Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 4 28 August 2026 Page 1 of 7

For Inform­a­tion

Draft minutes of the Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um meeting

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey Hybrid 08 June 2026 at 02.00pm

Present Dav­id Camer­on (Chair) Kate Christie Rus­sell Jones (Board Mem­ber) Pip Mack­ie Nas­im Mehr­abi Char­lotte Mil­burn Mari­aan Pita Adam Streeter-Smith

Apo­lo­gies Philip Brooks-Weaver (Pro­spect) James Lee Derek Ross (Board Mem­ber) Mike Woolvin

Item 1: Wel­come and Apologies

1. Dav­id Camer­on (DC) wel­comed everyone.
2. Apo­lo­gies were received from the above.

Item 2: Minutes and Mat­ters Arising

1. The draft minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing (25 March 2026) were approved. No mat­ters were raised.

Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 4 28 August 2026 Page 2 of 7

Item 3: Papers 1 — Work­force Man­age­ment Strategy

1. Dav­id Camer­on (DC) intro­duced the paper and advised that the organ­isa­tion was now halfway through deliv­er­ing the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) pro­gramme, which was due to close in Janu­ary 2029. The strategy was to sup­port the organisation’s size and shape as it cur­rently stands and how this will look at the end of the C2030 pro­gramme, along with the evol­u­tion of the organ­isa­tion going for­ward. The organ­isa­tion remained com­mit­ted to staff reten­tion, devel­op­ment and the no com­puls­ory redund­ancy policy. More detailed policies would come for­ward in due course. Staff will be engaged with more over the next few months to includ­ing organ­ising drop-in ses­sions for both the work­force man­age­ment and Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy, if staff felt these would be helpful.

2. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) There being no men­tion of aspir­a­tions to sup­port the loc­al eco­nomy or regard­ing loc­al entry level appren­tice­ships. DC respon­ded that the Park Author­ity are engaged in oth­er policy areas that cov­er these, such as the com­munity wealth build­ing strategy (cov­er­ing pro­cure­ment, grant giv­ing, employ­ment) which feed into the eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment of the Nation­al Park. KC also respon­ded that there was the youth employ­ment strategy, which covered intern­ships, work exper­i­ence etc. The Park Author­ity cur­rently cos­ted for one full time equi­val­ent (FTE) intern­ship every year (which could be split as either three, four-month posts or two, six-month posts). The HR and Ranger teams were also act­ively engaged in work­ing in schools. Both these strategies could be ref­er­enced in the work­force man­age­ment strategy for con­tex­tu­al­isa­tion. b) Cla­ri­fic­a­tion was sought regard­ing how the cur­rent head­count freeze works in terms of FTE. If a post were recruited and not all of the FTE used, could the ​‘spare’ amount be used else­where in the organ­isa­tion? DC advised that he was look­ing to estab­lish an FTE pot with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment with the cur­rent agree­ment being 124 FTE. The organ­isa­tion has made a case that that the num­ber can’t reas­on­ably be imme­di­ately reduced due to stat­utory deliv­ery com­mit­ments and extern­ally fun­ded posts. There­fore, the organ­isa­tion has three to four years to man­age this pos­i­tion down as C2030 comes to an end. It will be invest­ig­ated if the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NHLF) fund­ing can be replaced from a dif­fer­ent source in future. There will be work done to identi­fy the areas of the organ­isa­tion that are pos­sibly more ​‘under threat’ and to devel­op staff and enable move­ment into more sus­tain­able areas.

Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 4 28 August 2026 Page 3 of 7

c) Inclusion in the paper recognising that the Park Authority does need to continue providing a basic level service particularly regarding statutory duties (Planning / Access / HR). Some things just going to have to keep on doing, other teams may be able to restructure.
d) The emphasis for Public Sector Reform (PSR) being around saving money through government efficiencies. Clarification if this may involve pay and regrading. Specialist posts (which required professional qualifications etc) could be benchmarked across wider organisations but there was a risk in the redeployment of other staff who were more difficult to benchmark eg project managers. DC responded that the Park Authority have a current job evaluation and benchmarking system which would be used for any new roles and how they sit in our own pay and grading structure. KC was also carrying out work on roles and how they sit against other organisations structures. There would be a need to keep attention on this but also to manage the risk appropriately.
e) A representative advised that this paper had the least amount of interest expressed by staff since joining the Staff Consultative Forum (SCF). It was felt that this may be due to the strategy being too abstract at the current time. Staff will be more interested in the specifics when they come forward. DC appreciated the feedback and expressed that it’s always a balance for when to bring things forward to staff.
f) The approaching end of the C2030 programme being a narrow window for potential restructure / redeployment and that it was good to give staff the opportunity to see what was coming forward. It was expressed that if staff from the C2030 programme choose not to accept redeployment, it will be a significant change for the organisation.
g) DC advised that the prospect of organisational change was moving away from a ‘risk’ to a ‘likelihood’. DC advised that thought would have to be given to project work which had a mix of both permanent and fixed term contract staff working on it to ensure the completion of the project.
h) It was suggested that the drop-in sessions cover issues that may affect staff such as, the potential for fixed term contract staff to leave early and how this may affect remaining staff on projects, redeployment etc.
i) KC advised that work was starting on developing an approach to redeployment and staff may have questions once they see this. It was envisaged that default position would be that staff would be redeployed and

Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 4 28 August 2026 Page 4 of 7

only if no redeploy­ment was pos­sible would recruit­ment be opened. A skills pass­port policy was also in devel­op­ment to sup­port this. It was hoped to give every­one early sight of what was to be coming.

1. DC thanked every­one for the feedback.

Item 4: Paper 2 — Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment and People Strategy

1. Kate Christie (KC) intro­duced the paper. There had been an Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy in place cov­er­ing 2024 – 27 but this had been over­taken by events and neces­sit­ated a new Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy is being developed. KC high­lighted the length of staff ser­vice, age of staff, organ­isa­tion­al changes (fire bylaws), changes in staff, the quick move­ment to Share­Point / Apps and use of AI. The doc­u­ment responds to the com­ments made in the Best Com­pan­ies sur­vey (2025) and has iden­ti­fied four key themes (which had been dis­cussed at both SMT and Resources Com­mit­tee). It was envis­aged that short term pro­gramme boards are estab­lished to dis­cuss the actions com­ing from the key themes. KC advised that the staff com­ments had been sum­mar­ised from the Best Com­pan­ies sur­vey so that staff remained unidentifiable.

2. The fol­low­ing points were raised: a) It was stated that in terms of suc­ces­sion plan­ning, staff may be work­ing for longer due to vari­ous factors such as cost of liv­ing and this needs to be reflec­ted upon, includ­ing how mem­bers of staff in the older demo­graph­ic may wish to choose to work dif­fer­ently (less hours / redeploy­ment etc) which may provide oppor­tun­it­ies for the organ­isa­tion. KC advised that there was no retire­ment policy as there was no retire­ment age in the UK. KC also advised that it was import­ant to note that staff may leave the organ­isa­tion and some posts don’t have resi­li­ence for this. The key areas for this need to be con­sidered. Also to ensure that staff are still enthused by their roles and not get­ting bored, this may include work­ing col­lab­or­at­ive between young­er and older mem­bers of staff. KC advised that the revised job plan been well received, par­tic­u­larly around the career aspir­a­tions sec­tion. The changes to the job plan had been made quickly on the back of staff com­ments from the Best Com­pan­ies sur­vey. DC respon­ded that when suc­ces­sion plan­ning is done well, it would make oth­er jobs more ful­filling too with oppor­tun­it­ies for staff to grow, devel­op and learn.

Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 4 28 August 2026 Page 5 of 7

b) The need to look at ways to identify those staff that may have ‘lost their mojo’ and enjoyment for their role. By bringing together staff from different ages, this may help with togetherness and broaden understanding.
c) The requirement for cultural shift / adaptation, this was amplified due to the increased size of the staff complement. DC recognised that adaptation was already happening and being taken forward in a managed way. There was a need to be systemic in bringing in people / teams at the right time. Due to the size of the organisation this wasn’t possible to do in an informal way anymore, but there was still a need to protect the culture of being open and dynamic across the organisation.

