Paper 2 Internal Audit Report Governance Cover

Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 2 13 March 2026 Page 1 of 2

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

For decision

Title: Intern­al audit plan ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆: Governance

Cov­er Paper: Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Operations

Report sub­mit­ted by: Peter Clark, Scott McCready, wbg

Pur­pose

This paper presents the Intern­al Auditor’s review of the Park Authority’s gov­ernance arrange­ments and was con­duc­ted as part of the agreed plan of work for 2025 – 26 (Annex 1). The pur­pose of this review was to assess wheth­er the Park Author­ity has appro­pri­ate gov­ernance arrange­ments in place and that these have been embed­ded. This review sought to provide assur­ance that the Authority’s cor­por­ate gov­ernance arrange­ments are appro­pri­ate and rep­res­ent good practice.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to a) Con­sider the intern­al aud­it­ors report and find­ings. b) Endorse the man­age­ment responses to recom­mend­a­tions for future action and improvements.

Exec­ut­ive Summary

1. Wbg have com­pleted their intern­al audit review of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s gov­ernance arrangements.

2. Sev­en con­trol object­ives were audited: a) There is an effect­ive scheme of gov­ernance in place b) There are appro­pri­ate mech­an­isms in place to sup­port effect­ive lead­er­ship of the organ­isa­tion c) The rela­tion­ships and com­mu­nic­a­tion chan­nels in place with extern­al bod­ies sup­port an effect­ive sys­tem of governance

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Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 2 13 March 2026 Page 2 of 2

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

d) Clear respons­ib­il­it­ies and report­ing arrange­ments are estab­lished and are being fol­lowed e) There are effect­ive scru­tiny arrange­ments in place, which are being fol­lowed f) There is a form­al meet­ing struc­ture in place g) The Organisation’s gov­ernance arrange­ments meet the Frame­work document(s) agreed between the Park Author­ity and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, guided by the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000

1. A strong level of assur­ance was provided in rela­tion to the Authority’s gov­ernance arrange­ments, which were found to be appro­pri­ate, and embed­ded throughout.

2. Two low-grade recom­mend­a­tions were made: i. The Park Author­ity should 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 ii. The Author­ity should form­ally doc­u­ment the expec­ted pro­cess for the review and approv­al of its Com­mit­tees’ Terms of Ref­er­ence. The Author­ity should con­sider includ­ing this with­in the Stand­ing Orders of the Board, or with­in the indi­vidu­al Terms of Ref­er­ence for each Committee

3. The Intern­al Aud­it­or also made two obser­va­tions, arising from Mem­bers’ responses to the Auditor’s ques­tion­naire, for the Committee’s con­sid­er­a­tion (sec­tion 4 of the report).

4. The recom­mend­a­tions made were accep­ted by management.

Louise Allen 02 March 2026 louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk