Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 1 of 11

For inform­a­tion

Title: Nation­al Plan­ning Improve­ment Frame­work – Improve­ment Action Plan Pro­gress Update

Pre­pared by: Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning and Chief Plan­ning Officer

Pur­pose

This paper provides an update on pro­gress with deliv­er­ing the Park Authority’s Nation­al Plan­ning Improve­ment Frame­work (NPIF) Improve­ment Action Plan.

Recom­mend­a­tion

The Com­mit­tee is asked to:

α) Note the Park Authority’s pro­gress in deliv­er­ing our Nation­al Plan­ning Improve­ment Frame­work Improve­ment Action Plan.

Back­ground and stra­tegic context

1. The Nation­al Plan­ning Improve­ment Frame­work (NPIF) is a new approach to sup­port the improve­ment of plan­ning author­it­ies. It was intro­duced in response to the Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2019, which sets out that plan­ning author­it­ies are to pre­pare a report on their per­form­ance annu­ally. It replaces the former, vol­un­tary Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work (PPF) report­ing process.

2. The NPIF pro­cess is led by the Nation­al Plan­ning Improve­ment team, who sit with­in the Scot­tish Government’s Improve­ment Ser­vice. The NPIF report­ing pro­cess was intro­duced in a phased man­ner from 2024, with the Park Author­ity form­ing part of the third cohort of plan­ning author­it­ies to imple­ment it in 2025.

3. Under the NPIF pro­cess, plan­ning author­it­ies under­take a self-assess­ment to determ­ine how they are per­form­ing against 12 key attrib­utes. The 12 attrib­utes are out­lined in Fig­ure 1 and are grouped into five themes which incor­por­ate the inputs, pro­cesses and out­comes of the plan­ning service.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 2 of 11

Fig­ure 1: 12 attrib­utes of a high per­form­ing plan­ning authority

Inputs	Pro­cesses	Out­comes
PEOPLE	CUL­TURE	TOOLS	ENGAGE	PLACE
Has suf­fi­cient resources and skills to max­im­ise productivity	Has embed­ded con­tinu­ous improvement	Has a robust policy and evid­ence base	Has good cus­tom­er care	Sup­ports the deliv­ery of sus­tain­able, live­able and pro­duct­ive places
Has a val­ued and sup­por­ted workforce	Has sound governance	Makes best use of data and digit­al technology	Has effect­ive engage­ment & col­lab­or­a­tion with stake­hold­ers & communities	Sup­ports the deliv­ery of con­sen­ted development
Has effect­ive leadership	Has effect­ive decision-mak­ing processes

1. Hav­ing under­taken the self-assess­ment, each plan­ning author­ity then pro­duces an Improve­ment Action Plan. This is sub­ject to peer review by a part­ner loc­al author­ity and through a peer col­lab­or­at­ive review work­shop com­pris­ing rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Improve­ment Ser­vice and stake­hold­ers / cus­tom­ers of the plan­ning ser­vice. Mem­bers will recall that the Park Authority’s NPIF self-assess­ment and draft Improve­ment Action Plan was dis­cussed with Plan­ning Com­mit­tee on 25 April 2025. The final­ised Improve­ment Action Plan was pub­lished there­after in early May 2025. It con­tains 14 spe­cif­ic improve­ment actions.

2. Fol­low­ing pub­lic­a­tion of their Improve­ment Action Plan, plan­ning author­it­ies are required to provide the Improve­ment Ser­vice with annu­al pro­gress updates on their imple­ment­a­tion and deliv­ery of the iden­ti­fied improve­ment actions. Pro­gress updates are provided via an online sur­vey, and the Improve­ment Ser­vice use the inform­a­tion sup­plied to pro­duce an Improve­ment Action Pro­gress Update report for each plan­ning author­ity (using a stand­ard­ised tem­plate). The update reports are then pub­lished on the Improve­ment Service’s web­site and copied to Scot­tish Min­is­ters as well as the Chief Exec­ut­ive of each plan­ning authority.

3. Officers provided an ini­tial update to the Improve­ment Ser­vice in Septem­ber 2025 as required, although giv­en the lim­ited time that had passed fol­low­ing publication

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 3 of 11

of the Improve­ment Action Plan it con­tained lim­ited detail in terms of pro­gress. This paper provides Com­mit­tee Mem­bers with inform­a­tion on the Park Authority’s first sub­stant­ive pro­gress update since our Improve­ment Action Plan was finalised.

Pro­gress in deliv­er­ing improve­ment actions

1. Table 1 below shows pro­gress against each of the 14 improve­ment actions out­lined in our Improve­ment Action Plan.

Table 1: Sum­mary of pro­gress against improve­ment actions

Improve­ment Action	Status	Com­ment­ary
Action 1 – Work with the HR team in their update of the cur­rent Work­force Man­age­ment Strategy to con­sider and review the spe­cif­ic chal­lenges around recruit­ment to the plan­ning ser­vice, and devel­op fur­ther meas­ures to address this with­in the con­text of cur­rent recruit­ment constraints.	Com­plete	Work with the HR team on review­ing and updat­ing the Work­force Man­age­ment Strategy is com­plete. It builds on the recent pos­it­ive steps to address recruit­ment chal­lenges with­in the plan­ning ser­vice and the suc­cess of recent recruit­ment exper­i­ences, includ­ing recruit­ing Gradu­ate Plan­ners on a career-grade basis to help with suc­ces­sion plan­ning and grow­ing in-house pro­fes­sion­al expertise.
Action 2 – Mon­it­or and review the effect­ive­ness of the Gradu­ate Plan­ner posts as part of the ​‘grow your own’ approach to address­ing plan­ning recruit­ment challenges.	Com­plete	Ini­tial mon­it­or­ing and review of the effect­ive­ness of the Gradu­ate Plan­ner posts has been under­taken and has demon­strated the sig­ni­fic­ant bene­fits of this approach. Since tak­ing up their pos­i­tions in early 2025, both post hold­ers have been giv­en the oppor­tun­ity to work across plan­ning policy and devel­op­ment man­age­ment. As well as help­ing to devel­op a broad range of skills and exper­i­ence early in their plan­ning careers, this has provided flex­ib­il­ity to assign the post hold­ers to dif­fer­ent tasks across the plan­ning ser­vice in response to chan­ging work­load pressures.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 4 of 11

Improve­ment Action	Status	Com­ment­ary
		For example, both Gradu­ate Plan­ners were ini­tially assigned to the policy team, and this helped to sig­ni­fic­antly accel­er­ate pro­duc­tion of the Park Authority’s Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Evid­ence Report. They are now increas­ingly help­ing with devel­op­ment man­age­ment case­work in response to spikes in work­load in that part of the plan­ning service.
Action 3 – Carry out a skills audit with­in the plan­ning team, rel­at­ive to the new expect­a­tions and require­ments in NPF4, to identi­fy gaps in know­ledge and inform spe­cif­ic train­ing pro­grammes, and to identi­fy any areas where addi­tion­al extern­al sup­port may be required.	Com­pleted in 2025	A skills audit was under­taken across the wider plan­ning ser­vice to identi­fy gaps in know­ledge rel­at­ive to the new expect­a­tions and require­ments of NPF4. This iden­ti­fied a num­ber of top­ic areas where it was con­sidered that train­ing was required for all team mem­bers. These top­ic areas included biod­iversity and eco­logy, car­bon lit­er­acy and whole life car­bon emis­sions, and com­munity wealth build­ing. Train­ing ses­sions were planned and delivered to address these areas.
Action 4 – Under­take an annu­al review of pro­jects to identi­fy poten­tial can­did­ate sub­mis­sions for rel­ev­ant award schemes to achieve wider recog­ni­tion of the high-qual­ity work under­taken by the plan­ning service.	In pro­gress	Pro­gress against this action: Ini­tial reviews have been under­taken to identi­fy poten­tial can­did­ate sub­mis­sions for rel­ev­ant award schemes. A range of high-qual­ity devel­op­ment pro­pos­als have been gran­ted plan­ning per­mis­sion by the Nation­al Park Author­ity recently. These include: sig­ni­fic­ant hous­ing and afford­able hous­ing pro­jects, loc­ally import­ant eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment pro­pos­als, enhanced facil­it­ies and infra­struc­ture for vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park, com­munity led flood pro­tec­tion meas­ures, and river res­tor­a­tion schemes aimed at deliv­er­ing nature-based solu­tions to enhance biod­iversity and increase nat­ur­al flood resi­li­ence. Innov­at­ive work has also been under­taken dur­ing the early stages of pre­par­ing our new

