as clear as pos­sible to poten­tial applic­ants. • Park Author­ity / Cairngorms Trust’s estab­lished net­work of con­tacts will be advant­age­ous here in terms of coordin­at­ing tim­ings etc with oth­er funds. | • How the fund sits along­side oth­ers in the land­scape – and wheth­er we will accept these as match fund­ing for Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund pro­jects – will be a key con­sid­er­a­tion for the co-design pan­el to dis­cuss and agree a pos­i­tion on. • We will also review time­frames / cri­ter­ia for over­lap­ping funds led by the Park Author­ity / Cairngorms Trust, eg Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund, Com­munity Led Loc­al Vis­ion Fund. |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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| 7. | Poten­tial for pan­el to be cri­ti­cised for the decisions they make / if fun­ded pro­jects do not go accord­ing to plan. | Medi­um | High | • At the ini­tial stage, the co-design group will be respons­ible for what the fund looks like / what it would poten­tially fund; they will not be mak­ing decisions on exactly which pro­jects are fun­ded. • This lat­ter decision is some­thing that will be dis­cussed with the co-design pan­el as part of their delib­er­a­tions, includ­ing the pros and cons of vari­ous decision-mak­ing meth­ods. • Park Author­ity to act as the account­able body for the fund, provid­ing level of leg­al / gov­ernance assur­ance to pro­cess. | • We will be clear in all com­mu­nic­a­tions around the fund exactly where the panel’s decision- mak­ing remit begins and ends. We will also field any ques­tions about the fund­ing pro­cess on behalf of (but in dis­cus­sion with) the pan­el­lists. | | 8. | Innov­at­ive nature and impact of fund is lost when the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme ends. | Low | Medi­um | • Park Author­ity and part­ners includ­ing the Cairngorms Trust are com­mit­ted to tak­ing the learn­ings from this pro­cess and apply­ing them to future funds, bey­ond the scope of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme. • Key out­come of Cairngorms 2030 – and The Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) – is to share our learn­ings with loc­al and nation­al part­ners / equi­val­ent pro­jects. These will be cap­tured and pub­lished in full | • We will make clear to pan­el par­ti­cipants from the out­set that we are keen to cap­ture the over­arch­ing ​‘story’ of the pro­cess as it devel­ops, from the earli­est train­ing ses­sions to shaping |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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| 9. | Less than two years to decide on a fund­ing approach and dis­trib­ute £1 mil­lion to com­munity pro­jects. | Low | Medi­um | on our web­site at the end of the pro­gramme. • Along­side this, we are com­mit­ted to cap­tur­ing the story of the fund (plus those who helped shape it and bene­fit­ted from it) as it pro­gresses via our comms and eval­u­ation activ­ity. • Depend­ing on pan­el avail­ab­il­ity, interest and future fund­ing, we are open to explor­ing addi­tion­al oppor­tun­it­ies for the co-design pan­el to be involved in decision- mak­ing, eg help­ing feed into the devel­op­ment of the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP). • The Park Author­ity / Cairngorms Trust have sig­ni­fic­ant exper­i­ence in dis­trib­ut­ing large sums (eg £450,000 per annum through Cairngorms Com­munity Led Vis­ion (CCLV) / LEAD­ER) to com­munity pro­jects with­in the Nation­al Park. • Estab­lish­ing a clear and trans­par­ent frame­work for fund­ing decisions (what is in | the fund, all the way through to pro­jects being awar­ded fund­ing and work hap­pen­ing on the ground. • This top­ic will form part of dis­cus­sions with the co-design pan­el around how to bal­ance ambi­tion (fund­ing pro­jects that deliv­er real impact) with pragmatism |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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| 10. | The Park Author­ity itself suf­fers repu­ta­tion­al dam­age as a con­sequence of unpop­u­lar / unsuc­cess­ful fund­ing decisions. | Medi­um | Medi­um | / out of scope, how large or small fund­ing awards can be, how funds will be dis­trib­uted, how many rounds we have etc) will be the first pri­or­ity for the co-design pan­el. • Recruit­ment pro­cess for the co-design pan­el will be a good oppor­tun­ity to raise aware­ness amongst poten­tial applic­ants about the fund and tim­ings involved. • Multi-year fund­ing approach gives great­er clar­ity to poten­tial applic­ants and helps us plan over a longer-term fund­ing cycle (vs typ­ic­al year-to-year fund­ing). • Decision-mak­ing mech­an­isms are yet to be resolved by the co-design group, but this risk will be factored into their dis­cus­sions at the earli­est oppor­tun­ity. • Park Author­ity to act as the account­able body for the fund, provid­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for high level scru­tiny and assur­ance of poten­tial fund­ing decisions. | (fund­ing pro­jects that can deliv­er those impacts in good time). • The time con­straints here are not par­tic­u­larly sig­ni­fic­ant com­pared with equi­val­ent funds, par­tic­u­larly those that are only avail­able for a single year. • The Park Author­ity has long-term exper­i­ence of devolving fund­ing decision-mak­ing through eg the Cairngorms Trust. |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Oliv­er Dav­ies 01 Novem­ber 2025 Oliverdavies@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

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