1. KC thanked every­one for the feedback.

Item 5: Health and Safety update

1. KC advised that a Health and Safety com­mit­tee meet­ing is due to be held later in the week. A risk assess­ment was being developed for the use of 4x4’s in tricky ter­rain (rivers etc), also oth­ers cov­er­ing 4×4 recov­ery, build­ing secur­ity, and Acci­dent and Incid­ent reports. KC recog­nised that there had been an increase in reports, but this was thought to be due to the report­ing pro­ced­ure being easi­er through SharePoint.

2. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion was sought regard­ing the PeopleSafe and buddy sys­tems for lone work­ing. It was quer­ied that some teams are using both and if this could be con­densed to the most appro­pri­ate sys­tem per team. KC respon­ded that the PeopleSafe sys­tem could not be sep­ar­ated from the buddy sys­tem as all lone work­ers should have a buddy sys­tem which works with PeopleSafe, but only those oper­at­ing at medi­um and high risk need PeopleSafe. Beccy Stan­ton was deliv­er­ing train­ing on the sys­tems to the dif­fer­ent teams, and it will be checked that the dif­fer­ences have been explained and covered to all teams.

Item 6: Leadership

1. DC advised that the Board were halfway through series of elec­tions. Sandy Brem­ner had recently been elec­ted for anoth­er three-year term as Con­vener of the Board. Kenny Deans had been re-elec­ted as the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Chair. The Resources Com­mit­tee was due to have nom­in­a­tions open next Monday for the Chair, with a timetable for fur­ther elec­tions due to go to the Board in June. It was advised that Fiona McLean would be com­ing to the end of her elec­ted term at the end of Octo­ber. A new mem­ber would be reappoin­ted in her place.

Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 4 28 August 2026 Page 6 of 7

Item 7: Equalities

1. KC provided an update that the organ­isa­tion was due to host a group of Black Pro­fes­sion­als Scot­land young people at Glen­more Lodge in July. They would be look­ing at skills in the out­doors. The Park Author­ity were also due to host a group from Michigan Uni­ver­sity who would be find­ing out more about equal­it­ies work.

2. Recruit­ment would be opened for more pan­el mem­bers for the extern­al Equal­it­ies Advice Pan­el, where it was hoped to gain two to four new mem­bers. As part of this new recruit­ment, mem­ber­ship will be reshaped to look for equal­ity expert­ise. At present there are a lot of mem­bers with lived exper­i­ence but with lim­ited expert­ise in wider equal­ity fields.

Item 13: AOB

1. No items were raised.

2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 3:00pm.

3. Next meet­ing 7 Septem­ber 2026.

Ref	Action	Respons­ible	Due Date
12.06.24	Cred­it Union		Sept 24
Para 18	To con­sider how to take for­ward 16.09.24: Ongo­ing 08.06.26: Ongo­ing	DC
11.03.26	CEO pay
Para 6	Dis­till out stats from draft accounts for SCF 08.06.26 – Due to be com­pleted by Sept 26	KC	June 26
11.03.26	Men’s Health Guidance

Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 4 28 August 2026 Page 7 of 7

Ref	Action	Respons­ible	Due Date
Para 12c	Add staff led sup­port groups to induc­tion check­lists. 11.03.26 — Completed	PM	June 26
Para 12d	MHFA’s to be made aware of staff sup­port groups for signposting.	PM	June 26
Para 12e	08.06.26 — Com­pleted Inform­a­tion Man­ager to be con­tac­ted regard­ing how sup­port groups can be best accessed in com­mu­nic­a­tions review 08.06.26 — Completed	KC	June 26
11.03.26	Staff Sur­vey Results
Para 21 b	Themes of com­ments to be shared with staff 08.06.26 — Completed	KC	June 26