Paper 5 Annex 1 - Committee minutes

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 5 Annex 1 27 June 2025 Page 1 of 19

Resource Com­mit­tee Meet­ing Minutes Held hybrid 24 Janu­ary 2025 at 09.00am

Present in per­son Rus­sell Jones (Chair) Sandy Brem­ner Derek Ross Lauren McCal­lum (Deputy Chair) Dr Han­nah Grist

Present vir­tu­ally Jack­ie Brier­ton Michael Williamson

Apo­lo­gies None

In Attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Brenna Jessie, Digit­al Con­tent Man­ager Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies None

Minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing for approval

1. The minutes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing on the 04 Octo­ber 2024 were approved with no amendments.

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Mat­ters arising not covered from pre­vi­ous meeting

1. None

Actions from pre­vi­ous meet­ings 17 May 2024 Paper 2 i. The com­mit­tee would like updates about the Peat­land res­tor­a­tion grants and more inform­a­tion of the dif­fer­ent types of res­tor­a­tion under­taken. Com­pleted Update will be giv­en to Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 5 i. Board mem­bers would like to see Eólas to read through the policies avail­able or have a hand­book avail­able for Board Mem­bers to read. Completed

09 August 2024 Paper 1 i. Update com­mit­tee on ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ and ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ budget when an update from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment becomes avail­able. Com­plete: board in Decem­ber and cur­rent agenda Paper 3 i. Men­tion­ing the board mem­bers in the paper to make it clear these val­ues and prin­ciples refer to both staff and board mem­bers. Cir­cu­late with board mem­ber once final­ised. Completed

ii. Add the word ​“actions” to the last para­graph our next phase of work through our organ­isa­tion­al devel­op­ment and people Com­pleted strategy will be to seek appro­pri­ate ways to devel­op the cul­ture through appro­pri­ate beha­viours, policies and actions. 04 Octo­ber 2024 Paper 1 i. Update com­mit­tee on ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ and ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ budget when an update from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment becomes avail­able. Com­pleted ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ budget devel­op­ment presen­ted to Board in Decem­ber 2024

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Paper 4 i. Bring back more Inform­a­tion to the com­mit­tee on the lone work­ing and acci­dent and Incid­ent pro­ced­ure once all staff mem­bers are trained in the new sys­tem. Com­pleted Com­mit­tee con­tent with inform­a­tion shared in Health and Safety Com­mit­tee minutes.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. No declar­a­tions of interest were made.

Per­son­al use of social media policy (Paper 3)

1. Brenna Jessie, Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager presen­ted the paper which sets out expect­a­tions for the per­son­al use of social media by staff and board mem­bers at the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity as mem­bers of a pub­lic sec­tor organ­isa­tion in Scot­land. It seeks to provide clar­ity and sup­port social media users to help bal­ance their online pres­ence with their role as an employ­ee / board mem­ber of the organisation.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: α) Board mem­bers com­men­ded the policy not­ing it nav­ig­ates dif­fi­cult areas which are con­stantly devel­op­ing and chan­ging, giv­ing good frame­work to deal with chal­lenges being faced. b) Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices noted the stand­ards com­mis­sion has been review­ing Board Mem­bers’ digit­al pro­files along with the code of con­duct and social media inter­ac­tions, high­light­ing the aspir­a­tion to cre­ate a doc­u­ment that applied to Board Mem­bers and staff and ques­tioned if a sep­ar­ate policy would work bet­ter. Board Mem­bers agreed that there should be a uni­ver­sal policy across both Board Mem­bers and staff. c) Dis­cus­sions were had around mis­use, shar­ing and copy­rights of web­casts as this has been dis­cussed with­in the Moray Coun­cil. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices asked for the mon­it­or­ing officer from Moray Coun­cil to share their guid­ance on this to allow it to be reviewed from a stand­ards per­spect­ive by the Park Author­ity. d) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned staff’s views on the policy not­ing there are leg­al chal­lenges of wheth­er employ­ers can imple­ment these restric­tions. Digital

