Formal board meeting - paper 8 annex 1 - committee minutes - 26 September 2025

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Annex 1‑Committee Minutes

Minutes of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey Online 21 March 2025 at 09.30am

Present online Fiona McLean (Chair) Kenny Deans (Sub) Bill Lob­ban Peter Cos­grove (Deputy Chair) Paul Gibb

In attend­ance Eliza­beth Young, Azets Tom Reid. Maz­ars Ishna Singh. Maz­ars Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Mikko Saari, Pro­cure­ment Officer Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies Geva Black­ett Duncan Miller

Wel­come and introduction

1. Fiona McLean, Chair of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee, wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

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Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The draft minutes of the pre­vi­ous Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee meet­ing held on 8 Novem­ber 2024 were approved with no amendments

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were no mat­ters arising.

Ref	Action Detail	Who	When	Status
27/09/24	At para 20i iv. Update on intern­al audit view on fin­an­cial scen­ario plan­ning to be provided to the Audit and Risk Committee	Dav­id and Stephanie	At the end of the 24⁄25 fin­an­cial year.	Ongo­ing
27/09/24	At para 36ii vi. CEO to men­tion the impact the Pro­cure­ment Officer is mak­ing in the organ­isa­tion with­in his next CEO report for Board meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024.	Grant	Next Form­al Board meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024	Com­plete
From today’s meeting
08/11/24	At para 10a i. A meet­ing between Azets and Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions to dis­cuss examples of what evid­ence Is required to com­plete out­stand­ing actions.	Louise/​Stephanie		On Agenda today
At para 10b		Stephanie

Cairngorms Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 26 August 2025 Page 3 of 29 | i. Stephanie Hume, Azets to look at poten­tially chan­ging the word­ing ​“incom­plete” and ​“par­tially com­plete” to some­thing more trans­par­ent. | | | 08/11/24 | At para 10c i. Officers to carry out a recruit­ment audit and a fin­an­cial plan­ning audit with­in the cur­rent fin­an­cial year. | David/​Louise | | com­plete 08/11/24 | At para 18b i. Update the risk register to show upskilling and train­ing Is being delivered. | David/​Louise | | com­plete 08/11/24 | At para 26b i. Inform­a­tion man­ager to provide Com­mit­tee mem­bers with the num­ber of requestees for FOISA. | Paul | 20 June 2025 meet­ing | open

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

Extern­al Audit Plan ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ (Paper 1)

1. Ishana Singh, Maz­ars presen­ted the paper which sets out the extern­al auditor’s plan for the forth­com­ing audit of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ Annu­al Report and Accounts.

Bill Lob­ban joined the meet­ing at 9.36am

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1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices advised that he had had a good dis­cus­sion with the audit team and agreed with approaches set out in the report. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions wel­comed the slight adjust­ment to the time­tabling to accom­mod­ate Daniel Ral­ph, Fin­an­cial Accountant’s retire­ment at the end of April 2025.
2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Fiona McLean, the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Chair thanked Daniel Ral­ph on behalf of the Com­mit­tee for his valu­able con­tri­bu­tion over the years and wished him a very enjoy­able retire­ment. b) On Paper 1 Annex 1, could the name of the organ­isa­tion be spelled cor­rectly? The ​‘s’ at the end of Cairngorms was miss­ing. Ishana Singh, Maz­ars apo­lo­gised and agreed to cor­rect it. c) With ref­er­ence to IT Policies on page 17 of the Annex to the paper, there was a fol­low on recom­mend­a­tion con­cern­ing IT change man­age­ment and user access to which no man­age­ment update had been provided. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions advised that the IT team were cur­rently under­go­ing a gov­ern­ment cyber health check and that the need for bet­ter doc­u­ment­a­tion had also been raised dur­ing this work. As a res­ult, doc­u­ment­a­tion is being pre­pared. How­ever, she reas­sured the Com­mit­tee that while there was a lack of doc­u­ment­a­tion„ the team are exer­cising appro­pri­ate change man­age­ment and user access pro­ced­ures. d) Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices added that man­age­ment were con­tent with the fee quoted in the report and had recently received Audit Scotland’s fee struc­ture for the year, which provided the reas­sur­ance that the fee quoted by Maz­ars was mid­point in that. e) With ref­er­ence to page 18 of the Annex to the paper, bul­let point one – how many com­pan­ies does the organ­isa­tion have in the cur­rent account­ing sys­tem? Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions cla­ri­fied that the point raised by the aud­it­ors relates to the way the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity are record­ing in the exist­ing fin­ance sys­tem the trans­ac­tions with­in the vari­ous pro­jects it under­takes; Cairngorms 2030, Caper­cail­lie pro­ject, Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship etc were being treated as sep­ar­ate com­pan­ies. This was our Fin­ance Manager’s way of keep­ing sep­ar­ate the trans­ac­tions relat­ing to dif­fer­ent fund­ing streams with­in our Sage account­ing sys­tem. She acknow­ledged that this approach is dif­fi­cult for

