Formal Board Paper 2 - C2030 Communities Fund - risk register

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 June 2026 Page 1 of 16

For dis­cus­sion

Title: Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund – risk register Pre­pared by: Eilidh Todd, Com­munit­ies and Devel­op­ment Man­ager, Brid­get Trus­sell, Com­munity Grants Man­ager, Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services

Pur­pose

To update board mem­bers on the pro­gress of a £1 mil­lion Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) Com­munit­ies Fund, which will be co-designed by a wide range of the com­munit­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, and to review the pro­ject risk register as the pan­el nears the end of the design phase, hav­ing met for the first time at the end of March.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to: α) Review the risk register, identi­fy any gaps and agree the over­all approach to this piece of work.

Stra­tegic context

1. The devel­op­ment of a com­munity-man­aged cli­mate grant scheme was one of 20 core pro­jects signed off as part of the wider C2030 pro­gramme. Spe­cific­ally, the pro­ject aims to ​“give com­munit­ies the power to co-design, fund and deliv­er pro­jects that build resi­li­ence and mit­ig­ate cli­mate impacts”.

2. The C2030 com­munit­ies fund is also built around the three core prin­ciples set out in the C2030 Activ­ity Plan. Spe­cific­ally, it pri­or­it­ises: a) Co-design – the fund is designed with, not for, our tar­get audi­ences and they will feel a real sense of own­er­ship over the out­comes. b) Widen­ing par­ti­cip­a­tion – we have been pro­act­ive in ensur­ing that every­one has a chance to shape the C2030 com­munit­ies fund, irre­spect­ive of their back­ground or circumstances.

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 June 2026 Page 2 of 16

c) **Working in partnership** – we will seek advice and expertise from a range of partners with intimate knowledge of our target audiences, from the design of the fund itself to its wider promotion.

1. In addi­tion to the above C2030 out­comes, the com­munit­ies fund also deliv­ers on a num­ber of Part­ner­ship Plan object­ives, includ­ing: α) A1 — net zero b) B2 — well­being eco­nomy c) B5 — com­munity assets and land d) B6 — new approaches to cit­izen par­ti­cip­a­tion e) B7 – com­munity-led plan­ning and devel­op­ment f) B10 – a Park for All g) C3 – hous­ing and com­munity bene­fit h) C4 – vil­lages and town centres i) C10 – cul­tur­al heritage.

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 C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund.

2. At the form­al board on 28 Novem­ber 2025, the Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment updated on pro­ject pro­gress so far and presen­ted a risk register for dis­cus­sion and approv­al. This was sub­sequently updated by the Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager at form­al board on 27 March 2026.

3. The C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund will link with oth­er C2030 pro­jects to give com­munit­ies the power to define, design, fund and deliv­er pro­jects that help achieve the aims of C2030, 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.

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 June 2026 Page 3 of 16

1. 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 has been designed by a pan­el of 18 rep­res­ent­at­ives who live in – or have a close con­nec­tion to – the Nation­al Park.

2. At the time of writ­ing, the pan­el have so far met sev­en times, with a mix­ture of online and off­line meet­ings. Two meet­ings are to be com­pleted on 17 June and 24 June. The 24 June meet­ing is an addi­tion­al meet­ing, added for final con­sid­er­a­tions of any design issues high­lighted to or by the Pan­el as an ele­ment of risk mit­ig­a­tion to help ensure a viable end product from the design phase.

3. Through­out the pro­cess, our com­mu­nic­a­tions have focussed on telling the story of the pan­el through their own words, rather than high­light­ing spe­cif­ic decisions. This has included a vari­ous social media videos fea­tur­ing inter­views with pan­el mem­bers, and a blog piece from the Park Author­ity includ­ing pan­el mem­ber quotes.

Stra­tegic Risk Management

1. In tak­ing for­ward the com­munity grants fund pro­ject with­in the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme, the Park Author­ity has adop­ted an ​‘open’ risk appet­ite to this work. This recog­nises the neces­sary open approach to innov­a­tion and tri­al­ling new forms of cit­izen par­ti­cip­a­tion and par­ti­cip­at­ive demo­cracy in devel­op­ing and deliv­er­ing a new com­munity led grant fund. As an activ­ity with ​‘open’ risk appet­ite, the Park Author­ity is will­ing to take risk in pur­suit of object­ives, with­in limits.

2. The pro­ject risk register estab­lishes the risk lim­its iden­ti­fied for the activ­ity and presents the actions designed to mit­ig­ate risk and main­tain over­all expos­ure to risks at an accept­able level.

Next Steps

1. Next steps for this piece of work across June and July include turn­ing the pan­els’ recom­mend­a­tions into real­ity via grant design, a full com­mu­nic­a­tions launch, and anim­a­tion with com­munit­ies to pre­pare for applic­a­tion and decision-mak­ing pro­cesses. There is also the eval­u­ation phase of the project.

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 June 2026 Page 4 of 16

1. An update on the Panel’s design work will be presen­ted to the board on 26 June fol­low­ing these Pan­el meet­ings. The pro­ject risk register, updated to reflect cur­rent risk man­age­ment status, is presen­ted in the fol­low­ing sec­tion of this paper. Where risks are noted as ​“retained”, these risk con­sid­er­a­tions will be car­ried for­ward as part of the risk man­age­ment sup­port­ing the deliv­ery phase of the project.

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 June 2026 Page 5 of 16

Risk register for the C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund

1. The fol­low­ing risk register has been developed by Park Author­ity officers, in col­lab­or­a­tion with our appoin­ted con­sult­ants Involve UK. 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. Like­li­hood and impact from the last update are included in brackets.

#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion	Com­ments
4	Vary­ing aspir­a­tions and mul­tiple dif­fer­ent pri­or­it­ies iden­ti­fied by co-design par­ti­cipants lead to inef­fect­ive or unwork­able grant criteria.	Medi­um (Medi­um)	Medi­um (Medi­um)	Size­able funds avail­able (£1 mil­lion), with plenty of oppor­tun­it­ies for a wide vari­ety of pro­jects to be fun­ded. | 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.
				Train­ing and devel­op­ment provided by Involve Found­a­tion for all par­ti­cipants in how co-design works. | The pan­el are prin­cip­ally tasked with design­ing what the fund looks like at first, rather than what spe­cif­ic pro­jects it will fund. This should help
				* 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.
				* Trans­par­ent code of con­duct agreed from the out­set for all participants.

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 June 2026 Page 6 of 16

#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion	Com­ments
					reduce dir­ect con­flicts between dif­fer­ent par­ti­cipants / priorities.
					Update: Risk man­aged to date. Final design out­come to be reviewed.
5	Poten­tial con­flict of interest for co-design pan­el­lists who may wish to apply for fund­ing themselves.	Low (Low)	Medi­um (Medi­um)	Poten­tial con­flicts of interest cap­tured at an early stage and repor­ted trans­par­ently. | 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 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 –

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 June 2026 Page 7 of 16

#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion	Com­ments
				applied and fed back to co-design panellists.	clear and trans­par­ent para­met­ers for this to take place.
					Update: Retain risk.
6	Con­fu­sion between this fund and a range of oth­er com­munity funds (includ­ing those run by the Park Author­ity / Cairngorms Trust).	Medi­um (Medi­um)	Medi­um (Medi­um)	New ded­ic­ated fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies sec­tion with­in the Nation­al Park web­site, bring­ing all funds togeth­er in one place. | How the fund sits along­side oth­ers in the land­scape – and wheth­er we will accept these as match fund­ing for C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund pro­jects – has been a key con­sid­er­a­tion for the co-design pan­el and will be worked into the com­mu­nic­a­tions plan for the fund­ing launch.
				* 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

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 June 2026 Page 8 of 16

#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion	Com­ments
				advant­age­ous here in terms of coordin­at­ing tim­ings etc with oth­er funds.	* 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.
				* Park Author­ity and Cairngorms Trust rep­res­ent­at­ives will brief the co-design pan­el on oth­er funds avail­able and their criteria.
					Update: Retain risk.
7	Poten­tial for pan­el to be cri­ti­cised for the decisions they make / if fun­ded pro­jects do not go accord­ing to plan.	Medi­um (Medi­um)	High (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. | 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
				* 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.

Form­al Board Paper 2 26 June 2026 Page 9 of 16