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Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager noted this will go to the next Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um (SCF) meet­ing to dis­cuss and get fur­ther feed­back. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment noted if they were chal­lenged, they would seek leg­al advice as this is a new policy. e) Board Mem­bers asked if there was scope or value for train­ing avail­able for staff and Board mem­bers alike. Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager and Head of Organ­isa­tion Devel­op­ment agreed that this would be crit­ic­al train­ing as this is a very import­ant area sup­port­ing a wide demo­graph­ic of staff and Board Mem­bers. It was also raised that Board mem­bers have mul­tiple jobs ​“wear­ing many hats” and struggle on how to tackle social media while main­tain­ing good rela­tion­ships, there­fore spe­cif­ic train­ing in this area would be arranged. The Board Con­vener endorsed the train­ing and officers agreed. The Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices cau­tioned that while mem­bers may have a num­ber of dif­fer­ent roles, they should always be aware that they can­not con­trol which role they are per­ceived to have by someone look­ing at any activ­ity on social media. As a board mem­ber of the Park Author­ity, they may per­ceive to be act­ing as such irre­spect­ive of their inten­tion. f) Dis­cus­sions were had around cre­at­ing more relat­able con­tent on social media to explain what Park Author­ity employ­ees do each day. Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager agreed and noted that there will be a social media post going out this week shar­ing what Rangers do and more con­tent like this will fol­low. g) Ques­tions were raised if there were oth­er sim­il­ar sized organ­isa­tions who have sim­il­ar policies in place. Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager noted there had been a review car­ried out across the sec­tor and found the Park Author­ity seem to be ahead in review­ing and mod­ern­ising their policy res­ult­ing in oth­er organ­isa­tions reach­ing out to bring their policies in line with the Park Author­ity. h) A Board Mem­ber raised the ques­tion relat­ing to private What­s­App groups dis­cuss­ing Park Author­ity related issues or busi­ness and if this policy would be related. The CEO noted that this policy does not apply to this how­ever there is a Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (FOI) policy in place which relates to inform­a­tion on What­s­App. This will be pro­moted to Board Mem­bers to high­light what work is being done around this area.

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1. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

2. Action point arising i. Staff and Board Mem­ber train­ing on nav­ig­at­ing social media while adher­ing to the policy. ii. Mon­it­or­ing officer from Moray Coun­cil to share their guid­ance on mis­use, shar­ing and copy rights of web­casts with Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices. iii. Share FOI policy with Board mem­bers to high­light the work being done in this area.

Budget Mon­it­or­ing (Paper 1)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which set out an over­view of the Park Authority’s budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion at the end of Decem­ber — month 9 of the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: α) A board mem­ber ques­tioned if the sav­ings from staff vacan­cies and recruit­ment delays could be used to reward cur­rent staff. CEO noted that the Park Author­ity is still under budget restric­tions until the end of March, how­ever, is hope­ful to reor­gan­ise the staff and board gath­er­ing in the sum­mer, fol­low­ing the pre­vi­ous can­cel­la­tion. It was high­lighted that owing to the pay policy, there was no scope to reward staff in a fin­an­cial way. b) Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate ser­vices com­men­ted that the HR team are cur­rently work­ing on a pro­ject relat­ing to staff reward and recog­ni­tion and once fur­ther along in the pro­cess, this will be brought to the Resources Committee.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions to: α) Con­sider the budget man­age­ment pos­i­tion for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅.

