Paper 2 Annex 1 Internal Audit Review Governance

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Paper 2 Annex 1 13 March 2026

Paper 2 Annex 1

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Intern­al Audit 2025 – 26

Gov­ernance Decem­ber 2025

Over­all Con­clu­sion Strong

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Table of contents

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Sec­tion	Page
1 EXEC­UT­IVE SUMMARY	2
2 BENCH­MARK­ING	17
3 DETAILED RECOMMENDATIONS	18
4 OBSER­VA­TIONS	22
5 AUDIT ARRANGEMENTS	24
6 KEY PERSONNEL	25
Appendix	Page
A GRAD­ING STRUCTURE	28
B ASSIGN­MENT PLAN	30

The mat­ters raised in this report came to our atten­tion dur­ing the course of our audit and are not neces­sar­ily a com­pre­hens­ive state­ment of all weak­nesses that exist or all improve­ments that might be made.

This report has been pre­pared solely for Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s indi­vidu­al use and should not be quoted in whole or in part without pri­or writ­ten con­sent. No respons­ib­il­ity to any third party is accep­ted as the report has not been pre­pared, and is not inten­ded, for any third party.

We emphas­ise that the respons­ib­il­ity for a sound sys­tem of intern­al con­trol rests with man­age­ment and work per­formed by intern­al audit should not be relied upon to identi­fy all sys­tem weak­nesses that may exist. Neither should intern­al audit be relied upon to identi­fy all cir­cum­stances of fraud or irreg­u­lar­ity should there be any although our audit pro­ced­ures are designed so that any mater­i­al irreg­u­lar­ity has a reas­on­able prob­ab­il­ity of dis­cov­ery. Every sound sys­tem of con­trol may not be proof against col­lus­ive fraud. Intern­al audit pro­ced­ures are designed to focus on areas that are con­sidered to be of greatest risk and significance.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Over­view

Pur­pose of review The pur­pose of this review was to assess wheth­er Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (the Organ­isa­tion) has appro­pri­ate gov­ernance arrange­ments in place and that these have been embed­ded. This review sought to provide assur­ance that the Organisation’s cor­por­ate gov­ernance arrange­ments are appro­pri­ate and rep­res­ent good practice.

This review forms part of our ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ Intern­al Audit Annu­al Plan.

Scope of review Our object­ives for this review were to assess whether:

• There is an effect­ive scheme of gov­ernance in place.
• There are appro­pri­ate mech­an­isms in place to sup­port effect­ive lead­er­ship of the Organisation.
• The rela­tion­ships and com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels in place with extern­al bod­ies sup­port an effect­ive sys­tem of governance.
• Clear respons­ib­il­it­ies and report­ing arrange­ments are estab­lished and are being followed.
• There are effect­ive scru­tiny arrange­ments in place which are being followed.
• There is a form­al meet­ing struc­ture in place.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

• The Organisation’s gov­ernance arrange­ments meet the frame­work document(s) agreed between CNPA and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, guided by the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000.

Our approach to this assign­ment took the form of dis­cus­sion with rel­ev­ant staff, review of doc­u­ment­a­tion and where appro­pri­ate sample testing.

Lim­it­a­tion of scope

There was no lim­it­a­tion of scope.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Back­ground

The Organ­isa­tion has a clear scheme of gov­ernance in place. The Organ­isa­tion is gov­erned by the Board of Mem­bers (Board), with Board activ­ity, roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies set out in the Organisation’s Frame­work agree­ment with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, and the Board’s Stand­ing Orders. The Board meets four times per year, with meet­ings led by the Con­vener. The Board is sup­por­ted in its oper­a­tion by five Com­mit­tees, with details of each Com­mit­tee set out below:

