Formal Board Paper 3 - C2030 Communities Fund - risk register

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 3 27 March 2026 Page 1 of 16

For decision

Title: Cairngorms 2030 Com­munit­ies Fund – risk register Pre­pared by: Eilidh Todd, Com­munit­ies and Devel­op­ment Man­ager Dav­id Camer­on, 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 before the 18-per­son pan­el meets for the first time at the end of March.

Recom­mend­a­tions

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

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 3 27 March 2026 Page 2 of 16

1. In addi­tion to the above C2030 out­comes, the com­munit­ies fund also deliv­ers on a num­ber of Part­ner­ship Plan object­ives, includ­ing A1 – net zero, B2 – well­being eco­nomy, B5 – com­munity assets and land, B6 – new approaches to cit­izen par­ti­cip­a­tion, B7 – com­munity-led plan­ning and devel­op­ment, B10 – a Park for All, C3 – hous­ing and com­munity bene­fit, C4 – vil­lages and town centres and 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.

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.

4. 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 who live in – or have a close con­nec­tion to – the Nation­al Park.

5. Recruit­ment for pan­el mem­bers opened on 07 Janu­ary 2026 and las­ted for six weeks, clos­ing 22 Feb­ru­ary. Recruit­ment included a geo­graph­ic­ally tar­geted digit­al and video cam­paign and close work with loc­al and nation­al press with a vari­ety of inter­views, press art­icles and opin­ion pieces. A post­card sent to every res­id­en­tial prop­erty in the Nation­al Park and sur­round­ing post­codes (over 30,000 in total), and

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 3 27 March 2026 Page 3 of 16

key part­ners and large employ­ers were engaged to help spread the word about the applic­a­tion process.

1. We received expres­sions of interest from over 250 people, cov­er­ing every major town and vil­lage in the Nation­al Park and every age group, with applic­ants ran­ging from 16 to 85 years old. All sev­en of our C2030 tar­get audi­ences were well rep­res­en­ted and we had strong engage­ment from a range of under-rep­res­en­ted groups, includ­ing eth­nic minor­it­ies and dis­abled people. Just under half of applic­ants repor­ted hav­ing ​‘min­im­al’ or ​‘no pre­vi­ous con­tact’ with the Park Authority.

2. Involve are cur­rently in the pro­cess of con­firm­ing and con­tact­ing the final 18 selec­ted pan­el mem­bers. They will meet for the first time on 25 March, with sev­en ses­sions to fol­low over the com­ing few months (35 hours in total).

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 3 27 March 2026 Page 4 of 16

Risk register for the C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund

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.