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f) the auditors and that it results in the need to manipulate transactions outside

the fin­ance sys­tem in Excel spread­sheets, with all the poten­tial for human error asso­ci­ated with extens­ive spread­sheet use. On page 25 of the Annex to the Paper, ​‘Sig­ni­fic­ant risks’ what poten­tial is there for error and fraud? Tom Reid, Maz­ars explained that this risk is stand­ard on all pub­lic sec­tor audit plans and it is as a res­ult of the pos­i­tion that man­age­ment are in, where they can over­ride con­trols merely by the nature of their being in a man­age­ment pos­i­tion. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions advised that monthly mon­it­or­ing and scru­tiny of the accounts being presen­ted to man­age­ment team monthly reduces the risk of that happening.

1. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed the recommendations.

2. Action Points Arising: None.

Intern­al audit pro­gress report (Paper 2)

1. Eliza­beth Young, Azets presen­ted the paper which sets out pro­gress against the intern­al audit pro­gramme for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ pre­pared by Azets.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed the recommendations.

3. Action Points Arising: None.

Stra­tegic risk registers (Paper 3)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sets out a review by the Com­mit­tee of the Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment position.

2. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices advised that the Stra­tegic Risk register also formed part of Budget and Oper­a­tion­al Plan paper to be presen­ted to the Board at its meet­ing on 28 March. He explained that risk 11 had been amended to reflect the ele­ment of repu­ta­tion­al risk arising from dis­in­form­a­tion. This change had been reflec­ted in the Board paper annex but the papers for this Com­mit­tee had already been issued and did not include this change.

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

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a) Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Con­vener repor­ted that it was good to see the risk score improv­ing of 1,2,3, 9 and noted that there were 13 act­ive risks. b) Ques­tion posed around risk 13 that it may be fits with­in risk 1 how­ever noted that the Board had been keen to keep it as a sep­ar­ate risk. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices advised that the sep­ar­a­tion of risks 1 and 13 had been his attempt to dis­til the con­ver­sa­tions the Board had had at the hori­zon scan­ning dis­cus­sion. Risk 13 is more around policy devel­op­ment and poten­tial impact on fin­ances, with the Scot­tish par­lia­ment­ary elec­tion tak­ing place next year, it seems import­ant to have it sep­ar­ately on the register. c) The Con­vener raised her con­cern around shoe­horn­ing risk 13 on policy devel­op­ment into the cat­egory of fin­an­cial risk, when the risk also relates to oper­a­tion­al activ­ity. Deputy CEO agreed to look into the word­ing; he explained there is a risk to our fund­ing pos­i­tion as it gets squeezed as a res­ult of oth­er com­pet­ing Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment pri­or­it­ies such as a new Nation­al Park. It is import­ant to ensure that our pri­or­it­ies as set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan match the pri­or­it­ies at a Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment level. The Com­mit­tee agreed that the Con­vener raise this at the Board meet­ing next week.

1. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Con­sider the cov­er­age and adequacy of the Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment pos­i­tion and advise on any gaps or amend­ments required to the cur­rent stra­tegic risk register. b) Con­sider the cov­er­age and adequacy of the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme risk man­age­ment pos­i­tion and advise on any gaps or amend­ments required to the cur­rent pro­gramme risk register.