4. Action point arising i. Return to com­mit­tee the new policy on staff recog­ni­tion and reward once available.

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Devel­op­ment of ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ budget (Paper 2)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sets out the cur­rent pos­i­tion of the Park Authority’s ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ fin­an­cial year budget devel­op­ment. It provides the Com­mit­tee with the oppor­tun­ity to con­sider the over­all budget pos­i­tion togeth­er with the impact of any key assump­tions made in estab­lish­ing budget estim­ates at this point in the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ budget devel­op­ment process.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: α) CEO high­lighted that the budget has changed pos­it­ively for the Park Author­ity, not­ing the budget from Trans­port Scot­land has been reapproved mean­ing the design fund­ing for Act­ive Travel will be able to pro­ceed. This leads to assess­ing the budget to con­sider in what areas funds could poten­tially be real­loc­ated. Cur­rently con­sid­er­ing the Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund, Peat­land resources and Vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture Improve­ment. An update on the Nature Res­tor­a­tion fund will be avail­able at the end of Feb­ru­ary and will be brought to the Board in March. b) Dis­cus­sions were had around the poten­tial fund­ing from Nation­al Insur­ance Con­tri­bu­tions; how­ever, it was noted these are ongo­ing dis­cus­sions with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and UK Gov­ern­ment and if funds were to come from this area, it would not greatly impact the Park Author­ity. c) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if there was act­ive engage­ment with Loc­al Author­it­ies in rela­tion to the tour­ism levy. CEO con­firmed there was lots of con­sulta­tion with High­land Coun­cil as they are cur­rently the most advanced, not­ing this will come to the Form­al Board in March. d) A Board Mem­ber reques­ted an inform­al ses­sion for Board mem­bers to under­stand the budget pro­cess and risk mod­el­ling more fully. Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions agreed to hold­ing a train­ing ses­sion for board members.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) The Resources Com­mit­tee is invited to review the pos­i­tion achieved in devel­op­ment of the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ fin­an­cial year budget and provide any feed­back to officers pri­or to the present­a­tion of the budget pro­pos­als to the full board in March 2025.

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1. Action point arising i. Arrange for a budget mon­it­or­ing inform­a­tion ses­sion with board members.

Health and Safety Com­mit­tee minutes (Paper 4)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment presen­ted the paper and noted that this is a stand­ard item that comes to the Com­mit­tee to provide over­sight of the meet­ing and of Health and Safety mat­ters generally.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: α) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the driv­ing at work train­ing and what was involved, ask­ing if skills such as chan­ging tyres were included. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment noted there was dif­fer­ent types of train­ing for dif­fer­ent roles. It was explained that chan­ging tyres was not included in train­ing as staff would fol­low pro­tocol and call ser­vices for assist­ance. b) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the tick inform­a­tion being cir­cu­lated with staff sea­son­ally, not­ing that with chan­ging sea­sons and warm win­ters the tim­ing of cir­cu­la­tion of this guid­ance may need to vary. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment high­lighted that this inform­a­tion is avail­able and access­ible to all staff all year round on the intranet, how­ever a remind­er is shared in March. All new staff com­plete a form relat­ing to their role and if PPE is required and this is updated annu­ally for any addi­tion­al require­ments. c) A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned at what point of the recruit­ment pro­cess is the Driver and Vehicle Licens­ing Agency (DVLA) cer­ti­fic­ate reques­ted from can­did­ates. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment noted that the Park Author­ity do not carry out man­dat­ory health checks. The biggest risk staff under­take is driv­ing, there­fore an annu­al DVLA check is required, if a staff mem­ber had a con­di­tion, they would have to noti­fy the DVLA of this. This pro­cess starts after a can­did­ate has been appoin­ted as part of their onboard­ing pro­cess and will only be allowed to use a car if this has been provided.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising: None.

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Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um minutes (Paper 5)

1. Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment, intro­duced this paper and noted that this is a stand­ard item that comes to the Com­mit­tee to provide over­sight of the meet­ing and of Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um mat­ters generally.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments: α) Board Mem­bers praised the endo­met­ri­os­is policy being in place, not­ing how dif­fi­cult a con­di­tion it is. Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment com­men­ted that the policy was developed from the bot­tom up, com­ing from staff who have lived exper­i­ence with this con­di­tion. b) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing an action point relat­ing to cred­it uni­on, if this was reques­ted from staff and if this is a struc­ture to be looked at as a park- wide facil­ity. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices noted that this action was a staff sug­ges­tion but has not pro­gressed yet. How­ever, work will be car­ried out to identi­fy and engage with cred­it uni­ons to invest­ig­ate if this can be offered to staff and park-wide. Board Mem­ber, Jack­ie Brier­ton offered sup­port to Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices to invest­ig­ate this as an option.

3. The Resources Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action point arising i. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Jack­ie Brier­ton to invest­ig­ate the pos­sib­il­ity of Cred­it Uni­ons for staff and park-wide.

