Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 5

28 August 2026 Page 1 of 9

For inform­a­tion

Draft Health and Safety Com­mit­tee Minutes

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Hybrid 11 June 2026

In Attend­ance

• Kate Christie
• Pip Mack­ie
• Mark Pocock
• Colin Simpson
• Beccy Stan­ton
• Alan Smith
• Emma Stew­art

Apo­lo­gies

None

Item 1: Review of minutes and pre­vi­ous actions

1. Updated in action log. Key dis­cus­sion points: a) We’ve not been able to identi­fy an appro­pri­ate course on bio­se­c­ur­ity. Pro­posed that for the nature of our work, an ​“arrive clean, leave clean” approach is suf­fi­cient. Action Point — BS to add this to site vis­it RA.

Item 2: Con­sid­er­a­tion of installing CCTV (PD attended)

1. BS described a recent situ­ation where a vehicle drove into the num­ber 16 car­park, strangely right up to shed, and had full sight of all the e‑bikes and con­tents of the sheds. They then tried to sell their ser­vices (spec­u­lat­ive tar­ring of the car­park) to BS in a some­what aggress­ive man­ner and were reluct­ant to accept her response that we did not require this work. They hung around the area for a while after­wards and the situ­ation felt slightly threatening.
2. BS had recor­ded this in the Acci­dent and Incid­ent pro­cess, and in dis­cus­sion with KC pro­posed that giv­en the sig­ni­fic­ant amount of value of both the shed con­tents and kit in the build­ing, as well as our expand­ing fleet of vehicles, we may want to con­sider installing CCTV.
3. PD dis­cussed Gen­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion Reg­u­la­tion (GDPR) implic­a­tions – CCTV has secur­ity bene­fits, but we will need to be clear to staff why we have it – that being for secur­ity only. We would have to update the staff pri­vacy notice, and we will have to avoid mon­it­or­ing private areas and audio record­ing. We will also need to do a Data Pro­tec­tion Assess­ment (DPA) as it’s a new pro­cess involving data. We will need signs set­ting out why we are record­ing and who to con­tact. Recom­men­ded reten­tion is 30 days. We should also restrict who has access to foot­age. Its good prac­tice to con­sult with our neigh­bours, and we need to make sure not to film their areas or have cam­er­as that blur their properties.
4. Health and Safety Com­mit­tee were asked if they felt it would be an appro­pri­ate recom­mend­a­tion to Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) to install CCTV cam­er­as. Com­mit­tee agreed this was a neces­sary recom­mend­a­tion. They felt that it would be a bene­fit for the secur­ity of the rangers too who work week­ends and even­ings and access the build­ing at these times. In addi­tion, it was noted that the back door is open all day and the exten­sion fire door is reg­u­larly left open by the clean­ers whilst clean­ing so this would sup­port gen­er­al build­ing security.
5. Loc­a­tion was dis­cussed and it was agreed that if SMT sup­por­ted the recom­mend­a­tion, we should have cam­er­as in the fol­low­ing loc­a­tions: rear of build­ing 16; at the bike shed; car­park at exten­sion; recep­tion entrance.
6. Actions: — KC to remind staff about wear­ing lan­yards and to ensure vis­it­ors do so as well. BS to spec up cost of four cam­er­as. KC to take this recom­mend­a­tion to SMT.

Item 3: Risk Assess­ment review — Off road driv­ing at work, off road vehicle self-recov­ery; 4×4 water cross­ing notes

1. Gen­er­al view was that all three doc­u­ments were excel­lent and pro­moted a robust but pro­por­tion­ate level of safety. The fol­low­ing were sug­ges­ted: a) ​“Check water depths” – ES to add para­met­ers re water depth b) ​“Check weath­er fore­cast” – what does this mean, when do we decide to go ahead or not. AS to check and provide nar­rat­ive. c) ​“Wade across to check depth” – is this ankle, shin, knee level? What about buoy­ancy aids and throw lines? – ES agreed inher­ent assump­tions are not clear. She will ask Tom to amend to make para­met­ers very clear d) ​“Air intake on vehicles” Is it pos­sible to have a little card in the vehicle to state air intake. BS to action e) It was sug­ges­ted staff be reminded to do dynam­ic risk assess­ments at all times. ES con­firmed that peat­land staff use the cor­por­ate site vis­it risk assess­ment rather than site spe­cif­ic risk assess­ments as the ter­rain on all sites is typ­ic­ally the same. Com­mit­tee agreed that site spe­cif­ic risk assess­ment is only required where a cor­por­ate one doesn’t cov­er what is needed. BS to add to the cor­por­ate site vis­it risk assess­ment that staff should ​“at all times be doing dynam­ic risk assessments”

Item 4: Report on Muir­burn Train­ing Incident

1. CS was the invest­ig­at­ing officer for the muir­burn train­ing incid­ent that has res­ul­ted in sev­er­al Acci­dent and Incid­ent Reports from the coun­tryside rangers attend­ing the course. CS provided a full and detailed writ­ten report of his invest­ig­a­tion and sum­mar­ised the head­lines as fol­lows. a) Verbal instruc­tions to the train­ers about requir­ing a bespoke course had been a year ago. Course had been post­poned and in the passing of time neither the Park Author­ity nor the train­er though to re-issue the instruc­tions or check they were still being imple­men­ted. The out­come was that our expect­a­tion was that it was a tailored course, trainer’s expect­a­tion was that it was the full LANTRA course. b) There needed to be bet­ter com­mu­nic­a­tion with course del­eg­ates on what the course would cov­er, and why they were doing the train­ing. c) The Per­son­al Pro­tect­ive Equip­ment (PPE) was not adequate and next time we will need to test the PPE before using it. d) Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice (SFRS) have advised about a laun­dry that can do decon­tam­in­a­tion – CS To pick this up

Item 5: Acci­dent and Incid­ent Reports

1. Noted that there have been eight Acci­dent and Incid­ent reports in the report­ing peri­od, in com­par­is­on the five in the pre­vi­ous report­ing peri­od and eight in the report­ing peri­od before that. The incid­ents were as fol­lows: a) Inap­pro­pri­ate com­ments from a mem­ber of the pub­lic to a ranger. b) Fall from a bike – juni­or rangers moun­tain bike event at Glen­liv­et. c) Sus­pi­cious per­son / activ­ity in build­ing 16 car­park. d) Verbal abuse towards a ranger. e) Grazed fin­ger caught in a door. f) Cut to fin­ger. g) Tripped off a bike. h) Trip on stairs.
2. Com­mit­tee noted the two incid­ents of verbal abuse dir­ec­ted at rangers. AS repor­ted that this was a low stat­ist­ic but nev­er­the­less still not accept­able. He said that all rangers get Con­flict Res­ol­u­tion train­ing, and that he will ensure this train­ing includes how to handle inap­pro­pri­ate com­ments from the pub­lic. AS to action.

Item 6: Ranger service

1. AS flagged that the access team were unsure when to use the buddy sys­tem and when to use PeopleSafe. BS explained that the lone work­ing page on Eolas provides clear guid­ance on what to use and when. For the low­est level of risk, all that is required is a diary entry, next level requires a lone work­ing entry. All lone work­ing, regard­less of level of risk requires a buddy entry. The sys­tem we have cur­rently works well, and it seems that the Access team haven’t had train­ing on this. BS will do a ses­sion with the Access team.
2. In the con­text of the fire bylaws, AS said that the rangers had had addi­tion­al train­ing from Police Scot­land on con­flict de-escal­a­tion, guid­ance on enforce­ment, and when to back off. To date there had been no require­ments to enforce as there had been gen­er­al com­pli­ance to requests to put out fires. But acknow­ledge that the busy time has not hit us yet, and we are not yet on even­ing patrols which is when there are likely to be some chal­lenges. AS said, we had noted ​“pub­lic poli­cing”. Drone train­ing has been com­pleted for coun­tryside rangers, but the prac­tice hours are still under­way before they can pilot the drones.

Item 7: Peat­land matters

1. ES tabled a Peat­land Team Site Vis­it Guid­ance Note. She explained that the team had expan­ded recently and there were new ways of work­ing. Pre­vi­ously pro­ject officers reg­u­larly were lone work­ers, but now it’s more likely that mul­tiple team mem­bers are going out on site togeth­er, and once on site, may dis­perse to do dif­fer­ent things at dif­fer­ent loc­a­tions in the vicin­ity. This doc­u­ment cov­ers these ways of working.
2. ES was seek­ing feed­back and to ask for a steer regard­ing the keys for the vehicles whilst on site. The team have adop­ted a prac­tice whereby they store the key some­where hid­den at the vehicle so that who­ever is need­ing to access the vehicle is able to do so. This is espe­cially import­ant in winter but is a good safety net for a num­ber of reas­ons, par­tic­u­larly if any­one needs a sheltered wel­fare location.
3. BS explained that from an insur­ance per­spect­ive, we have to take ​“reas­on­able steps” to secure the key. She sug­ges­ted we con­sider get­ting a lock­box. Dis­cus­sion was that these are very remote loc­a­tions so not a huge secur­ity risk. It was agreed to get a lock­box. ES to action with BS – explore get­ting a Faraday lock­box which blocks sig­nal. In the inter­im, con­tin­ue exist­ing prac­tice where key is left in a place know by all the team.