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 5 of 11

Improve­ment Action	Status	Com­ment­ary
		Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, includ­ing devel­op­ing gami­fic­a­tion tech­niques in part­ner­ship with research­ers at the Uni­ver­sity of Edin­burgh to increase pub­lic engage­ment. We will aim to sub­mit applic­a­tions to rel­ev­ant awards schemes in the com­ing months with a view to achiev­ing wider recog­ni­tion of this high-qual­ity work. The fol­low­ing next steps are pro­posed: Sub­mit applic­a­tions to rel­ev­ant schemes such as the RTPI Scot­land Awards for Plan­ning Excel­lence over the com­ing months.
Action 5 – Con­tin­ue to plan and deliv­er a pro­gramme of Mem­ber train­ing, in agree­ment with the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener of the Plan­ning Committee.	Com­plete	We have an ongo­ing pro­gramme of Mem­ber train­ing, which has been planned and delivered through­out the NPIF mon­it­or­ing peri­od in agree­ment with the Con­vener and Deputy Con­vener of the Park Authority’s Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. This year, Mem­ber train­ing has been delivered on developer oblig­a­tions, and intro­duct­ory plan­ning train­ing is sched­uled for one new Board Mem­ber later this Autumn. The ongo­ing train­ing pro­gramme ensures Mem­bers have a detailed aware­ness of up-to-date plan­ning issues, con­trib­ut­ing to our sound gov­ernance and decision-mak­ing processes.
Action 6 – Work­ing in con­junc­tion with col­leagues at Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Nation­al Park Author­ity, com­plete the migra­tion of our IDOX sys­tem to the cloud to ensure con­sist­ency and resi­li­ence of ser­vice provision.	Com­pleted in 2025	The migra­tion pro­cess was com­pleted suc­cess­fully in Octo­ber 2025. Whilst it required our pub­lic ePlan­ning and intern­al IT sys­tems to be off­line for around 10 days, a robust busi­ness con­tinu­ity plan was put in place the man­age the short-term implic­a­tions of this. The migra­tion pro­cess ensures long term con­sist­ency and resi­li­ence with­in our IDOX plan­ning systems.
Action 7 — Liaise with Scottish	In pro­gress	Pro­gress against this action:

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 6 of 11

Improve­ment Action	Status	Com­ment­ary
Gov­ern­ment to explore wheth­er the e‑Development Portal could be adap­ted to accept addi­tion­al sup­port­ing inform­a­tion post call-in.		Ini­tial dis­cus­sions have taken place with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment with a view to ensur­ing that the Park Authority’s unique call-in arrange­ments and our asso­ci­ated user require­ments are fully integ­rated into the new ​‘Apply’ ser­vice, which is being developed to replace the cur­rent e‑Development sys­tem. The fol­low­ing next steps are pro­posed: Con­tin­ue to work along­side the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment team tasked with deliv­er­ing the Apply ser­vice to ensure it is designed and built to meet the Park Authority’s unique user require­ments and reflects our spe­cif­ic call-in arrangements.
Action 8 – Imple­ment a pro­ject to ensure effect­ive mon­it­or­ing of com­pli­ance with plan­ning per­mis­sions for major devel­op­ments in line with Sec­tion 44 of the Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2019.	Com­plete	A mon­it­or­ing pro­cess for major plan­ning per­mis­sions has been developed and has been integ­rated into our Plan­ning Enforce­ment Charter, which was updated in Decem­ber 2025. The pro­cess explains that the Plan­ning Officer hand­ling a major plan­ning applic­a­tion will ini­tially receive, dis­charge and mon­it­or con­di­tions pri­or to and post devel­op­ment, and is the main point of con­tact for the devel­op­ment. How­ever, if the Plan­ning Officer is unable to resolve issues sur­round­ing con­di­tions with­in a reas­on­able times­cale, or if devel­op­ment com­mences before all rel­ev­ant pre-com­mence­ment con­di­tions have been dis­charged, the plan­ning officer will advise the developer that the mat­ter is being referred to the Park Authority’s Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer for fur­ther action. The Plan­ning Officer will then noti­fy the Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer, and an enforce­ment case will be cre­ated and invest­ig­ated. If there are spe­cif­ic con­di­tions that the Plan­ning Officer con­siders require reg­u­lar mon­it­or­ing dur­ing devel­op­ment (eg land­scap­ing works, envir­on­ment­al or biod­iversity mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures etc), the Plan­ning Officer will noti­fy the

