For dis­cus­sion

Title: Budget monitoring

Pre­pared by: Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Operations

Pur­pose

This paper sets out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of Decem­ber — month nine of the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ fin­an­cial year.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Resources Com­mit­tee is asked to: a. Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.

Over­view

1. Annex 1 provides a sum­mary of expendit­ure against the budget.
2. A phased budget has been pre­pared based on the dis­tri­bu­tion of costs across the pre­vi­ous year. The par­tic­u­lar dis­tri­bu­tion of spend across each month will depend on the nature of the pro­jects to be delivered dur­ing that year. Nev­er­the­less, last year’s spend pro­file provides a bench­mark against which to com­pare this year’s performance.
3. At the end of the third quarter, 53% of the annu­al budget (agreed by the Board in March and updated for late fund­ing awards) had been spent.

Budget changes

1. The annu­al Spring Budget Review (SBR) was car­ried out by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) in Novem­ber 2025. The Park Author­ity returned £360,000 of fund­ing awar­ded for peat­land res­tor­a­tion but not required to meet this year’s deliv­ery targets.

Staff and Board

1. Payroll costs incurred to the end of Decem­ber 2025 are 75% of the total annu­al budget; this is a reas­on­able pos­i­tion at the end of the third quarter.
2. The annu­al pay award for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ was re-opened with SG, and an addi­tion­al cost of liv­ing rise of 1% agreed and imple­men­ted from 01 Janu­ary 2026. The final out­turn for payroll at 31 March 2026 is expec­ted to be close to £6.2million, against the full year budget of £6.25 million.

Pro­gramme management

1. Work is under­way on the design of the Aviemore and Boat of Garten Act­ive Com­munit­ies pro­jects (Roy­al Insti­tute of Brit­ish Archi­tects (RIBA) stage three). To date, costs of £217,000 have been invoiced against agreed costs of £620,000 for this fin­an­cial year.
2. It is anti­cip­ated that not all work ori­gin­ally planned will be com­pleted by 31 March, and the Trans­port Team is in dis­cus­sion with Mott Mac­don­ald and Trans­port Scot­land to tail­or deliv­ery in a way that makes best use of the fund­ing avail­able for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.
3. The second claim of the year to the Nation­al Lot­tery in respect of the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) pro­ject was made in late Decem­ber 2025 and funds were received to the Authority’s bank account in mid-Janu­ary 2026.
4. Our annu­al com­mit­ment of £450,000 to C2030 has not been fully acknow­ledged in the fig­ures. The advance pay­ment of £300,000 made at the end of ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅, means that we are obliged to con­trib­ute only a fur­ther £150,000, although it seems likely that funds will allow us to make the full com­mit­ment. A con­tri­bu­tion of £150,000 has been dis­closed as a com­mit­ment against the cor­por­ate budget with­in the oper­a­tion­al plan in the fig­ures to 22 Janu­ary 2026.

Oper­a­tion­al plan

1. Annex 2 provides a view of expendit­ure on deliv­ery of the Oper­a­tion­al Plan at 22 Janu­ary 2026, includ­ing the value of com­mit­ted spend. The total spent and com­mit­ted at this date was just under £6 mil­lion, rep­res­ent­ing 72.5% of the Oper­a­tion­al Plan budget.
2. The three single budget lines with greatest uncom­mit­ted spend were those for Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion, Nature Res­tor­a­tion and Con­tri­bu­tion to Pro­grammes (C2030). Best inform­a­tion to date is that these funds will be used by 31 March.
3. Out­turn to 31 March 2026 is expec­ted to be close to budget. As noted, flex­ib­il­ity with the con­tri­bu­tion to C2030 provides wel­come flex­ib­il­ity in achiev­ing a bal­anced outturn.

Run­ning costs

1. While run­ning costs look low against the pro­filed budget, the fore­cast out­turn remains close to budget.

Sum­mary

1. The key points arising from the review of the fin­an­cial pos­i­tion at the end of Decem­ber 2025 are: a. The budget agreed by the Board in March 2025 has now been adjus­ted after the SG’s Spring Budget Review to hand back £360,000 of fund­ing not required to meet peat­land res­tor­a­tion tar­gets for the year. b. Work con­tin­ues on the design for the Act­ive Com­munit­ies trans­port pro­jects (RIBA three) and we are mon­it­or­ing pro­gress closely as we near 31 March. c. Run­ning costs and oper­a­tion­al plan com­mit­ments are fore­cast to res­ult in an out­turn close to budget, we have flex­ib­il­ity to man­age the out­turn through the con­tri­bu­tion to C2030, of which £300,000 was advanced last year.

Louise Allen louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk 29 Janu­ary 2026