• The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee con­sists of all 19 Board mem­bers. Its activ­ity is primar­ily focused to con­sider plan­ning applic­a­tions sub­mit­ted to the Organ­isa­tion, as well as stra­tegic over­sight and deliv­ery of the loc­al deliv­ery plan.
• The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee over­see the intern­al and extern­al audit pro­cesses and have respons­ib­il­ity for the devel­op­ment and over­sight of the intern­al con­trol sys­tems. Addi­tion­ally, the Com­mit­tee sup­ports the Organ­isa­tion through over­sight of risk man­age­ment arrangements.
• The Resources Com­mit­tee con­siders the effect­ive deploy­ment of both the Organ­isa­tions’ fin­an­cial and staff­ing resources in order to achieve best value for money.
• The Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee main­tains over­sight of the Organisation’s gov­ernance and gov­ernance arrange­ments to ensure its effect­ive­ness, as well as work­ing to sup­port the Convener.
• The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee meets to dis­cuss the Organisation’s per­form­ance, and to main­tain over­sight of the per­form­ance of each of the Organisation’s pro­jects. They help to ensure that the Organ­isa­tion is achiev­ing its objectives.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Gov­ernance Struc­ture Mem­ber­ship make-up

The mem­ber­ship com­pos­i­tion, and required meet­ing quor­um, of the Organisation’s Board and sup­port­ing Com­mit­tees is as follows:

Gov­ernance Group	Mem­ber­ship	Meet­ing Quorum
Board of Members	19	10
Plan­ning	19	10
Audit & Risk	6	4
Resources	6	4
Gov­ernance	6	4
Per­form­ance	6	4

Code of Conduct

Board Mem­bers are required to agree to the Code of Con­duct, which sets out the expec­ted eth­ics and beha­viours of an effect­ive Board mem­ber. This aligns Board mem­ber beha­viours with the expect­a­tions set by the Organisation.

We selec­ted a sample of five Board Mem­bers and sought to con­firm that they had evid­enced their agree­ment to the Code of Con­duct. In all cases, we con­firm that the Board Mem­ber had either signed a copy of the Code or had con­firmed their agree­ment via email.

Apprais­al and Self-Assessment

Board mem­ber per­form­ance apprais­als take place annu­ally. These are con­duc­ted by the Con­vener, who will arrange face-to-face dis­cus­sion with each Board mem­ber. Apprais­als fol­low a stand­ard format, whereby the Board mem­ber and the Con­vener will dis­cuss their per­form­ance against the four core Board mem­ber object­ives. Board mem­bers com­plete their sec­tion of the apprais­al tem­plate before the meet­ing, using this as a start­ing point of dis­cus­sion with the Con­vener. Fol­low­ing the meet­ing, the Con­vener will add their com­ments based on their per­spect­ive of the Board member’s per­form­ance and the dis­cus­sion held.

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We selec­ted a sample of five Board mem­bers and sought evid­ence to con­firm that their annu­al per­form­ance apprais­al reviews had been com­pleted for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ and for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅. We found that in all cases, the apprais­al was com­pleted with input from both the Board mem­ber and the Con­vener, with the excep­tion of one ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ apprais­al. Please see Sec­tion 4: Obser­va­tions for more details.

The Board per­forms an annu­al skills self-assess­ment review and has developed a skills mat­rix to illus­trate their pos­i­tion in Novem­ber 2025. This includes a list of 29 required skills / exper­i­ence desired by the Board, the Board’s Assess­ment (Green, Amber, Red) and a nar­rat­ive com­ment. Review of this notes the Board are in a strong over­all pos­i­tion, with 21 of the skills rated as green, five skills rated as amber, and three skills rated as red. Not­ably the three skills rated as red, illus­trat­ing sig­ni­fic­ant gaps in the Board’s skill, are as follows:

• Peat­land restoration;
• Green Fin­ance / Fin­an­cial Invest­ment man­age­ment / fin­an­cial oper­a­tions; and
• Audit & Risk management.

Dis­cus­sion with the Con­vener con­firmed that most Board mem­bers do not have sig­ni­fic­ant audit and risk back­ground. How­ever, the cur­rent Chair of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee does have sig­ni­fic­ant valu­able expert­ise. This will be lost when her min­is­teri­al term comes to an end. The Park Author­ity is focus­ing on exper­i­ence in fin­an­cial scru­tiny as a key cri­terion for the upcom­ing recruit­ment pro­cess. Please see Sec­tion 4: Obser­va­tions for more details.