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 7 of 11

Improve­ment Action	Status	Com­ment­ary
		Mon­it­or­ing and Enforce­ment Officer, and the devel­op­ment will be mon­itored at reg­u­lar inter­vals. This may involve site vis­its under­taken with spe­cial­ist con­sul­tees (eg in land­scape, nat­ur­al her­it­age etc) as well as con­sult­ing the Plan­ning Officer if there are any sig­ni­fic­ant changes from the approved draw­ings. This ensures com­pli­ance with the require­ments of Sec­tion 44 of the Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 2019 with respect to major plan­ning applic­a­tions. How­ever, the pro­cess is also now being applied to all plan­ning per­mis­sions that have been gran­ted by the Nation­al Park Author­ity, as all plan­ning applic­a­tions called in and determ­ined by the Park Author­ity are con­sidered to raise issues of sig­ni­fic­ance to the over­all aims of the Nation­al Park.
Action 9 – Recon­vene the Developers’ For­um, in an updated format, to provide a more effect­ive mech­an­ism for reg­u­lar engage­ment with devel­op­ment industry rep­res­ent­at­ives to identi­fy and address com­mon issues and to tar­get fur­ther ser­vice improvements.	Com­pleted in 2025	The Developers’ For­um was recon­vened at a meet­ing in mid-August 2025. This ini­tial meet­ing of the For­um focused on deliv­ery and imple­ment­a­tion of the policies in our exist­ing Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. The ses­sion provided developers, plan­ning agents and oth­er key stake­hold­ers with an oppor­tun­ity to share their exper­i­ences of the way in which exist­ing policies are oper­at­ing in prac­tice and to make com­ments on their over­all effect­ive­ness in deliv­er­ing plan out­comes. This feed­back will be used as an import­ant part of the evid­ence base for our new Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan. In par­tic­u­lar, it will help to identi­fy which policies are work­ing well and which might need to be updated and, sig­ni­fic­antly, to help identi­fy areas and top­ics for which loc­ally-spe­cif­ic policies will be required to sup­ple­ment the nation­al suite of plan­ning policies set out in NPF4. The ini­tial ses­sion was also used to seek feed­back on the range of top­ics that mem­bers would like to cov­er at future For­um meetings.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 8 of 11

Improve­ment Action	Status	Com­ment­ary
		This feed­back will dir­ectly influ­ence future meet­ing con­tent. Pro­gress against this action:
Action 10 – Recon­vene the Plan­ning Rep­res­ent­at­ives Net­work, in an updated format, to provide a more effect­ive mech­an­ism for reg­u­lar engage­ment with com­munity coun­cil rep­res­ent­at­ives to identi­fy and address com­mon issues and tar­get fur­ther ser­vice improve­ments, and explore oth­er meth­ods for increas­ing plan­ning know­ledge and engage­ment at the loc­al com­munity level.	In pro­gress	Rep­res­ent­at­ives of the plan­ning team are attend­ing a Com­munit­ies Gath­er­ing Event, organ­ised by the Park Author­ity, in Octo­ber 2026. The event is aimed at rep­res­ent­at­ives of Com­munity Coun­cils and oth­er com­munity groups with­in the Nation­al Park. Dur­ing the event, the plan­ning team will be host­ing a work­shop ses­sion to explain how the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan is pro­duced and how plan­ning applic­a­tions are determ­ined, and to high­light oppor­tun­it­ies for com­munity groups to engage in both pro­cesses. As part of the ses­sion, we will explore with attendees what oth­er meth­ods we could use in the future to increase plan­ning know­ledge and sup­port engage­ment at the loc­al com­munity level. The fol­low­ing next steps are pro­posed: Host a plan­ning work­shop ses­sion at the Cairngorms Com­munity Gath­er­ing event in Octo­ber 2026.
Action 11 – Recon­vene reg­u­lar plan­ning pro­tocol meet­ings with rel­ev­ant loc­al author­ity col­leagues, in an updated format, to identi­fy and address com­mon issues and to tar­get fur­ther ser­vice improvements.	In Pro­gress	Pro­gress against this action: Officers of the Park Author­ity have con­tac­ted rel­ev­ant loc­al author­ity col­leagues with a view to recon­ven­ing the former plan­ning pro­tocol group, and it is anti­cip­ated that an ini­tial meet­ing will be held in Winter 2026. The ini­tial meet­ing will focus on a review of the cur­rent pro­tocol agree­ment to ensure it reflects changes in nation­al plan­ning legis­la­tion and guid­ance since its pre­vi­ous review. In the mean­time, a minor change to exist­ing pro­tocol arrange­ments in rela­tion to the tim­ing of recov­ery of plan­ning fees for the applications

