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Paper 6 Annex 1 Internal Audit Review Grant Administration & Management

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ügh­dar­ras Pairc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Paper 6 Annex 1
13 March 2026

Paper 6

Annex 1

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Intern­al Audit 2025 – 26 Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Man­age­ment Janu­ary 2026

Over­all Conclusion

Strong

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

Table of contents

Sec­tionPage
1 EXEC­UT­IVE SUMMARY2
2 DETAILED RECOMMENDATIONS14
3 OBSER­VA­TIONS22
4 AUDIT ARRANGEMENTS23
5 KEY PERSONNEL24
AppendixPage
A GRAD­ING STRUCTURE26
B ASSIGN­MENT PLAN28

The mat­ters raised in this report came to our atten­tion dur­ing the course of our audit and are not neces­sar­ily a com­pre­hens­ive state­ment of all weak­nesses that exist or all improve­ments that might be made.

This report has been pre­pared solely for Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s indi­vidu­al use and should not be quoted in whole or in part without pri­or writ­ten con­sent. No respons­ib­il­ity to any third party is accep­ted as the report has not been pre­pared, and is not inten­ded, for any third party.

We emphas­ise that the respons­ib­il­ity for a sound sys­tem of intern­al con­trol rests with man­age­ment and work per­formed by intern­al audit should not be relied upon to identi­fy all sys­tem weak­nesses that may exist. Neither should intern­al audit be relied upon to identi­fy all cir­cum­stances of fraud or irreg­u­lar­ity should there be any although our audit pro­ced­ures are designed so that any mater­i­al irreg­u­lar­ity has a reas­on­able prob­ab­il­ity of dis­cov­ery. Every sound sys­tem of con­trol may not be proof against col­lus­ive fraud. Intern­al audit pro­ced­ures are designed to focus on areas that are con­sidered to be of greatest risk and significance.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Over­view

Pur­pose of review

The pur­pose of this review was to assess wheth­er Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (the Organ­isa­tion) is oper­at­ing effi­ciently and effect­ively in respect of grants admin­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment. We under­took test­ing of the pro­cess to assess if the Organisation’s pro­ced­ures are being adhered to. Our review con­sidered the new expres­sion of interest sys­tem and the new grants programme.

This review seeks to provide assur­ance to the Board, via the Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee, that the Organisation’s arrange­ments are adequate.

Scope of review

Our object­ives for this review were to assess whether:

  • The Organ­isa­tion has robust arrange­ments in place for admin­is­ter­ing and man­aging grants.
  • The Organ­isa­tion is con­sist­ent in its approach to nego­ti­at­ing, record­ing, and mon­it­or­ing grants.
  • Staff are aware of these arrange­ments and are adher­ing to these.
  • The Organ­isa­tion has effect­ive qual­ity assur­ance arrange­ments in place for grants.
  • The Organ­isa­tion has suf­fi­cient mon­it­or­ing and track­ing of grants.
  • The Organ­isa­tion has appro­pri­ate report­ing mech­an­isms sur­round­ing the Organisation’s pro­vi­sion where robust per­form­ance meas­ures have been iden­ti­fied and are repor­ted against.
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Our approach to this assign­ment took the form of dis­cus­sion with rel­ev­ant staff, review of doc­u­ment­a­tion and where appro­pri­ate sample testing.

Lim­it­a­tion of scope

There was no lim­it­a­tion of scope.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Back­ground

Expres­sion of Interest and Ini­tial Applications

The Organ­isa­tion fol­lows a defined Grant Man­age­ment Pro­ced­ure. This is defined with­in the Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess doc­u­ment, developed by the Com­munity Grant Man­ager and has come into effect since April 2025.

The Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess cov­ers the steps required for the admin­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment of grants. This begins with set­ting up the grants meth­od of gath­er­ing interest via expres­sion of interest or applic­a­tion through the Organisation’s website.

Grant Man­agers devel­op the expres­sion of interest, or ini­tial applic­a­tion doc­u­ment, for each of the grants they have respons­ib­il­ity for. These involve a series of ini­tial ​‘screen­ing’ ques­tions, to check eli­gib­il­ity and ensure that the applicant’s pro­ject cor­rectly aligns with the fund­ing stream’s aims. These are usu­ally set up via Microsoft Forms or Microsoft Word, and stand­ard tem­plates have been developed by the Com­munity Grants Man­ager to assist in this process.

Grant Man­agers are assigned to review expres­sions of interests & ini­tial applic­a­tions, cor­res­pond with applic­ants and obtain claim evidence.

Where details applic­a­tions are unclear, or more detail is reques­ted, the rel­ev­ant Grant Man­ager will reach out to applic­ants, sup­port­ing them to fin­ish the application.

Record­ing of grants on the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List

The Com­munity Grant Man­ager main­tains a record of all grant applic­a­tions on the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List. This includes details of denied grants, as well as both ongo­ing and final­ised grants. We note that all office staff have access to the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

When ini­tial expres­sions of interests and applic­a­tions come in, the Grant Man­ager will receive noti­fic­a­tion via Microsoft forms (or dir­ect email) of this. The Grant Man­ager would review the sub­mit­ted applic­a­tion and enter these details onto the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List. Entries onto the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List are cre­ated via Microsoft List, which provides a list of ques­tions which must be answered.

This includes all cur­rent details of the grant/​application. This is updated by the Grant Man­ager as more inform­a­tion becomes avail­able, including:

  • Ser­vice area;
  • Fund­ing type;
  • Pro­ject title;
  • Organ­isa­tion apply­ing, the name of lead con­tact, and their con­tact details;
  • Total cost of the applicant’s pro­ject, and the grant amount they have requested;
  • Wheth­er an approv­al meet­ing has taken place;
  • Value of grant offered;
  • Date grant offer let­ter issued; and
  • Dates of claims made

Man­age­ment of Grants

If an applic­a­tion is approved, the Grant Man­ager is respons­ible for the ongo­ing man­age­ment and mon­it­or­ing of that grant. This includes issu­ing the ini­tial Grant Offer Let­ter, along­side a copy of the stand­ard grant terms and con­di­tions. At this stage, there may be spe­cif­ic con­di­tions added to the offer let­ter, for the applic­ant to agree to. This will also include the response deadline.

The Grant Man­ager is respons­ible for keep­ing the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List updated through­out the life of the grant. This begins with the ini­tial expres­sion of interest, and more details are added as these are obtained through­out the applic­a­tion pro­cess or dur­ing cor­res­pond­ence with the applic­ant. The Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List allows the ​‘status’ of the grant to be updated, so the stage a grant is at can be viewed at a glance. Grants can be noted as:

  • Applic­ant not proceeding
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

  • EOI Received
  • EOI Rejec­ted
  • Grant accep­ted by recipient
  • Grant app received
  • Grant app unsuccessful
  • Grant com­plete
  • Grant offered
  • Under Dis­cus­sion

Evid­ence is required to sup­port each claim against the grant includ­ing invoices, pho­to­graphs of equip­ment, and evid­ence of out­puts. When claim forms are received by the Grant Man­ager, they are respons­ible for obtain­ing claim evid­ence before sub­mit­ting to fin­ance for payment.

Addi­tion­al evid­ence is required before the first pay­ment is made. This may include bank state­ment evid­ence, evid­ence of premises, pur­chases (if already made) etc.

Staff Aware­ness

The Com­munity Grants Team have developed a clear and detailed Grants Man­age­ment Pro­cess. This describes the pro­cess to be fol­lowed. This also includes step-by-step instruc­tions for some parts of the pro­cess, such as updat­ing the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List.

The Com­munity Grants Team have also pre­pared sev­er­al stand­ard tem­plates which Grant Man­agers can use including:

  • Guid­ance ques­tions — used to assist the grant man­ager when cre­at­ing the grant — includes con­sid­er­a­tions of themes/​outputs, what the grant is sup­posed to sup­port, assess­ment cri­ter­ia, con­tact details;
  • Expres­sion of Interest form template;
  • Applic­a­tion form tem­plate; and
  • Grant offer let­ter template.
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Both the Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess and the tem­plates lis­ted above are avail­able to all staff via the Organisation’s intranet, Eolas. All pro­cess and guid­ance doc­u­ment­a­tion is avail­able on the Com­munity Grant team’s land­ing page, as well as con­tact details for the team mem­bers. Addi­tion­ally, the page includes a dir­ect link to the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List.

Mon­it­or­ing and Qual­ity Assurance

Grant Man­agers are respons­ible for mon­it­or­ing applic­a­tions to which they are assigned. This includes cor­res­pond­ence with the cli­ent, review of any updates received and for pro­gress­ing the applic­a­tion through the decision pro­cess. They will update the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List with more details as these are received. The Grant Man­ager updates this as it pro­gresses, adding details such as approved grant amounts, dates of offer let­ters and claim dates.

