Paper 3 - CLLD Cairngorms Trust

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 3 27 June 2025 Page 1 of 9

For Inform­a­tion

Title: Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment and Part­ner­ship Work with The Cairngorms Trust

Pre­pared by: Nancy Cham­bers, Trust Man­ager and Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Services

Pur­pose

The pur­pose of this paper is to update the Park Author­ity Board on the pro­gress made by the Cairngorms Trust in deliv­er­ing fund­ing to pro­jects across the Cairngorms. In 2026, it will be the 10-year anniversary of the Cairngorms Trust becom­ing a Scot­tish Char­it­able Incor­por­ated Organ­isa­tion (SCIO), mark­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant mile­stone in its development.

This paper high­lights the impact and out­comes of the Trust’s fun­ded ini­ti­at­ives to date and seeks views from the Park Author­ity board on the charity’s poten­tial future operations.

The paper also presents pro­gress in the evol­u­tion of new approaches to Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) fund­ing, fol­low­ing the loss of European Uni­on (EU) LEAD­ER fund­ing as a con­sequence of the UK’s exit from the EU.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to:

α) Note pro­gress to date in deliv­ery of Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) and Cor­por­ate Plan object­ives in respect of CLLD. b) Dis­cuss value of CLLD actions and devel­op­ment of Cairngorms Trust to date. c) Dis­cuss and provide stra­tegic advice on for­ward plans in sup­port of future CLLD pro­grammes of work and the inter­ac­tion of the Park Author­ity and Cairngorms Trust.

Stra­tegic context

1. The Cairngorms NPPP for 2022 to 2027 includes with­in pri­or­ity ​“B7: Com­munity Led Plan­ning and Devel­op­ment” a need to sup­port com­munit­ies through local

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1. com­munity fund­ing which was pre­vi­ously delivered through the EU-fun­ded LEAD­ER pro­gramme. We want to ensure that the aspir­a­tions of com­munit­ies are met, com­munity resi­li­ence is enhanced and that a com­munity devel­op­ment fund appro­pri­ate for the Nation­al Park is developed and in place dur­ing this plan peri­od. The asso­ci­ated NPPP tar­get is for a new fund­ing scheme to be put in place to deliv­er fund­ing for com­munit­ies, of a scale at least equi­val­ent to the old LEAD­ER pro­gramme. The Cairngorms Trust is expli­citly recog­nised as a deliv­ery part­ner in this ele­ment of the NPPP.

More widely, the Cairngorms Trust has an impact in the deliv­ery of a range of NPPP pri­or­it­ies, in particular:

α) A1 Net Zero – con­trib­ut­ing to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park reach­ing net zero by offer­ing grant pro­grammes and sup­port­ing pro­jects which focus on cli­mate action and / or which have pos­it­ive cli­mate impacts. The Act­ive Cairngorms E- bike (ACE) provides four-to-six-week loans of e‑bikes which as part of the pro­ject encour­age use of the e‑bikes for reg­u­lar jour­neys for shop­ping, com­mut­ing and school drop offs.

b) A10 Eco­lo­gic­al Net­works – enga­ging and fund­ing com­munity led activ­it­ies deliv­er­ing eco­lo­gic­al net­work tar­gets. The Net­works for Nature fund have delivered on this pri­or­ity. Fun­ded pro­jects have included com­munity wild­flower plant­ing, tree plant­ing, and hab­it­at restoration.

c) B1 Work­ing age pop­u­la­tion – with spe­cif­ic regard to the Cairngorms Trust provid­ing the char­it­able struc­ture through which the Cairngorms Youth Loc­al Action Group, one of the first such groups in Scot­land, has been able to secure fund­ing and dis­perse grant awards.

d) B3 Real Liv­ing Wage – with the pay­ment of the real liv­ing wage a key assess­ment cri­ter­ia in all Cairngorms Trust fund­ing decisions.

e) B5 Com­munity assets and land as a key fund­ing source giv­ing com­munit­ies more power to own or man­age assets (includ­ing land); The Cairngorms Trust has fun­ded a couple of pro­jects to own assets. Brae­mar Com­munity Ltd bought Tom­richton Woods with sup­port from the Cairngorms Trust and Glen­more and Aviemore Com­munity Trust have had sup­port for both the Ice Rink in Aviemore and the pur­chase of the Glen­more Com­munity Café.

f) B6 New approaches to cit­izen par­ti­cip­a­tion – as a registered char­ity led by com­munity-based volun­teer trust­ees and in sup­port­ing com­munity capa­city of com­munity led pro­jects; Both our youth LAG and Park for All lived experience

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1. pan­el have developed and co-designed and delivered fund­ing to spe­cif­ic groups with­in the Cairngorms.

g) C10 Cul­tur­al her­it­age – sup­port­ing deliv­ery and fin­an­cing com­munity led cul­tur­al her­it­age pro­jects. The Cairngorms Trust has sup­por­ted Castle Roy in its redevel­op­ment of the Castle Grounds over a num­ber of years; we have also been sup­port­ing St Mar­garets in Brae­mar. Oth­er pro­jects that we have sup­por­ted have been music­al cul­tur­al pro­jects through Feis Spe, shinty pro­jects through the Caman­adh Asso­ci­ation and Art pro­jects in a vari­ety of com­munit­ies through­out the Cairngorms.