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 9 of 11

Improve­ment Action	Status	Com­ment­ary
		that the Park Author­ity calls-in for determ­in­a­tion has been brought into effect. This aligns fee recov­ery with the fin­an­cial year in order to make account­ing pro­cesses more straight­for­ward for both the Park Author­ity and our loc­al author­ity col­leagues. The fol­low­ing next steps are pro­posed: Hold an ini­tial meet­ing of the plan­ning pro­tocol group in Winter 2026.
Action 12 – Over­haul the plan­ning web pages as part of a wider redevel­op­ment of the Park Authority’s web­site to ensure great­er use of access­ible lan­guage, clear­er advice and guid­ance, and enhanced vis­ib­il­ity of plan­ning content.	Com­pleted in 2025	The Nation­al Park Authority’s web­site has been com­pletely over­hauled, with a new ver­sion of the web­site being launched in June 2025. As part of this pro­cess, our plan­ning web pages have been over­hauled and stream­lined to provide more access­ible and user-friendly plan­ning advice and con­tent. Fur­ther updates to exist­ing plan­ning advice notes and guid­ance doc­u­ments are now planned for the near future.
Action 13 – Carry out a review of s75 pro­cesses and pro­ced­ures to include great­er align­ment with loc­al author­ity developer oblig­a­tions teams and rel­ev­ant ser­vices, and imple­ment pro­cesses for enhanced mon­it­or­ing of s75 agree­ments post approval.	Com­plete	As part of the pre­par­a­tion of the Evid­ence Report for our new Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, we have engaged with key stake­hold­ers to devel­op a more detailed evid­ence base on the con­di­tion and capa­city of exist­ing infra­struc­ture with­in the Nation­al Park (par­tic­u­larly in rela­tion to schools and health­care facil­it­ies). This improves our under­stand­ing of the cir­cum­stances in which developer oblig­a­tions are likely to be required in the future. As well as sup­port­ing pre­par­a­tion of the new Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, this also sim­pli­fies and stream­lines the pro­cess of secur­ing such oblig­a­tions through the devel­op­ment man­age­ment pro­cess. The improved inform­a­tion on likely developer oblig­a­tion require­ments has also been incor­por­ated into the Deliv­ery Pro­gramme for our cur­rent Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, which increases clar­ity for pro­spect­ive applic­ants and enables

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 10 of 11

Improve­ment Action	Status	Com­ment­ary
		them to bet­ter under­stand expect­a­tions from an early stage. Intern­al pro­cesses have also been updated to ensure enhanced and more effect­ive mon­it­or­ing of the s75 agree­ments entered into by the Nation­al Park Author­ity. This respons­ib­il­ity is now assigned to a spe­cif­ic officer with­in the team, where­as it was pre­vi­ously the respons­ib­il­ity of indi­vidu­al case officers. As a res­ult, there is now a more con­sist­ent and pro­act­ive approach to mon­it­or­ing, help­ing to ensure that exist­ing s75 oblig­a­tions are sat­is­fied with­in agreed timescales.
Action 14 – Devel­op and imple­ment stand­ard plan­ning con­di­tions to ensure con­sist­ency where pos­sible across all decisions, stream­line decision mak­ing, and to enable easi­er and more effect­ive mon­it­or­ing and enforcement.	Com­pleted in 2025	A suite of stand­ard plan­ning con­di­tions has been imple­men­ted. As anti­cip­ated, this is help­ing to ensure con­sist­ency and increase effi­ciency in decision mak­ing. It is also expec­ted to enable easi­er and more effect­ive mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment in the future — par­tic­u­larly in com­bin­a­tion with Action 8 above.

1. As can be seen from the table, the Park Author­ity has made pos­it­ive pro­gress in deliv­er­ing against the NPIF Improve­ment Action Plan. Of the 14 improve­ment actions ori­gin­ally iden­ti­fied, 10 (71.4%) are now com­plete, and 4 (28.6%) are in pro­gress. Officers will con­tin­ue to work on deliv­er­ing the actions that are not cur­rently com­plete and remain com­mit­ted to learn­ing from exper­i­ence, work­ing col­lab­or­at­ively with our part­ners, and deliv­er­ing a high-qual­ity plan­ning ser­vice that meets the needs and expect­a­tions of our ser­vice users and communities.

Next steps

1. Details of the Park Authority’s pro­gress in deliv­er­ing our Improve­ment Action Plan (as out­lined in Table 1 above) will be provided to the Improve­ment Ser­vice via their online sur­vey. The Improve­ment Ser­vice will then use this inform­a­tion to produce

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Item 7 Plan­ning Committee

9 Octo­ber 2026

Page 11 of 11

an Improve­ment Action Pro­gress Update Report, which will be pub­lished on their web­site and copied to Scot­tish Min­is­ters and the Park Authority’s Chief Executive.

1. Hav­ing worked on deliv­er­ing the Improve­ment Action Plan dur­ing the lat­ter half of 2025 and through­out 2026, the NPIF cycle will begin again in 2027 with an updated self-assess­ment and the iden­ti­fic­a­tion of a new Improve­ment Action Plan.

Dav­id Berry

28 Septem­ber 2026

davidberry@​cairngorms.​co.​uk