Resources Com­mit­tee annu­al report (Paper 6)

1. Mari­aan Pita presen­ted the paper which presents the annu­al report of the Resources Com­mit­tees to mem­bers for com­ment pri­or to cir­cu­la­tion to the full board.

2. The Resources Com­mit­tee agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Con­sider the draft annu­al report of the Resources Com­mit­tee. b) Agree any amend­ments to the draft pri­or to cir­cu­la­tion to the full board.

3. Action point arising: None.

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1. None.

Date of next meeting

1. The meet­ing ended at 10.18am

2. The next meet­ing will take place on 16 May 2025

Motion for con­fid­en­tial ses­sion to be set out will be to pro­tect con­fid­en­ti­al­ity of staff pay and con­di­tions pro­pos­als pri­or to forma negotiations.

Resources Com­mit­tee action points:

Actions from today’s meet­ing: Paper 3 i. Staff and Board Mem­ber train­ing on nav­ig­at­ing social media while adher­ing to the policy. ii. Mon­it­or­ing officer from Moray Coun­cil to share their guid­ance on mis­use, shar­ing and copy rights of web­casts with Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices. iii. Share FOI policy with Board mem­bers to high­light the work being done in this area.

Paper 1 i. Return to com­mit­tee the new policy on staff recog­ni­tion and reward once available.

Paper 2 i. Arrange for a budget mon­it­or­ing inform­a­tion ses­sion with board mem­bers. Ses­sion has been arranged for 08 May. This has been offered to all inter­ested Board Mem­bers. Paper 5 i. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Jack­ie Brier­ton to Invest­ig­ate the pos­sib­il­ity of Cred­it Uni­ons for staff and park wide.

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Minutes of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee meet­ing Held online 14 March 2025 at 01.30pm

Present online Kenny Deans (Chair) Steve Mickle­wright (Deputy Chair) Sandy Brem­ner Elean­or Mack­in­tosh Chris Beat­tie John Kirk Ann Ross

In attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Colin McCle­an Head of Land Man­age­ment Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 Alan Smith, Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies None

Wel­come and introduction

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing of the Per­form­ance Committee.

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Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meetings

1. The draft minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing held on 13 Decem­ber 2024 were approved with the requests of the amend­ment to change the ref­er­ence to the bus stop to New­ton­more, not Kin­gussie at 10c.

Mat­ters arising not covered elsewhere

1. There were not mat­ters arising.

ACTION Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ing 13 Decem­ber 2024 Status Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update quarter 3 2024 (July – Septem­ber) (Paper 1) At para 8 i. Azets report when final­ised to be brought to a future meet­ing of the per­form­ance com­mit­tee for inform­a­tion. Open

Cairngorms 2030 trans­port theme over­view (Paper 2) At para 12 i. Unre­li­ab­il­ity of buses and pro­vi­sion of cycle friendly buses to be raised with bus pro­viders as part of the pro­ject. Closed

Bring­ing beavers back pro­ject (Paper 3) At para 16 i. Head of Con­ser­va­tion to share monthly updates provided to landown­ers with Board Mem­bers at Closed their request. AOCB At para 26 i. Paper on youth action to com­ple­ment a paper on com­munity loc­al led devel­op­ment to be Closed covered sched­uled for Septem­ber 2025. March 25 ii. Ranger ser­vice update to be incor­por­ated into Open the Act­ive Cairngorms action plan paper.