The work of the Cairngorms Trust there­fore has a wealth of touch points with deliv­ery of the NPPP.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. The Cairngorms Trust (full registered title, Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group Trust with registered char­ity num­ber SC046495) will reach its tenth anniversary of oper­a­tions in 2026.

2. The Trust remains at the centre of deliv­ery of Scot­tish Government’s domest­ic fund­ing sup­port­ing CLLD and repla­cing EU LEAD­ER funds. The Trust acts as one of 20 Loc­al Action Groups (LAGs) cov­er­ing island and rur­al Scot­land: estab­lish­ing plans through which to sup­port loc­al com­munit­ies meet their devel­op­ment aspir­a­tions and tak­ing respons­ib­il­ity for dis­burse­ment of fund­ing made avail­able by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. The Park Author­ity sup­ports the Trust in this work through host­ing and man­aging staff; and by provid­ing HR, admin­is­tra­tion, gov­ernance and account­ing support.

3. The last EU fun­ded LEAD­ER pro­gramme provided £2.27 mil­lion in grant sup­port to the Cairngorms over a six-year pro­gramme peri­od with total pro­ject value of £3.88 mil­lion. To date, domest­ic sup­port for CLLD has been through annu­al fund­ing alloc­a­tions to LAGs, rather than a multi-year pro­gramme. This pre­vi­ous LEAD­ER pro­gramme fund­ing level equates to annu­al fund­ing of between £300,000 and £400,000. Over the cur­rent NPPP peri­od, fund­ing alloc­a­tions secured have totalled £405,000 in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄, £461,000 in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅, and £242,000 to date in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ with a poten­tial second alloc­a­tion of fund­ing to be awar­ded: a total with­in the current

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1. NPPP peri­od to date of £1.108 mil­lion, and broadly com­men­sur­ate in total with the NPPP objective.

Annu­al­ised fund­ing alloc­a­tions have impacted on the nature of CLLD activ­ity, switch­ing focus neces­sar­ily by the Cairngorms Trust to sup­port­ing in year, short- term pri­or­it­ies rather than work­ing with com­munity led organ­isa­tions over time to secure long-term, step change aspirations.

1. The Trust has also been act­ive in seek­ing oth­er fund­ing streams, both in bid­ding to oth­er fund­ing sources and seek­ing vol­un­tary dona­tions to sup­port the charity’s work.

2. Approaches by the Trust to secure vol­un­tary dona­tions have been par­tic­u­larly chal­len­ging in a crowded char­ity land­scape. Work in this area has also been sig­ni­fic­antly impacted by the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic and in the recov­ery from that. To date, evid­ence shows that the cost to bene­fit of work­ing to secure a flow of vol­un­tary char­it­able dona­tions does not sup­port the con­tin­ued invest­ment of sig­ni­fic­ant time and resource into this area of activ­ity. Fur­ther­more, as the Cairngorms Trust is sup­por­ted by a part time (0.4 full time equi­val­ent) Trust Man­ager, the pri­or­it­isa­tion and deploy­ment of staff capa­city has to be care­fully con­sidered to ensure the Trust runs effi­ciently. Evid­ence to date sug­gests that a much great­er staff capa­city would be required if sig­ni­fic­ant inroad to vol­un­tary giv­ing is to be made.

3. The Trust has also formed effect­ive part­ner­ships with the Park Author­ity in deliv­ery of com­munity focused invest­ment pro­grammes. The Trust partnered with the Park Author­ity in two rounds of Green Recov­ery Fund­ing sup­port­ing com­munit­ies and busi­nesses in their recov­ery from the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic. The Trust has more recently partnered with the Park Authority’s con­ser­va­tion team in run­ning com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment ini­ti­at­ives sup­port­ing devel­op­ment and evol­u­tion of nature networks.

4. The exist­ence of a vibrant char­ity oper­at­ing to sup­port deliv­ery of the NPPP pri­or­it­ies also affords a mech­an­ism to accept com­munity bene­fit fund­ing from pro­jects with­in the Cairngorms and dis­burse those fin­ances to com­munity led devel­op­ment pri­or­it­ies. This poten­tial has not been sig­ni­fic­antly deployed as yet,

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with the Trust to date iden­ti­fied as a recip­i­ent of com­munity fund­ing for one, tri­al private fin­ance development.