Com­mu­nic­a­tion with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) Fort­nightly meet­ings are held between the Organ­isa­tion and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer (DCEO) and the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, and the Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment meet with the Organisation’s Spon­sor­ship Team at the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and the Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions occa­sion­ally join these catch­up meetings.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

In addi­tion to this, the Organ­isa­tion meets with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment form­ally on a quarterly basis. The Organ­isa­tion meets with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to provide updates on vari­ous aspects of performance/​targets. Spe­cific­ally, the Organisation’s CEO; Deputy CEO and the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices; and the Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment meet with the Spon­sor­ship Team and the Dir­ect­or Gen­er­al at the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. These meet­ings have form­al agen­das and are minuted.

Ques­tion­naire issued to the Board

We issued a ques­tion­naire to all 19 of the Organisation’s Board Mem­bers and received ten responses. The responses received were over­all pos­it­ive and are sum­mar­ised below.

How­ever, while the feed­back received from Board Mem­bers was pos­it­ive, we have raised two obser­va­tions res­ult­ing from the responses, focused on the pro­gramme of work and the Board skills apprais­al. Please refer to Sec­tion 4: Obser­va­tions for fur­ther information.

See below for Sur­vey results:

Do you feel that roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies for Board mem­bers are clearly defined?

• Yes: 100%
• No: 0%

How strongly would you rate the inform­a­tion received from Man­age­ment dur­ing Board meet­ings for decision mak­ing (1= low and 10=high).

• Rat­ings are spread across the scale, with peaks at 8 (4 respond­ents) and 10 (2 respondents).

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Do you believe that suf­fi­cient train­ing and induc­tion is provided to Board members?

• Yes: 20%
• Some­what: 80%

Is there a pro­gramme of work/​annual work plan in place for the Board that out­lines the key top­ics and decisions required per meet­ing for the fin­an­cial year?

• Yes: 40%
• No: 60%

If you are a mem­ber of a Sub-com­mit­tee — Is there an appro­pri­ate annu­al work plan in place?

• Yes: 100%
• No: 0%

Do you believe that attend­ance at meet­ings is appro­pri­ately monitored?

• Yes: 10%
• Some­what: 90%

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Is Board per­form­ance appro­pri­ately reviewed and appraised annually?

• Yes: 50%
• Some­what: 40%
• No: 10%

Were there any actions raised from the Board appraisal?

• Yes: 20%
• No: 50%
• Unsure: 20%
• No Response: 10%

As a mem­ber, have you received an indi­vidu­al appraisal?

• Yes: 90%
• No: 10%

Do you believe there to be a suf­fi­cient level of chal­lenge at Board meetings?

• Yes: 30%
• Some­what: 60%
• No: 10%

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Work Under­taken

In line with our object­ives for this review, our work under­taken was as follows:

Object­ive 1. There is an effect­ive scheme of gov­ernance in place.

• We held dis­cus­sions with the CEO, the Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices, and the Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager to gain an under­stand­ing of the cur­rent gov­ernance arrange­ments in place.
• We assessed the cur­rent gov­ernance arrange­ments in place to con­firm that they were appro­pri­ate and effective.
• We reviewed the Organisation’s Frame­work agree­ment and, the Board Standard’s Orders to assess wheth­er these appro­pri­ately set out the lead­er­ship arrange­ments of the Organisation.
• We reviewed the Com­mit­tee Terms of Ref­er­ence in place to con­firm that the remit of each Com­mit­tee is clearly out­lined and documented.

Object­ive 2. There are appro­pri­ate mech­an­isms in place to sup­port effect­ive lead­er­ship of the organisation.

• We dis­cussed and reviewed the gov­ernance struc­ture of the Organ­isa­tion to ascer­tain wheth­er it is effect­ive to deliv­er their objectives.
• We reviewed the Board’s skills self-assess­ment arrange­ments in place to eval­u­ate wheth­er these effect­ively encour­age effect­ive leadership.
• We held dis­cus­sions with the Con­vener of the Board to eval­u­ate the Board Mem­ber apprais­al arrange­ments in place.
• We reviewed a sample of Board Mem­ber apprais­al records to con­firm that these had taken place across ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ and ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.
• We reviewed the Code of Con­duct expec­ted of Board Mem­bers to assess wheth­er this was appro­pri­ate and in line with good practice.
• For a sample of Board Mem­bers, we reviewed evid­ence to con­firm that evid­ence of their agree­ment to the Code of Con­duct was documented.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Object­ive 3. The rela­tion­ships and com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels in place with extern­al bod­ies sup­port an effect­ive sys­tem of governance.

• We dis­cussed and assessed the cur­rent com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels in place between the Organ­isa­tion and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment with the Chief Exec­ut­ive, assess­ing these for adequacy and com­par­ing this against the require­ments set out in the Frame­work agreement.
• We reviewed the inform­a­tion pub­lished on the Organ­isa­tions web­site, avail­able to all extern­al bodies.

Object­ive 4. Clear respons­ib­il­it­ies and report­ing arrange­ments are estab­lished and are being followed.

• We reviewed the Organisation’s Frame­work agree­ment and, the Board Standard’s Orders to assess wheth­er these appro­pri­ately set out the roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies of the Board.
• We assessed the report­ing and escal­a­tion chan­nels for each of the Board’s Com­mit­tees for appropriateness.
• We reviewed the Annu­al Report and Accounts for 2024 – 25 to con­firm these have been appro­pri­ately pre­pared and completed.

Object­ive 5. There are effect­ive scru­tiny arrange­ments in place which are being followed.

• We con­sidered the scru­tiny arrange­ments in place to ascer­tain wheth­er these are effective.
• We obtained and reviewed the fol­low­ing meet­ing minutes to con­firm that there was suf­fi­cient scru­tiny and over­sight tak­ing place:
  • Board (Novem­ber 2024 – Septem­ber 2025);
  • Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee (Decem­ber 2024 – Septem­ber 2025);
  • Plan­ning Com­mit­tee (Decem­ber 2024 – August 2025);
  • Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee (Septem­ber 2024 – Septem­ber 2025);
  • Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee (March 2024 – May 2025); and
  • Resources Com­mit­tee (August 2024 – August 2025).

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Object­ive 6. There is a form­al meet­ing struc­ture in place.

• We eval­u­ated the sched­ule and fre­quency of the Board and Com­mit­tee meet­ings, includ­ing agenda set­ting, roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies, registers of interest, attend­ance, minute-tak­ing, doc­u­ment­a­tion require­ments, and wheth­er a decision log is kept.
• We eval­u­ated the effect­ive­ness of Board’s meet­ing cal­en­dar for Janu­ary 2025 – Decem­ber 2025, com­par­ing this to Board and Com­mit­tee meet­ing minutes to con­firm that all meet­ings took place.

Object­ive 7. The Organisation’s gov­ernance arrange­ments meet the Frame­work document(s) agreed between CNPA and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, guided by the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000.

• We dis­cussed the Frame­work agree­ment between the Organ­isa­tion and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment with the Chief Exec­ut­ive to under­stand how this shapes the Gov­ernance arrange­ments at the Organisation.
• We com­pared the Organisation’s Gov­ernance arrange­ments with the require­ments laid out in the Frame­work agree­ment to con­firm that the Organ­isa­tion is com­ply­ing with its requirements.

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1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Con­clu­sion

Over­all conclusion: Over­all Con­clu­sion: Strong Fol­low­ing our review, we can provide the Organ­isa­tion with a strong level of assur­ance sur­round­ing gov­ernance arrange­ments and con­firmed that these are appro­pri­ate and have been embed­ded through­out. This is high­lighted as we have raised sev­er­al areas of good prac­tice, how­ever, we have raised two low-grade recom­mend­a­tions and three obser­va­tions for con­sid­er­a­tion. Please refer to Sec­tion 3: Detailed Recom­mend­a­tions and Sec­tion 4: Obser­va­tions for fur­ther information.