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Declar­a­tions of interest

1. There were no declar­a­tions of interest.

01.36pm John Kirk joined the meeting

Cairngorms Trust and Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment Update (Paper 6)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the work of the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group Trust (‘the Cairngorms Trust’) and the col­lect­ive work of the Cairngorms Trust and the Park Author­ity in Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) activity.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) A board mem­ber sought clar­ity on the CLLD budgets. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices stated that CLLD was pre­vi­ously covered by LEAD­ER pro­grammes until 2022, and Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) con­tin­ue to provide budget across annu­al­ised alloc­a­tions. It was noted that SG have dif­fer­ent cri­ter­ia to meet each year and there are one-year alloc­a­tions which will be primar­ily of cap­it­al nature. b) Board Mem­bers expressed their dis­ap­point­ment that fund­ing from SG would be purely cap­it­al for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆, not­ing that pro­jects are look­ing for more than just cap­it­al. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions agreed this was lim­it­ing, not­ing these com­ments have been shared with SG offi­cials. c) Dis­cus­sions were had around lead in times and how these will be affected for cap­it­al fund­ing for Trust and com­munity pro­jects, ques­tion­ing if lead in times can be star­ted earli­er. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions cla­ri­fied that the Park Author­ity and the Trust have star­ted to advert­ise that funds will be avail­able a month ago, not­ing there are pro­mo­tions on both web­sites for expres­sions of interest, and to encour­age people to come for­ward with ideas, there­fore allow­ing work with com­munit­ies to start devel­op­ing those ideas. Lead time starts in Feb­ru­ary instead of March / April to allow applic­ants more time. d) Chris Beat­tie offered to put Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions in con­tact with officers from Angus Coun­cils, to offer sup­port with voluntary

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giv­ing. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions agreed this would be help­ful sug­gest­ing they could attend work­ing group meet­ings or discussions.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Wheth­er the pro­grammes of activ­ity are mak­ing the expec­ted con­tri­bu­tion to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s agreed stra­tegic out­comes. b) Wheth­er the deliv­ery updates sug­gest any stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s agreed per­form­ance object­ives. c) Wheth­er any mater­i­al impacts on the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures arise from assess­ment of pro­gramme delivery.

2. Action Points Arising: None

Cairngorms Nation­al Park ven­ison sub­sidy scheme ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ (Paper 1)

1. Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s ven­ison sub­sidy scheme.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) CEO gave fur­ther con­text around deer, not­ing that Cairngorms Nation­al Park has had a high­er take up than oth­er tri­al areas how­ever, this is a learn­ing exper­i­ence, and the Park Author­ity will share learn­ing with oth­er areas as look­ing to year two of the schemes. It was noted that pro­jects such as this can take two or three years for res­ults to fil­ter through there­fore this will be re- eval­u­ated again in the future, mak­ing the neces­sary tweaks to make it bet­ter, even though it is prov­ing prom­ising. Board Mem­bers agreed and were happy that changes are able to be made to allow more suc­cess, encour­aging more land man­agers to come onboard. b) A board mem­ber reques­ted an update on the deer lar­ders in High­land Perth­shire regard­ing how this began and where the fund­ing was sourced from. Head of Land Man­age­ment explained it began with a con­sulta­tion with landown­ers exper­i­en­cing agri­cul­tur­al dam­age and large amounts of deer but unable to cull due to no lar­der facil­it­ies, there­fore the idea of com­munity lar­ders was intro­duced. The pro­gramme is fun­ded by Cairngorms 2030 with

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Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund­ing (NLHF). It was noted that a por­tion of the cull goes to food­banks, from Blair­gowrie to Edin­burgh and oth­er por­tion goes to school din­ner pro­grammes in Perth and Kinross, Strath­spey, Spey­side, Aber­deen­shire and Angus, and High­land Coun­cil are now inter­ested to be involved as well. There has been a lot of pos­it­ive media responses from this pro­ject so far.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the pro­gress of the ven­ison sub­sidy scheme.

2. Action Points Arising: None

Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update, quarter four 2024 (Octo­ber – Decem­ber) (Paper 2)

1. Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 intro­duced the paper which presents the status of pro­gramme and risk man­age­ment, based on inform­a­tion in pro­ject reports for the peri­od from Octo­ber to Decem­ber 2024, and updated where appro­pri­ate to reflect cur­rent pos­i­tion as at the time of writ­ing, and the planned work to end March 2025.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) A board mem­ber asked for future reports to answer the ques­tions of what change is hap­pen­ing and what dif­fer­ence is this mak­ing to people’s lives. Head of Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) noted the paper already includes details of deliv­ery impact (such as the deer lar­der pro­ject) and that the five-year mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation, will track and report on over­all pro­gramme impact. The reports will be shared with the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee on annu­al basis. b) Clar­ity was sought regard­ing train­ing volun­teers and how this works. Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager noted that the C2030 team works with volun­teers to identi­fy fur­ther volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and provide train­ing required to allow them to carry out their pro­ject. An example was giv­en for a key pro­ject cur­rently under­way; bike bus in Badenoch and Strath­spey, volun­teer train­ing is avail­able to provide rid­ing skills and keep­ing chil­dren safe