2. Action Points Arising: None.

Draft Gov­ernance state­ment (Paper 4)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper set­ting out the draft Gov­ernance Report, which forms part of the Annu­al Report and Accounts, to the Com­mit­tee for review and com­ment pri­or to inclu­sion in the draft accounts sub­mit­ted for extern­al audit.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed the recommendations:

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a) Reviewed the draft Gov­ernance State­ment presen­ted with this paper. b) Sub­ject to any agreed amend­ments, approved the Gov­ernance State­ment for inclu­sion in the Park Authority’s draft Annu­al Report and Accounts for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

1. Action Points Arising: None.

Mikko Saari joined the meet­ing at 10am

Pro­cure­ment Action Plan (Paper 5)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper, which sets out an action plan towards improve­ment of the Park Authority’s pro­cure­ment pro­cesses, pro­ced­ures and intern­al con­trols. It has been developed in response to the Intern­al Audit review of pro­cure­ment car­ried out by Azets as part of the approved ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ audit programme.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) The Con­vener expressed her thanks to Mikko Saari, Pro­cure­ment Officer for being on board and for cre­at­ing a cul­ture shift with­in the organ­isa­tion, and thanked Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions. b) Peter Cos­grove, Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Deputy Con­vener repor­ted that he had reflec­ted on con­cerns on this area last year togeth­er with the recom­mend­a­tions as stated in the paper and repor­ted that he could see that good and steady pro­gress had been made and is there­fore more com­fort­able with where we are now. Peter reflec­ted that the next meet­ing may be an appro­pri­ate point to con­sider remov­ing this mat­ter as a stand­ing item from the Committee’s agenda. c) The Con­vener praised the trans­form­a­tion in pos­i­tion from last year.

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee reviewed the pro­gress made against each activ­ity in the pro­gramme for improve­ment developed by management.

4. Action Points Arising: None.

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Pro­cure­ment guid­ance (Paper 6)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sets out recently developed guid­ance for col­leagues, out­lining the Park Authority’s pro­cure­ment pro­cesses. It has been developed in response to the Intern­al Audit review of pro­cure­ment and is delivered in sat­is­fac­tion of the Pro­cure­ment Action Plan. Mikko Saari presen­ted the work being done on devel­op­ing new pro­cure­ment pro­cesses with­in the organ­isa­tion to the Committee.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Ques­tion raised around declar­ing interests such as friend­ships and asso­ci­ations: those work­ing in peat­land res­tor­a­tion for example would estab­lish good work­ing rela­tion­ships with con­tract­ors. Mikko Saari, Pro­cure­ment Officer advised that he mit­ig­ates any bias as he com­piles the tender eval­u­ations pre­pared by the oper­a­tion­al team, and gives recom­mend­a­tions based on the scores alone; every­one in eval­u­ation team has to agree on the win­ning bid­der. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices advised that he is aware of the levels of con­nec­tion staff may have with con­tract­ors, fine for staff to build rela­tion­ships and advised that the Nation­al Park Author­ity also have a staff register of interests whereby any sig­ni­fic­ant con­nec­tions can be reviewed and tested by seni­or staff pri­or to involve­ment of staff in pro­cure­ment activ­ity. b) How did the pro­cure­ment work for cycle paths? Pro­cure­ment Officer advised that it split into smal­ler parts, to allow loc­al con­tract­ors to bid as well. c) Com­ment made that it was a clear paper and praised the over­sight and loop back. d) Dis­cus­sion around how to put loc­al­ity as a cri­terion for bids. Could put stand­ard cri­ter­ia, eg sus­tain­ab­il­ity by way of com­munity bene­fit car­bon impact/​climate impact, reten­tion of jobs/​cre­ation of jobs appren­tice­ships. Agree­ment in car­ry­ing out an ana­lys­is over a year, of the con­tracts awar­ded how many com­pan­ies were based in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, how many around and how many out with Cairngorms, to the extent that data held allows this ana­lys­is. This is to be brought back to the Com­mit­tee. e) With ref­er­ence to page 6 on Annex 1 of the Paper, the use of con­flict of interest instead of declar­a­tions of interest. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions agreed to add an addi­tion­al bul­let point to dif­fer­en­ti­ate it.

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f) Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions added that with smal­ler pro­cure­ment con­tracts we are able to sup­port smal­ler busi­nesses as leg­al rules are less onerous.

g) The Convener praised the work noting that significant progress was being

made.

1. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted the paper and: a) Reviewed the guid­ance and con­sider its suit­ab­il­ity to sup­port the Authority’s staff in car­ry­ing out pro­cure­ment in the pub­lic sec­tor envir­on­ment. b) Con­sidered wheth­er the doc­u­ment meets the Intern­al Audit recom­mend­a­tions noted on the Pro­cure­ment Action Plan.

2. Action Points Arising: i. Stat­ist­ic­al ana­lys­is to be brought back to the Com­mit­tee show­ing of the con­tracts awar­ded how many com­pan­ies were based in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, how many around and how many out with over the course of one year. ii. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between con­flict and declar­a­tion of interest on page 6 of the Pro­cure­ment Action Plan.

Intern­al Audit Report Man­age­ment Action Fol­low up (Paper 7)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sets out the intern­al auditor’s inde­pend­ent over­view of man­age­ment action taken on pre­vi­ous intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions raised and agreed (Annex 1). The fol­low up review work repor­ted here is part of the intern­al audit pro­gramme agreed for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

2. Eliza­beth Young, Azets made the obser­va­tion that more than half of the actions were more than two years old and asked the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee to con­sider wheth­er they were still rel­ev­ant and they wanted to con­tin­ue to pur­sue them?

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) The organ­isa­tion name on page 2 of the Annex was spelled wrongly. Eliza­beth Young, Azets apo­lo­gised and agreed to cor­rect it.

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b) Appendix 1 action by report — the totals at the bot­tom do not match the num­bers in the table. Read­ing the pro­gress made on some of the recom­mend­a­tions, it seemed inac­cur­ate to cat­egor­ise them as par­tially com­plete? Azets apo­lo­gised for the inac­cur­acy in the num­bers and advised that ​‘par­tially com­plete’ is a stand­ard phrase used. Actions are assessed and only marked as com­plete once the aud­it­ors have seen all the doc­u­ment­a­tion. It was sug­ges­ted that the assess­ment could be changed to ​‘sub­stan­tially com­plete’ where appropriate.

c) Deputy CEO and Director of Corporate Services advised that the follow up

report provided a good start point to estab­lish the pos­i­tion with the remain­ing recom­mend­a­tions. Giv­en the num­ber of linked oper­a­tion­al strands in many cases, for example IT strategy, cyber secur­ity, inform­a­tion man­age­ment he sug­ges­ted an over­view report in each sub­ject area set­ting out where we are on all the remain­ing linked items and detail­ing the out­stand­ing actions the Com­mit­tee should sign off on going for­ward. and any impact in con­text of the Stra­tegic Risk Register would be an approach to update the pos­i­tion and cla­ri­fy future action. He sug­ges­ted bring­ing two or three reports to the Com­mit­tee under dif­fer­ent top­ics: IT man­age­ment strands, grant fund­ing and pro­gram man­age­ment. The Com­mit­tee sup­por­ted this approach. They com­men­ted that this seemed pro­por­tion­ate and reasonable.

d) Head of Finance and Corporate Operations reported that she did not want to

under­mine any recom­mend­a­tions the aud­it­ors had made. She recalled in Decem­ber 2022 the fin­ance team were work­ing with paper doc­u­ments and that the changes made to digit­ize records since that time mean that we are now a com­pletely dif­fer­ent organ­isa­tion. A num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions have sat for a long time and have been stuck as there were a num­ber of sequen­tial improve­ments required to achieve com­ple­tion on the recom­mend­a­tion; des­pite the remain­ing out­stand­ing recom­mend­a­tions where we are now reflects con­sid­er­able pro­gress. The Con­vener acknow­ledged that, and the sig­ni­fic­ance of the intern­al audit reports and Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices echoed both this and the huge organ­isa­tion­al improvement.

e) A member asked if it would be possible to have a workshop over a one- or

two-hour win­dow on an already sched­uled board day. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices advised that the capa­city to do this would depend on pri­or­it­ies. He agreed to liaise with the Head of Fin­ance and

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Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions and the intern­al aud­it­ors to assess the staff capa­city to review all of these things in a timely way. He agreed to come back to the Com­mit­tee in June with an assess­ment of pri­or­it­ies and the key risk areas, and then bring a paper to a sub­sequent meet­ing, depend­ing on staff capacity

1. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed the recom­mend­a­tions: a) Noted the pro­gress made by man­age­ment in imple­ment­ing agreed man­age­ment actions; and b) Noted the actions planned in respect of those recom­mend­a­tions that remain outstanding.