1. The oper­a­tion of the Cairngorms Trust as an inde­pend­ent char­ity deliv­er­ing CLLD has a high pro­file in Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. It has been recog­nised as a good prac­tice gov­ernance mod­el for Loc­al Action Group (LAG) and it also recog­nised for its innov­at­ive approaches in gov­ernance and CLLD approaches, for example in estab­lish­ing a Youth LAG with­in its char­ity structure.

2. The Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) Pro­gramme will be tri­al­ling new approaches to cit­izen par­ti­cip­a­tion and par­ti­cip­at­ive demo­cracy in grant fund­ing pro­grammes. There is a clear con­nec­tion between the work and pos­i­tion of the Cairngorms Trust with this work, and poten­tial implic­a­tions for the role of the Trust depend­ing on the out­comes of the cur­rent work con­sid­er­ing options in this policy area. The Trust will be fully engaged with the evol­u­tion of think­ing on poten­tial new approaches to cit­izen par­ti­cip­a­tion and able to inform this work from the exper­i­ence of the Trust in CLLD over the last decade.

3. We have been able to cap­ture a sig­ni­fic­ant ele­ment of CLLD fin­ance man­aged by the Trust as a C2030 deliv­ery part­ner over the peri­od since Janu­ary 2024 as an aspect of match fund­ing sup­port­ing the over­all C2030 pro­gramme budget.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. The Cairngorms Trust ful­fils two aspects of the Park Authority’s risk mit­ig­a­tion strategy around the stra­tegic risk one: Pub­lic sec­tor fin­ances con­strain capa­city to alloc­ate suf­fi­cient resources to deliv­er cor­por­ate plan. The mit­ig­a­tions are:

α) Focus resource on diver­si­fic­a­tion of income streams to altern­at­ive, non-pub­lic income generation.

b) Con­tinu­ing to sup­port ​“deliv­ery bod­ies” such as Cairngorms Nature, Cairngorms Trust in secur­ing inward investment.

1. As covered in oth­er sec­tions of this paper, the Cairngorms Trust has achieved con­sid­er­able suc­cess in secur­ing tar­geted inward invest­ments. There has been little pro­gress made to date in sup­port­ing a diver­si­fic­a­tion of income streams toward altern­at­ive, non-pub­lic income sources.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 3 27 June 2025 Page 6 of 9

1. There are no new or escal­at­ing risks iden­ti­fied in con­sid­er­a­tion of mat­ters covered by this paper.

Implic­a­tions

1. The fin­an­cial implic­a­tions to the Park Author­ity of sup­port­ing the Cairngorms Trust as a char­it­able mech­an­ism and LAG which able to secure inward invest­ment to the Cairngorms of sig­ni­fic­ant addi­tion­al gov­ern­ment fund­ing is rel­at­ively min­im­al. The Park Author­ity sup­ports the employ­ment costs of the Cairngorms Trust Man­ager, a 0.2 full-time equi­val­ent role. The Park Author­ity has also provided some grant sup­port to cov­er admin­is­trat­ive costs in order that the Trust is able to com­mit to invest­ing 100% of vol­un­tary dona­tions and spon­sor­ships received into com­munity led projects.

2. The Trust has developed a revised brand pos­i­tion over the last few years to align with the devel­op­ment of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park brands.

PART OF THE CAIRNGORMS TRUST GIVE PRO­TECT GROW ngorms Nation­al Park

1. The Trust has worked since incor­por­a­tion as a char­ity to estab­lish a clear, sep­ar­ate iden­tity from the Park Author­ity, while seek­ing to recog­nise its links with the Park Author­ity and role as a deliv­ery part­ner of the NPPP. There is now a more evolved sense of pub­lic under­stand­ing of the Trust as an inde­pend­ent entity, and not a part of the Park Author­ity. There does remain a degree of blur­ring of pub­lic per­cep­tion of actions and invest­ment made by each organ­isa­tion, which to some extent is under­stand­able giv­en the extent of joint work­ing and col­lab­or­a­tion between the Trust and the Park Authority.

Suc­cess measures

1. The con­tin­ued attrac­tion of sig­ni­fic­ant Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment CLLD fund­ing into the Cairngorms remains the key suc­cess meas­ure for the Cairngorms Trust’s con­tri­bu­tion to the NPPP.

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1. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment has com­mis­sioned a sig­ni­fic­ant research pro­gramme on the place of CLLD, Scot­tish Rur­al Net­work, and Scot­tish Rur­al Action. This is being con­duc­ted over the course of ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ and is expec­ted to inform gov­ern­ment policy dir­ec­tion on the pri­or­ity of CLLD, levels of invest­ment and approach to invest­ment in the next Par­lia­ment­ary period.