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 5 Annex 1 27 June 2025 Page 15 of 19 c) on the roads. As new oppor­tun­it­ies are avail­able, these are shared with volun­teers to help improve pro­jects. A board mem­ber ques­tioned what work is being car­ried out on the Spey and Dee through C2030. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change respon­ded there are a num­ber of pro­jects involving the Spey and Dee; res­tor­a­tion of River Quoi­ch, Brae­mar, River Dulain at Slug­gan, and explor­ing fur­ther oppor­tun­it­ies on the Esk.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note pro­gress to date and future plans for C2030 deliv­ery b) Note spe­cif­ic points of C2030 deliv­ery risk c) High­light any issues arising that mem­bers may feel need spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion by staff from a stra­tegic and board perspective.

2. Action Points Arising: None.

Cairngorms 2030: Health and Well­being (Paper 3)

1. Alan Smith, Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager and Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the pro­gress made against the object­ives of the Pub­lic Health and the Out­doors and Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre pro­jects, part of the Health and Well­being Theme in the Cairngorms 2030 Programme.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) A board mem­ber ques­tioned the num­ber of incom­plete refer­rals. Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager noted these were from people who either do not show up or respond. It showed the import­ance of more hours being vital, to allow staff more time to fol­low up and over­come these dif­fi­culties, while also judging the num­ber of times to con­tact a per­son before mark­ing is unre­spons­ive. It was high­lighted that all unre­spons­ive people will be repor­ted back to where their ori­gin­al refer­ral comes form. b) Dis­cus­sions were had around how sus­tain­able some of the C2030 pro­jects would be in the long term and if they would be man­age­able for oth­ers to take on. Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager noted this was a core part of

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 5 Annex 1 27 June 2025 Page 16 of 19 c) d) e) the Nation­al Park work, and the aim is to make them routine and man­age­able work for core staff through­out the Nation­al Park to con­tin­ue. Dis­cus­sions were had around the fact this was a fant­ast­ic ini­ti­at­ive. How­ever, ques­tions were raised if this was up to the Park Author­ity to be respons­ible for. Out­door Learn­ing and Engage­ment Man­ager noted our respons­ib­il­ity was to use the NLHF fund­ing to pion­eer new pro­jects that key part­ner organ­isa­tions have wanted to tri­al, take onboard the Park Authority’s res­ults, find­ings and learn­ings and move for­ward, integ­rat­ing this into their core ser­vices. Dis­cus­sions were had around cur­rent budget lim­it­a­tions and if this is part of the Park Authority’s core budget. CEO high­lighted that over the next four years, fund­ing does not come out of the Park Authority’s core budget as it comes through the C2030 from the NLHF. It was noted the idea of C2030 was to tri­al new ini­ti­at­ives to see how they improve the Nation­al Park and to make it sus­tain­able for organ­isa­tions such as NHS to pick these up and roll them out to oth­er areas in Scot­land as well as the Nation­al Park. Head of Cairngorms 2030 noted that due to the pion­eer­ing work car­ried out in the Nation­al Park, a new out­door demen­tia centre has opened up in Edinburgh.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note pro­gress to date and future plans for C2030 deliv­ery b) Note spe­cif­ic points of C2030 deliv­ery risk c) High­light any issues arising that mem­bers may feel need spe­cif­ic con­sid­er­a­tion by staff from a stra­tegic and board perspective.