Sum­mary of recommendations

Grad­ing of recommendations

	High	Medi­um	Low	Total
Gov­ernance	0	0	2	2

As can be seen from the above table there were no recom­mend­a­tions made which we have giv­en a grad­ing of high.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Areas of good practice

The fol­low­ing is a list of areas where the Organ­isa­tion is oper­at­ing effect­ively and fol­low­ing good practice.

1. From our review of the Organisation’s gov­ernance arrange­ments, and com­par­is­on of this against the require­ments laid out in the Frame­work agree­ment, we can con­firm that the Organisation’s arrange­ments are effect­ive to ensure that the require­ments are being met.
2. From our review of Board and Com­mit­tee meet­ing agen­das and minutes, we found that there is a form­al meet­ing struc­ture in place. Agen­das are cir­cu­lated to Board Mem­bers one week pri­or to the meet­ing and are used to ensure a struc­tured approach is fol­lowed for each meet­ing. We also con­firmed that all planned meet­ings for Janu­ary 2025 — Decem­ber 2025, as set out in the meet­ing cal­en­dar, have taken place to date.
3. Attend­ance at meet­ings of the Board and Com­mit­tees is mon­itored on an ongo­ing basis by the Clerk to the Board, allow­ing for iden­ti­fic­a­tion of mem­ber under-performance.
4. From our review of meet­ing minutes and papers, the Board and Com­mit­tees main­tain clear scru­tiny arrange­ments aligned with their Terms of Ref­er­ence, allow­ing for robust over­sight of activ­it­ies. The items being dis­cussed appro­pri­ately fol­low the Terms of Ref­er­ence and there is also stand­ing items such as Declar­a­tion of Interests, to ensure these are con­sidered on a reg­u­lar basis.
5. Report­ing require­ments for the Board are clearly defined in the Frame­work Agree­ment with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, and we con­firmed that the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ Annu­al Accounts were cor­rectly pub­lished in Novem­ber 2025.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

The fol­low­ing is a list of areas where the Organ­isa­tion is oper­at­ing effect­ively and fol­low­ing good practice.

1. The Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee, Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee and Resources Com­mit­tees each pre­pare annu­al reports of their activ­ity, present­ing these to the Board each year.
2. The Board pro­duces an annu­al cal­en­dar of Board and Com­mit­tee meet­ing dates. We com­pared the cal­en­dar for Janu­ary 2025 — Decem­ber 2025, con­firm­ing that all planned meet­ings had taken place.
3. From our review, we found that the quarterly meet­ings with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment allow the Organ­isa­tion to achieve effect­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion with extern­al bod­ies. As well as this, the pub­lic facing web­site also out­lines key gov­ernance doc­u­ment­a­tion and inform­a­tion for extern­al bod­ies to view as required.
4. The Board’s effect­ive­ness is reviewed annu­ally, with indi­vidu­al mem­ber apprais­als con­duc­ted by the Con­vener feed­ing into an annu­al Board-wide skills assess­ment. The mix of skills is illus­trated in the Skills Matrix.
5. The Organ­isa­tion has a Code of Con­duct in place for its Board Mem­bers, effect­ively lay­ing out the beha­viours expec­ted of its members.
6. The Organ­isa­tion has a clear gov­ernance struc­ture in place, with defined report­ing and escal­a­tion channels.
7. The Com­mit­tee pur­pose, duties, author­ity, mem­ber­ship, meet­ings and appoint­ment are clearly out­lined in the Terms of Ref­er­ence for the Audit & Risk, Gov­ernance, Per­form­ance and Resources Com­mit­tees, and with­in the Plan­ning Committee’s Stand­ing Orders.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

The fol­low­ing is a list of areas where the Organ­isa­tion is oper­at­ing effect­ively and fol­low­ing good practice.