The Com­munity Grant Team are avail­able to sup­port Grant Man­agers through­out this pro­cess, but the respons­ib­il­ity lies with them. The Team have been provid­ing ad-hoc sup­port and train­ing to Grant Man­agers where required, though the pro­cess is well doc­u­mented and easy to fol­low with the use of Microsoft Forms.

The Com­munity Grant Man­ager mon­it­ors the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List for over­all robust­ness. This includes per­form­ing monthly spot-checks of grant entries, com­par­ing the details with­in the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List to evid­ence stored with­in the rel­ev­ant grant’s Share­Point folder. They will also review entries where the status has appeared to be stat­ic for a long time.

Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List, the Com­munity Grant Man­ager notices details or doc­u­ment­a­tion miss­ing, they will liaise with the Grant Man­ager to ensure this is com­pleted. Where the status of a grant appears to have been stat­ic for a while, the Com­munity Grant Man­ager would get in touch with the Grant Manger to con­firm why this has not pro­gressed. We have raised a recom­mend­a­tion focused on these spot-checks. Please see Sec­tion 2: Detailed Recom­mend­a­tions for more information.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Test­ing

We reviewed the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List and selec­ted a sample of 10 grant entries for review. In each case, we sought to review evid­ence that the fol­low­ing was stored:

  • The com­pleted Expres­sion of Interest Form or ini­tial application;
  • The full application;
  • The Signed Grant offer letter;
  • If unsuc­cess­ful, com­mu­nic­a­tion of this to the applicant;
  • Sig­ni­fic­ant cor­res­pond­ence with the applicant;
  • Pre-claim check evidence;
  • Claim forms; and
  • Sup­port­ing claim evidence.

Note that we selec­ted grants of vari­ous stages of com­ple­tion, so the exact items reviewed for each grant will vary based on the doc­u­ment­a­tion avail­able at each stage of progression.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Work Under­taken

In line with each object­ive, we com­pleted the fol­low­ing work:

Object­ive 1: The Organ­isa­tion has robust arrange­ments in place for admin­is­ter­ing and man­aging grants.

  • We held dis­cus­sions with the Com­munity Grant Man­ager to under­stand and review the pro­cess for admin­is­ter­ing and man­aging grants, includ­ing the expres­sions of interest system.
  • We reviewed the Organisation’s Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess, assess­ing this robust­ness and clarity.

Object­ive 2: The Organ­isa­tion is con­sist­ent in its approach to nego­ti­at­ing, record­ing, and mon­it­or­ing grants.

  • We per­formed a hol­ist­ic review of the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List used to record and mon­it­or grants, to con­firm that grant inform­a­tion was being recor­ded and mon­itored consistently.
  • We reviewed a sample of 10 grants from the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List to con­firm that grants were appro­pri­ately approved and man­aged in line with the Grant Man­age­ment Process.

Object­ive 3: Staff are aware of these arrange­ments and are adher­ing to these.

  • We held dis­cus­sions with the Com­munity Grant Man­ager to under­stand how staff are made aware of the Grant Man­age­ment Process.
  • We reviewed the guid­ance doc­u­ments and stand­ard tem­plates pro­duced by the Com­munity Grants Man­ager, to assess wheth­er these are clear and fit for purpose.

Object­ive 4: The Organ­isa­tion has effect­ive qual­ity assur­ance arrange­ments in place for grants.

  • We held dis­cus­sions with the Com­munity Grant Man­ager to under­stand what qual­ity assur­ance arrange­ments are in place in terms of the Organisation’s Grant Man­age­ment Process.
  • We con­duc­ted a walk­through test with the Com­munity Grant Man­ager, review­ing how new entries are made onto the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List via Microsoft List, act­ing as a pro­act­ive way to pre­pare high-qual­ity information.
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Object­ive 5: The Organ­isa­tion has suf­fi­cient mon­it­or­ing and track­ing of grants.

  • We per­formed a hol­ist­ic review of the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List used to record and mon­it­or grants, to con­firm that this was suit­able for mon­it­or­ing of grants.
  • We held dis­cus­sions with the Com­munity Grant Man­ager to under­stand how the Organ­isa­tions grants awar­ded are monitored.

Object­ive 6: The Organ­isa­tion has appro­pri­ate report­ing mech­an­isms sur­round­ing the Organisation’s pro­vi­sion where robust per­form­ance meas­ures have been iden­ti­fied and are repor­ted against.