2. Action Points Arising: i. Paper detail­ing the pri­or­ity of key risk areas to include a timetable of future reports on the strands to be brought to the next meeting.

Appoint­ment of Intern­al Aud­it­or 2025 – 28 (Paper 8)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices presen­ted the paper which sets out an update on the pro­cess under­way to appoint an inde­pend­ent intern­al aud­it­or for the peri­od 2025 to 2028. He added that it had come to a con­clu­sion in the last day or two. Azets had not been suc­cess­ful; the suc­cess­ful com­pany were a Scot­tish based firm and the full detail would fol­low via email at a later date. He recog­nised the huge value Azets had con­trib­uted to the devel­op­ment of the Park Author­ity over their peri­od of appointment.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Con­vener thanked Eliza­beth Young and team from Azets for all their work and professionalism.

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee noted: a) the update on the appoint­ment of intern­al aud­it­or for 2025 to 2028 b) that an intern­al audit plan will be presen­ted to a future com­mit­tee meet­ing fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of the appoint­ment process

4. Action Points Arising: None.

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Intern­al Audit Plan ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅: Cairngorms 2030 (Paper 9)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sets out the review of the arrange­ments in place for the deliv­ery phase of Cairngorms 2030, includ­ing wheth­er there is a robust gov­ernance struc­ture in place. This included con­sid­er­a­tion of the intern­al report­ing arrange­ments in place, includ­ing report­ing on NLHF fund­ing claims, and the extent to which ongo­ing report­ing and mon­it­or­ing has been integ­rated as far as pos­sible into wider organ­isa­tion­al reporting.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee: a) Con­sidered the intern­al aud­it­ors report and find­ings. b) Endorsed the man­age­ment responses to recom­mend­a­tions for future action and improvements.

3. Action Points Arising: None.

Mikko Saari left the meet­ing at 11.07am

AOCB

1. None

Ref	Action Detail	Who	When	Status
21/06/24	At para 341 Les­sons learned brief­ing for the com­mit­tee for the next meeting	Dav­id	Will come to meet­ing in June/​Sept depend­ing on staff time available	Open
21/06/24	At para 34m Chair and Deputy Chair to receive monthly updates of pro­gress against the action plan	Dav­id and Louise	Monthly updates have been issued since June meeting	In Pro­gress
27/09/24	At para 20i V. Update on intern­al audit view on fin­an­cial scen­ario plan­ning to be provided to the Audit	Dav­id and Stephanie	At the end of the 24⁄25 fin­an­cial year.	Ongo­ing

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08/11/24 | At para 26b ii. Inform­a­tion man­ager to provide Com­mit­tee mem­bers with the num­ber of requestees for FOISA. | Paul | 20 June 2025 meet­ing | open From today’s meet­ing 21/03/25 | At para 28 ii. Stat­ist­ic­al ana­lys­is to be brought back to the Com­mit­tee show­ing of the con­tracts awar­ded how many com­pan­ies were based in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, how many around and how many out with over the course of one year. | Louise | | | iii. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between con­flict and declar­a­tion of interest on page 6 of the Pro­cure­ment Action Plan. | Louise | | 21/03/25 | At Para 33 | David | | 

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| iv. Paper detail­ing the pri­or­ity of key risk areas to include a timetable of future reports on the strands to be brought to the next meeting. | | | 

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 20 June 2025

2. The Con­vener moved a motion to move into con­fid­en­tial session.

3. The meet­ing con­cluded at 11.07 am.

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Minutes of the Resources Com­mit­tee meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey Online 16 May 2025 at 01.00pm

Present online Rus­sell Jones (Chair) Lauren McCal­lum (Deputy Con­vener) Jack­ie Brier­ton Peter Cos­grove Elean­or Mack­in­tosh Michael Wil­li­am­son Sandy Brem­ner Chris Beat­tie Han­nah Grist Derek Ross

In attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Kate Christie Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies None.

Wel­come and introductions

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

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Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The draft minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing on 24 Janu­ary 2025 were approved with the amend­ment of adding Derek Ross as an attendee of the meeting.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were no mat­ters arising.

Actions from 24 January2025 meet­ing: Paper 3 i. Staff and Board Mem­ber train­ing on nav­ig­at­ing social media while adher­ing to the policy. | Com­plete / sched­uled ii. Mon­it­or­ing officer from Moray Coun­cil to share their guid­ance on mis­use, shar­ing and copy rights of web­casts with Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices. | Com­plete iii. Share FOI policy with Board mem­bers to high­light the work being done in this area. | Open – FOI update to Audit / Risk Com­mit­tee June 2025 will cov­er this. Paper 1 i. Return to com­mit­tee the new policy on staff recog­ni­tion and reward once avail­able. | Open. Policy still in devel­op­ment Paper 2 i. Arrange for a budget mon­it­or­ing inform­a­tion ses­sion with board mem­bers. | Ses­sion was delivered — 3 mem­bers atten­ded. Paper 5 i. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Jack­ie Brier­ton to Invest­ig­ate the pos­sib­il­ity of Cred­it Uni­ons for staff and park wide. | Open

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1. The Chair dis­cussed the per­son­al use of social media policy which was brought to a Board Busi­ness ses­sion on 09 May. c) Con­cern was raised that Board Mem­bers were expec­ted to fol­low the same policy as staff and ques­tioned if there would be an oppor­tun­ity to make amend­ments to this. Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer (CEO) and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that the expect­a­tions for Board Mem­bers per­son­al social media use are set out on in the Code of Con­duct and sup­por­ted by spe­cif­ic guid­ance issued by the Stand­ards Com­mis­sion. The Park Authority’s policy is com­ple­ment­ary guid­ance to the Stand­ards Com­mis­sion doc­u­ment and should provide addi­tion­al help in com­ply­ing with expect­a­tions of the Code of Con­duct. d) A ques­tion was raised that if a Board Mem­ber was to fall foul of the guid­ance, what the reper­cus­sions would be. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices explained that the Park Author­ity may receive com­plaints dir­ectly from Stake­hold­ers or mem­bers of the pub­lic. This would be high­lighted to the Con­vener, the com­plaint con­sidered under estab­lishes pro­cesses, and the Con­vener may write or dis­cuss the mat­ter with the mem­ber. How­ever, the com­plaint may be made by the stake­hold­er or mem­ber of the pub­lic to the Stand­ards Com­mis­sion, in which case the Com­mis­sion would handle the situ­ation from there. It was high­lighted that the Park Author­ity have a duty to provide train­ing / aware­ness on this top­ic, which has now been done, there­fore if a com­plaint was made, Stand­ards Com­mis­sion would be noti­fied that Board Mem­bers have received the train­ing. e) Dis­cus­sions were had around the con­fu­sion of under­stand­ing around the aim of the policy at the Board Busi­ness Ses­sion and there­fore was agreed for Officers to make this clear to mem­bers that this is sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance for best prac­tise. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, agreed to devel­op an advice note for mem­bers in fol­low up to this dis­cus­sion and the train­ing session.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

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²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ estim­ated out­turn (Paper 1)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sets out an estim­ated out­turn pos­i­tion for the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: f) Clar­ity was sought on the £300,000 under­spend in peat­land res­tor­a­tion. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions explained that of a total £3 mil­lion in grant aid avail­able, the Park Author­ity drew down £2,620,000. How­ever, they should have drawn down £245,000 less as this was not spent. This unspent money goes back to Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) as a new alloc­a­tion of money has been set for this year. g) Ques­tions were raised regard­ing the under­spend if this has implic­a­tions in the future to poten­tially restrict budget as pro­jects have been delivered with less money. CEO explained the cost of pro­jects depends on if the land is eroded or drained, remote­ness and oth­er factors. Estim­a­tions are made of the cost of a pro­ject, how­ever, until pro­cure­ment and works start on the ground it is dif­fi­cult to gauge the cost. It will not affect the alloc­ated budget for the fol­low­ing year. It was noted that under­spend will likely decrease due to increas­ing com­plex­it­ies of pro­jects. h) A Board Mem­ber asked if the Peat­land under­spend could be spent on cap­it­al items to facil­it­ate oth­er peat­land work through­out the year, eg thermal kit. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices con­firmed the under­spend can be deployed to pur­chase cap­it­al items rel­ev­ant to the over­all peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­gramme sub­ject to SG approv­al. i) A ques­tion was raised if peat­land applic­a­tions are scru­tin­ised to ensure the claimants have adhered to muir­burn code and not car­ried out any mis­de­mean­ours. CEO con­firmed if an applic­ant has burnt out on an area of peat­land and request­ing res­tor­a­tion, then this would not be awar­ded. Also, if an area has high deer num­bers, then this would not be a plaus­ible res­tor­a­tion pro­ject for cer­tain types of res­tor­a­tion. How­ever, dis­cus­sions will be needed with NatureScot regard­ing if an applic­ant has had a muir­burn or grouse licence revoked are they still eli­gible for peat­land res­tor­a­tion funding.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper agree­ing to the recom­mend­a­tions: j) Note the estim­ated out­turn pos­i­tion for the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.