2. The Trust is cur­rently lead­ing an ini­ti­at­ive along with oth­ers in the sec­tor to devel­op a new CLLD Net­work, to more effect­ively drawn togeth­er the 20 LAGs in shar­ing know­ledge and estab­lish­ing a sec­tor­al voice able to com­ment on rel­ev­ant issues.

Next Steps

1. A memor­andum of under­stand­ing has estab­lished the work­ing rela­tion­ship between the Park Author­ity and the Trust since its estab­lish­ment as a char­ity. This memor­andum of under­stand­ing now needs to be refreshed to reflect the cur­rent oper­at­ing envir­on­ment and pos­i­tion of each organ­isa­tion. The board dis­cus­sions on this paper will help inform the devel­op­ment of this revised memor­andum of understanding.

Sup­port­ing information

1. The Cairngorms Trust’s mis­sion is to encour­age sus­tain­able and com­munity-led devel­op­ment through­out the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Its vis­ion is to be recog­nised as a val­ued organ­isa­tion advoc­at­ing rur­al devel­op­ment and sup­port­ing loc­al pri­or­it­ies and solutions.

2. The Trust’s val­ues are to be respons­ive to com­munity needs, know­ledge­able about our com­munit­ies and in provid­ing sup­port, ambi­tious for the Cairngorms Trust and for our com­munit­ies, innov­at­ive in shap­ing our future.

3. Fund­ing to Com­munit­ies — Over the past 10 years in addi­tion to LEAD­ER fund­ing which con­cluded in 2020, the Cairngorms Trust has dis­trib­uted a total of £1,526,635 to com­munity pro­jects across the Cairngorms. This includes:

α) £1,156,635 through Com­munity Grants and oth­er core fund­ing streams.

b) An addi­tion­al £370,000 from the Park Author­ity for the Green Recov­ery Fund.

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c) These funds have sup­por­ted a wide range of ini­ti­at­ives, includ­ing CLLD funds, delivered in part­ner­ship with the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, with the Park Author­ity act­ing as the account­able body.

1. Look­ing ahead, there is an indic­at­ive fig­ure of £284,000 avail­able for com­munity pro­jects in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.

2. Wider Cairngorms Trust Fund­ing — Since 2019, the Trust has dis­trib­uted fund­ing to a vari­ety of pro­jects with a strong focus on nature and com­munity outcomes:

α) £153,200 awar­ded to 31 pro­jects with­in the Nature space.

b) For 2025, £50,000 is avail­able, with pro­ject scor­ing being guided by the Park Author­ity Nature Team to align with the NPPP.

c) £17,000 awar­ded to two com­munity-led path main­ten­ance pro­jects, with an addi­tion­al £8,000 anti­cip­ated this year.

1. Youth-Led Fund­ing — The Youth LAG has been a standout success:

α) £92,717 awar­ded to 99 pro­jects across five rounds of youth-led funding.

b) Round six is now open, with an anti­cip­ated £25,000, which will bring the total to over £100,000 and 100 projects.

c) This mile­stone is being act­ively fea­tured in pub­li­city and media campaigns.

1. Inclus­ive Fund­ing Ini­ti­at­ives — The Trust has also worked with lived exper­i­ence groups to co-design and deliv­er inclus­ive fund­ing. The Park for All Fund, aimed at sup­port­ing Black Asi­an and minor­ity eth­nic (BAME) com­munit­ies, has awar­ded £7,292 to five pro­jects, with one addi­tion­al pro­ject being trans­ferred to the CLLD fund.

2. Act­ive Travel: Act­ive Cairngorms E‑bike (ACE) Bike Pro­ject — The Act­ive Cairngorms E‑bike (ACE Bike) pro­ject, man­aged day to day by Aviemore Bikes, con­tin­ues to be a suc­cess. It has sig­ni­fic­antly informed parts of the devel­op­ment of the Cairngorms 2030 trans­port pro­ject and remains a key example of com­munity- led act­ive travel innov­a­tion, work­ing in part­ner­ship with loc­al busi­ness. The Cairngorms 2030 pro­ject has sup­por­ted the ACE pro­ject in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ with two grants totalling £22,500 to devel­op work with busi­nesses using cargo e‑bikes and bikes dur­ing the work­ing day and to encour­age staff to com­mute to workplaces

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and with the second for the expan­sion and con­tin­ued run­ning of the pro­ject in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆.

Nancy Cham­bers 12 June 2025 nancychambers@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Dav­id Camer­on 12 June 2025 davidcameron@​cairngorms.​co.​uk