Item 8: Facil­it­ies matters

1. We’ve just had a fire risk assess­ment car­ried out by Chubb. Report due soon but verbal feed­back was that they were happy with the pro­cesses we have in place and our documentation.
2. A new clean­ing con­tract has now been awar­ded. MP is the lead officer for this.
3. People are leav­ing broken equip­ment around the build­ing and not report­ing it to facil­it­ies. BS to post a mes­sage on Eolas remind­ing folks to report these matters.
4. There was an incid­ent where someone had placed a table across the fire exit. BS dealt with it at the time and fol­lowed up with a Eolas post. The cul­prit was an extern­al train­er who per­haps wasn’t aware this was a fire exit. Agreed that BS would put lam­in­ated cards in all meet­ing rooms with details about the loc­a­tions of fire doors, time of fire alarms, where toi­lets ate etc.

AOB

1. None

Date of next meeting

1. 11 Septem­ber 2026

Action table

Action	Per­son responsible
11/06/26
An ​“arrive clean, leave clean” approach is to be added to site vis­it RA	BS
remind staff about wear­ing lan­yards and to ensure vis­it­ors do so as well and take recom­mend­a­tion about installing CCTV to SMT	KC
Spec up cost of 4 CCTV cameras.	BS
Add para­met­ers re water depth	ES
Check and provide nar­rat­ive about weath­er forecast	AS
Amend to make para­met­ers very clear re wad­ing in water	ES
Card in vehicles re air intake	BS
Add to the cor­por­ate site vis­it risk assess­ment that staff should ​“at all times be doing dynam­ic risk assessments”	BS
Liaise with SFRS re decon­tam­in­a­tion laundry	CS
Ensure Con­flict Res­ol­u­tion train­ing includes how to handle inap­pro­pri­ate com­ments from the public	AS
Lone work­ing train­ing for Access team	BS
Remind folks to report equip­ment breakages	BS
Lam­in­ated cards in all meet­ing rooms with details of nearest fire exits, alarm times etc	BS
Explore get­ting a Faraday lock­box which block sig­nal. In the inter­im. Con­tin­ue exist­ing prac­tice where key is left in a place know by all the team	ES/BS
10/03/26
Identi­fy train­ing on Bio­se­c­ur­ity to offer to Con­ser­va­tion and Peat­land staff	com­pleted
Invest­ig­ate Fire Train­ing incident:
* Check if train­ing sched­ule provided
* Send comms to 4 x rangers who had sub­mit­ted A&IR	com­pleted
* Report back at next H&SC meeting
* Feed­back to BrightSpark
* Seek advice from bright­S­park re decontamination
4×4 train­ing for new staff member	com­pleted
Con­tact line man­ager re lone work­ing issues	com­pleted
Add 4×4 train­ing to line man­ager induc­tion checklist	com­pleted
Advise Ranger Man­ager to arrange for more Columbia trousers to be ordered	com­pleted
24÷22÷25
Devel­op a map to show wifi coverage	BS, AS PD — Still in progress
Explore shared Garmin device for Conservation	BS – Still in progress
Is there some­thing as SG level on bio­se­c­ur­ity to cov­er jobs/​locations where vehicle dis­in­fect­ing needs to be considered	BS — Still in progress
CDM Regs training	ES has sent PM a link to the train­ing pro­vider. CS still to decide what exact train­ing his team require and who in his team need to do that. PM and CS to liaise in this regard
9 Septem­ber meeting
PeopleSafe escal­a­tion fail­ure:- Meet with Con­ser­va­tion and LM teams to discuss:-
* 3 people on escal­a­tion plans
* Per­son­al escal­a­tion plans over team escal­a­tion plans
* PeopleSafe escal­a­tion plan to reflect buddy escal­a­tion plan	BS and MP togeth­er with rel­ev­ant Heads of Ser­vice — in progress
* Con­sider roam­ing functionality
* Con­sider Garmin functionality
* Re famil­i­ar­isa­tion train­ing on PeopleSafe at team level
* Audit on sites accessed to assess sig­nal capacity
PeopleSafe escal­a­tion fail­ure:- Lone work­ing wash-up train­ing to be delivered	BS/PD — in progress
13/05/25
AED train­ing for all staff	First ​“tri­al” train­ing ses­sion delivered 15 Feb­ru­ary. Very well received. BS will roll out for more staff
11/02/25
Pan­ic but­ton in well­being room	BS/MP on going. a few options con­sidered but did not work. Facil­it­ies team to revisit
30/10/24
Was a log kept of staff attend­ing A&IR and Lone work­ing train­ing and do e need a mop up	Dis­cussed as part of the Escal­a­tion Pro­ced­ure Fail­ure report. Still to action a mech­an­isms to monitor
30/10/24 Noti­fy fire mar­shals of shed for alarm approach; let staff know that a single out­side alarm does not prompt an evac­u­ation, but the main build­ing alarm does; arrange 4‑weekly test­ing of shed fire alarms.	BS