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1. Action Points Arising: None.

Budget mon­it­or­ing (Paper 2)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of April — month one of the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ fin­an­cial year.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: k) Fol­low­ing intern­al dis­cus­sions on Cairngorms 2030 spend to date, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions gave an update to mem­bers in respect of the pro­por­tion of Month one spend relat­ing to recharged staff costs, rather than expendit­ure on dir­ect deliv­ery. There is a budget of £38 mil­lion for the whole pro­ject, of which £27 mil­lion relates to cap­it­al costs: wood­land expan­sion, peat­land res­tor­a­tion and trans­port pro­jects. Of the remain­ing £11 mil­lion, £5.5 mil­lion is staff costs, and a sim­il­ar amount is for dir­ect deliv­ery of activ­it­ies (non-cap­it­al spend). An inter­pret­a­tion had been made that staff costs were too high a per­cent­age of the total amount spent in first month, but the Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions reas­sured the Com­mit­tee that the dis­tri­bu­tion of spend between staff costs and dir­ect deliv­ery was in line with the budget alloc­a­tion. l) CEO gave an update on the Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund (NRF) not­ing the Park Author­ity have received con­firm­a­tion on the funds how­ever, we are wait­ing on terms; it is hoped that addi­tion­al intern­al funds can go into the Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund. A fur­ther update was giv­en in respect of fund­ing from SG and Trans­port Scot­land, not­ing the Park Author­ity is still wait­ing for an answer. This is being fol­lowed up with both organ­isa­tions and we should have an answer by the end of May. More inform­a­tion will fol­low to the Board.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper agree­ing to the recom­mend­a­tions: m) Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.

4. Action Points Arising: None.

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Health and Safety Com­mit­tee minutes (Paper 3)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment presen­ted the paper which sets out the minutes from the most recent Health and Safety Com­mit­tee Meeting.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: n) Board Mem­bers praised the response work car­ried out by the staff fol­low­ing a ser­i­ous incid­ent. It was also acknow­ledged that the increase on report­ing of acci­dents and incid­ents would be due to the sim­pli­fic­a­tion of the report­ing sys­tem, which was a pos­it­ive. ○) Dis­cus­sions were had around some staff being unaware the office had a defib­ril­lat­or avail­able at recep­tion, to which a board mem­ber offered to provide train­ing defib­ril­lat­ors for staff to prac­tise on and build con­fid­ence in using these. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment said that we were look­ing to deliv­er train­ing provided through the Brit­ish Heart Found­a­tion, which used the same defib­ril­lat­or as ours dur­ing the course and agreed that while equip­ment was designed to be used by any­one, train­ing and famil­i­ar­isa­tion would be help­ful. p) Dis­cus­sion was had around domest­ic abuse; spot­ting the signs and if the rangers were giv­en train­ing to handle these situ­ations. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment explained that Rangers receive con­flict and safe­guard­ing train­ing which would cov­er aspects of domest­ic abuse. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices high­lighted that as an Author­ity we must tread care­fully not to expect too much of our ranger ser­vices. Rangers should not be blind to these issues arising; how­ever, the Park Author­ity should be aware of poten­tial issues and how far they can expect Rangers to go dur­ing a brief con­tact. q) A Board Mem­ber sug­ges­ted in rela­tion to the bike pro­ject that staff make con­tact with Police Scot­land as they have schemes relat­ing to recovered or