1. The Organ­isa­tion holds a Register of Interests for its Board Mem­bers and Exec­ut­ive Man­age­ment Team. Declar­a­tions of Interest is a stand­ing agenda item at each Board and Com­mit­tee meet­ing, provid­ing ample oppor­tun­ity for interests to be declared. The Registers of Interest are pub­lished on the Organisation’s website.
2. The Board has detailed Stand­ing Orders which set out the powers and the respons­ib­il­ity of the Board and its mem­bers. The Stand­ing Orders align to the gov­ernance arrange­ments and Board respons­ib­il­it­ies estab­lished with­in the Organisation’s Frame­work agree­ment with the Scot­tish Government.

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2 Bench­mark­ing

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

We include for your ref­er­ence com­par­at­ive bench­mark­ing data of the num­ber and rank­ing of recom­mend­a­tions made for audits of a sim­il­ar nature in the most recently fin­ished intern­al audit year.

Gov­ernance

Bench­mark­ing

	High	Medi­um	Low	Total
Aver­age num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions in sim­il­ar audits	0	0	1	1
Num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority	0	0	2	2

From the table above it can be seen that the Organ­isa­tion has a high­er num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions com­pared to those organ­isa­tions it has been bench­marked against.

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3 Detailed recommendations

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Meet­ing Frequency

Ref.	Find­ing and Risk	Grade	Recom­mend­a­tion
1.	The meet­ing fre­quency of the Board and its sup­port­ing Com­mit­tees should be form­ally doc­u­mented with­in either the Stand­ing Orders or the Terms of Ref­er­ence as appro­pri­ate. The Board’s stand­ing orders state that they will decide upon a cal­en­dar of meet­ing dates each year for the Board. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Stand­ing Orders state that the Com­mit­tee will nor­mally meet every six weeks, and again that the cal­en­dar of their meet­ings will be agreed in advance by the Board. How­ever, there is no spe­cif­ic meet­ing fre­quency required of the Board set out with­in its Stand­ing Orders, or set out for any of the sup­port­ing Com­mit­tees with­in their Terms of Ref­er­ences. Our root cause ana­lys­is is that the meet­ing fre­quency of the Board and each of its Com­mit­tees has been com­mu­nic­ated inform­ally to Board mem­bers. Fur­ther, as the Board agrees the cal­en­dar of meet­ing dates each year, it was not con­sidered neces­sary to	Low	We recom­mend that Organ­isa­tion form­al­ise the meet­ing fre­quency of its Board and it’s sup­port­ing Com­mit­tees. This should be included with­in the Board’s Stand­ing Orders, and the Terms of Ref­er­ence of each sup­port­ing Committee.

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3 Detailed recommendations

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

form­al­ise the meet­ing frequency.

This cre­ates a risk of a lack of gov­ernance con­tinu­ity, where the Board and its’ Com­mit­tees may not meet often enough to sat­is­fy stra­tegic object­ives or dis­cuss emer­ging in the event that future meet­ing cal­en­dars are not pre­pared appro­pri­ately. Fur­ther, this may cre­ate a risk of reduced account­ab­il­ity for the Board and it’s Com­mit­tees, who may meet less often than expec­ted if there is no doc­u­mented require­ment to do so.

Man­age­ment response	Respons­ib­il­ity and imple­ment­a­tion date
Recom­mend­a­tion accep­ted. Terms of ref­er­ence will be presen­ted annu­ally to the Board for review, along with the annu­al report of the Com­mit­tee to the board. We will doc­u­ment the expec­ted pro­cess for the review and approv­al of its Com­mit­tees’ Terms of Reference.	Respons­ible Officer: Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager Imple­ment­a­tion Date: 30 June 2026

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3 Detailed recommendations

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Terms of Ref­er­ence Review and Approval

