Form­al Board Paper 2 Annex 3

27 March 2026

Page 1 of 3

Annex 3

Budget Risks

Risk num­ber	Budget area	Descrip­tion of risk	Stra­tegic Risk Register ref­er­ence	Impacts and con­sid­er­a­tions	Budget alloc­a­tion 26⁄27 £’000
1	Fund­ing Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund	Nature res­tor­a­tion deliv­ery is a key aim for the Park Author­ity. The avail­ab­il­ity of fund­ing through the Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund (NRF) is uncertain.	1 – Authority’s abil­ity to fund deliv­ery depend­ent on fund­ing set­tle­ment from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG).	An applic­a­tion for NRF fund­ing of £1,045,000 has been made and is assumed to be avail­able to the Authority.	1,045

Form­al Board Paper 2 Annex 3

27 March 2026

Page 2 of 3

Risk num­ber	Budget area	Descrip­tion of risk	Stra­tegic Risk Register ref­er­ence	Impacts and con­sid­er­a­tions	Budget alloc­a­tion 26⁄27 £’000
2	Staff costs	Staff costs have been mod­elled at £6.45 mil­lion for the year, based on the nego­ti­ated and recently amended three-year pay deal togeth­er with a full com­ple­ment of staff.	14 — Flex­ib­il­ity of work­force to respond to changes in oper­a­tion­al scale.	The three-year staff pay set­tle­ment and agreed addi­tion to that set­tle­ment reflect­ing infla­tion and oth­er nation­al pay con­di­tions in 2025⁄26 provides sig­ni­fic­ant mit­ig­a­tion against any risks for 2026⁄27 on staff­ing budgets.
3	Vacancy sav­ings	Vacancy sav­ings become avail­able if recruit­ment to vacant posts is delayed, either by the Park Author­ity delib­er­ately, or because of lack of avail­ab­il­ity of suit­able can­did­ates. It is dif­fi­cult to pre­dict the value of such savings.	7 — explores the impact of staff costs on the budget; the risk is noted as man­aged, such that its risk score is now equal to the tar­get score based on risk appetite.	Vacancy sav­ings and recruit­ment delays have been estim­ated at 3% of staff costs – in line with that provided in the pri­or year. Levels of vacan­cies are by their nature uncer­tain and at risk of vari­ation. Cur­rent trends of declin­ing vacan­cies in employ­ment mar­ket may impact level of vacancy sav­ings secured.	197
4	Run­ning costs	Infla­tion­ary pres­sures, tech­no­lo­gic­al improve­ments and an increased staff cohort com­bine to present a chal­lenge for cost management.	1 — Authority’s abil­ity to fund deliv­ery depend­ent on fund­ing set­tle­ment from SG.	Infla­tion­ary increase of 3% has been applied to ongo­ing run­ning costs. Likely addi­tion­al cost is circa £10,000 per 1% increase in the infla­tion rate.	30

Form­al Board Paper 2 Annex 3

27 March 2026

Page 3 of 3

Risk num­ber	Budget area	Descrip­tion of risk	Stra­tegic Risk Register ref­er­ence	Impacts and con­sid­er­a­tions	Budget alloc­a­tion 26⁄27 £’000
		Upward infla­tion­ary pres­sures from cur­rent world events are likely to put pres­sure on run­ning costs budgets, par­tic­u­larly for the start of the com­ing fin­an­cial year.