2. Action Points Arising: None.

Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme (Paper 4)

1. Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment intro­duced the paper which updates on the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ and presents early-stage plans for the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ pipeline of activity.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and observations:

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Form­al Board Paper 5 Annex 1 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 27 June 2025 Page 17 of 19 α) Dis­cus­sions were had around the addi­tion­al budget, Board Mem­bers agreed it was a good idea to use the addi­tion­al money to plan for three to four years ahead. Ques­tions were raised if there was scope to use the money towards train­ing or recruit­ment for loc­al con­tract­ors. Head of Land Man­age­ment com­men­ted that the amount of con­tract­ors have now increased; a mix of loc­al and lar­ger civil firms. It was noted that there was a new entrant scheme this year. The increase in the peat­land budget across Scot­land will mean there is more work for con­tract­ors, and this may test con­tract­or capa­city in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆. b) CEO high­lighted that the Peat­land team in the Cairngorms have a good nation­al repu­ta­tion, receiv­ing good feed­back from the Dir­ect­or of SG, as well as oth­ers. It was noted that over the next few years, the peat­land work will become trick­i­er as sites become remoter etc. The Park Author­ity can­not fin­an­cially do all the work and must be real­ist­ic on what can be achieved. Board Mem­bers agreed the work car­ried out has been of a high qual­ity by the Peat­land team and praised their work.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note pro­gress against pro­gramme tar­gets for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ b) Note the plans for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆

2. Action Points Arising: None.

Lag­gan Hydro­logy pro­ject update (Paper 5)

1. Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change intro­duced the paper which updates the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee on the deliv­ery of the Lag­gan hydro­logy engage­ment event as a com­pon­ent of deliv­ery of the Spey Catch­ment Man­age­ment Plan. The paper is presen­ted at the request of the Com­mit­tee Chair, as an aspect of the board’s role in scru­tiny of pro­ject deliv­ery where this may have wider impacts on stra­tegic risk man­age­ment and repu­ta­tion­al damage.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the paper and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: α) Dis­cus­sions were had around the pre­vi­ous Lag­gan hydro­logy engage­ment event and an over­view was shared to update Com­mit­tee Mem­bers. It was explained that a report was com­mis­sioned and fun­ded by the Park Authority

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Form­al Board Paper 5 Annex 1 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 27 June 2025 Page 18 of 19 b) c) d) e) to gath­er the evid­ence to allow the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive to deliv­er the Spey Catch­ment Man­age­ment Plan and liaise with landown­ers on the res­ults. Fur­ther dis­cus­sions were had to under­stand the reas­ons behind why some land man­agers were dis­ap­poin­ted with the report. It was dis­cussed that this was due to a per­ceived lack of com­mu­nic­a­tion with landown­ers by the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive and there not being suf­fi­cient over­sight by the Park Authority’s Seni­or Man­age­ment Team ahead of the res­ults being presen­ted pub­licly. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change agreed these were val­id points that have been reflec­ted in the paper and going for­ward, fol­low­ing the recom­mend­a­tions in the paper, there will be a change at oper­a­tion­al levels to ensure reports are being reviewed by Seni­or Man­age­ment Teams before being issued. Dis­cus­sions were had around pre­vi­ous reports that might be rel­ev­ant to the over­all work of the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive. John Kirk offered to share the 1990 Cuth­burt High­land report. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change offered to share this with the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive. A Board Mem­ber ques­tioned if there was any oppor­tun­ity to claw­back money from the authors of the report. Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change explained that this would be unlikely due to the con­tract being fin­ished and the report being signed off. It was noted that the Park Author­ity will make improve­ments to its pro­cess for the future.

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee noted the paper and agreed to the recom­mend­a­tions: α) Note the update on the pro­ject b) Con­sider wheth­er there are any sig­ni­fic­ant risk implic­a­tions arising from pro­ject deliv­ery to date.

2. Action Points Arising: None

AOCB

1. None

Date of Next Meeting

1. The date of the next meet­ing is 13 June 2025 in person.

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1. The meet­ing con­cluded at 02.58pm

ACTION Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ings 13 Decem­ber 2024 Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme update quarter 3 2024 (July – Septem­ber) (Paper 1) At para 8 i. Azets report when final­ised to be brought to a future meet­ing of the per­form­ance com­mit­tee for inform­a­tion. Status Open

AOCB At para 26 ii. Ranger ser­vice update to be incor­por­ated into the Act­ive Cairngorms action plan paper. Open

Action points arising from today’s meet­ing 14 March 2025 None