Ref.	Find­ing and Risk	Grade	Recom­mend­a­tion
2.	The Terms of Ref­er­ence for each of the Board’s sup­port­ing Com­mit­tees should be reg­u­larly reviewed to ensure they accur­ately reflect the desired remit of the Com­mit­tee. The Terms of Ref­er­ence for the Per­form­ance, Gov­ernance, Resources and Audit & Risk Com­mit­tees state that their remit should be reviewed annu­ally. Each of the sup­port­ing Com­mit­tees presen­ted an annu­al report of their activ­it­ies to the full Board. Dis­cus­sion with the Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager con­firmed that the Com­mit­tees will con­firm their review and approv­al of their Terms of Ref­er­ence with­in these annu­al reports. Our review of the latest annu­al reports presen­ted for each of these Com­mit­tees noted that only the Resources Com­mit­tee con­firmed their approv­al. Our root cause ana­lys­is is that the pro­cess for the review of the Com­mit­tee Terms of Ref­er­ence is not form­al­ised, with respons­ib­il­ity for this inform­ally com­mu­nic­ated to Committee	Low	We recom­mend that the Organ­isa­tion form­ally doc­u­ment the expec­ted pro­cess for the review and approv­al of its Com­mit­tees’ Terms of Ref­er­ence. The Organ­isa­tion should con­sider includ­ing this with­in the Stand­ing Orders of the Board, or with­in the indi­vidu­al Terms of Ref­er­ence for each Committee.

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3 Detailed recommendations

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

Mem­bers. As a res­ult, there is an incon­sist­ency of approach.

Where Terms of Ref­er­ence are not reviewed in line with the Organisation’s planned sched­ule, this increases the like­li­hood of scope-creep bey­ond the Com­mit­tees remit, cre­at­ing a risk that the Terms of Ref­er­ence will not prop­erly reflect the remit of the Committee.

Man­age­ment response	Respons­ib­il­ity and imple­ment­a­tion date
Recom­mend­a­tion accep­ted. Terms of ref­er­ence will be presen­ted annu­ally to the Board for review, along with the annu­al report of the Com­mit­tee to the board. We will doc­u­ment the expec­ted pro­cess for the review and approv­al of its Com­mit­tees’ Terms of Reference.	Respons­ible Officer: Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager Imple­ment­a­tion Date: Novem­ber 2026

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4 Obser­va­tions

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

The fol­low­ing is a list of obser­va­tions from our review

1. With­in our ques­tion­naire responses, we found that 40% of respond­ents had noted that there was not a pro­gramme of work in place for the Board. Our review con­firmed that there is an annu­al Board cal­en­dar in place, which includes set items dis­cussed annu­ally, such as budget­ing and review of the annu­al report. It was noted that the nature of the Organisation’s work suits a flu­id approach in terms of which top­ics are reviewed at each meet­ing. The Organ­isa­tion should ensure that all mem­bers are aware of the annu­al pro­gramme of work. The Organ­isa­tion may con­sider review­ing the pro­gramme of work at each Board meeting.

   Responses also noted that only 80% of respond­ents felt that suf­fi­cient train­ing and induc­tion had been provided. The Organ­isa­tion may con­sider review­ing dif­fer­ent approaches to train­ing to bet­ter suit the Members.

   Only 60% of respond­ents felt there was suf­fi­cient chal­lenge at meet­ings. Our review found that the Organ­isa­tion is work­ing on improv­ing the Board’s cul­ture and dynam­ic, which should enhance Mem­bers’ con­fid­ence to chal­lenge points in meet­ings. The Organ­isa­tion should con­tin­ue to foster a pos­it­ive cul­ture among the Board.

2. We per­formed sample test­ing of five Board Mem­bers to con­firm that apprais­als had taken place in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ and ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅. We found that for one Board Mem­ber, the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ apprais­al has not yet been com­pleted. This has been due to lim­ited avail­ab­il­ity of the Board Mem­ber and the Con­vener, who are work­ing to arrange time for an apprais­al as soon as pos­sible. The Organ­isa­tion should ensure that this apprais­al is com­pleted, allow­ing for ana­lys­is of performance.

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4 Obser­va­tions

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Governance

1. Dis­cus­sion with the Con­vener con­firmed that most Board mem­bers do not have sig­ni­fic­ant audit and risk back­ground. How­ever, the cur­rent Chair of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee does have sig­ni­fic­ant valu­able expert­ise. This will be lost when her min­is­teri­al term comes to an end. This is a known skills gap for the Board. After identifying