  • We held dis­cus­sions with the Com­munity Grant Man­ager to under­stand what report­ing arrange­ments are in place for the Organisation’s grants awarded.
  • We con­sidered the report­ing arrange­ments in place for the Com­munity Grants Team, review­ing evid­ence of their report­ing to the Cairngorms Trust Board.
  • We con­sidered the report­ing arrange­ments in place for oth­er CNPA grants, included those awar­ded from the Cli­mate Adap­tion fund and the Con­ser­va­tion fund.
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Con­clu­sion

Over­all conclusion

Over­all Con­clu­sion: Strong

Fol­low­ing our review, we can provide the Organ­isa­tion with a strong level of assur­ance sur­round­ing the grants admin­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment arrange­ments. This is high­lighted as we have raised sev­er­al areas of good prac­tice, how­ever, we have raised four low-grade recom­mend­a­tions for improve­ment and one obser­va­tion for con­sid­er­a­tion. Please refer to Sec­tion 3: Detailed Recom­mend­a­tions and Sec­tion 4: Obser­va­tions for fur­ther information.

Sum­mary of recommendations

Grad­ing of recommendations

HighMedi­umLowTotal
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management0044

As can be seen from the above table there were no recom­mend­a­tions made which we have giv­en a grad­ing of high.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

Areas of good practice

The fol­low­ing is a list of areas where the Organ­isa­tion is oper­at­ing effect­ively and fol­low­ing good practice.

  1. The pro­cess for receiv­ing, record­ing and pro­gress­ing grant applic­a­tions is robust. Expres­sions of interest are used to screen applic­a­tions at the ini­tial stage, with more detailed inform­a­tion required in the full applic­a­tion. Grant Man­agers are respons­ible for tak­ing applic­a­tions for­ward, and receive auto­mat­ic noti­fic­a­tion when new expres­sions of interests are received. Grant man­agers record details onto the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List as they are received.
  2. Grant applic­a­tions are assessed based on spe­cif­ic cri­ter­ia developed for each grant, focused on the spe­cif­ic out­comes, themes and tar­gets that the grant fund­ing offer­ing is meant to achieve.
  3. The pro­cess for man­age­ment of grant applic­a­tions and grants awar­ded, includ­ing gath­er­ing evid­ence, issu­ing offer let­ters and review­ing sup­port­ing evid­ence for claims, is clearly defined with­in the Grant Man­age­ment Process.
  4. The Organ­isa­tion has a ded­ic­ated Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess in place, developed by the Com­munity Grants Man­ager, provid­ing robust details of the pro­ced­ure to be fol­lowed for admin­is­ter­ing and man­aging grants.
  5. Grant Man­agers are alloc­ated to each grant applic­a­tion, and are respons­ible for the mon­it­or­ing and man­age­ment of that applic­a­tion. This includes ensur­ing that the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List is updated, and stor­age of grant doc­u­ment­a­tion with­in rel­ev­ant Share­Point folders.
  6. The Com­munity Grants Team have pre­pared pro­cess doc­u­ment­a­tion and stand­ard tem­plates for Grant Man­agers to fol­low for their grants. These are avail­able to all mem­bers of staff via the Com­munity Grant Team’s page on Eolas.
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

1 Exec­ut­ive summary

The fol­low­ing is a list of areas where the Organ­isa­tion is oper­at­ing effect­ively and fol­low­ing good practice.

  1. The Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List used to mon­it­or cur­rent grants is based on the Microsoft List sys­tem, set­ting out desired fields for details of each grant.
  2. The Com­munity Grants Man­ager mon­it­ors the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List reg­u­larly, ensur­ing this is robust and entries are complete.
  3. Report­ing arrange­ments for each grant vary based on respons­ib­il­ity for the rel­ev­ant fund­ing stream, ensur­ing inform­a­tion is only repor­ted to rel­ev­ant groups.
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

2 Detailed recommendations

Spotchecks

Ref.Find­ing and RiskGradeRecom­mend­a­tion
1.The Organ­isa­tion should per­form peri­od­ic reviews of the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List used to record and mon­it­or grant applic­a­tions and grants awar­ded.

Dis­cus­sions with the Com­munity Grant Man­ager noted that monthly spot-checks of entries onto the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List take place, how­ever, these are not form­ally recor­ded. The Com­munity Grant Man­ager will review entries to con­firm that all required details are filled in, and that sup­port­ing evid­ence is stored. Where these are not in place, the Com­munity Grant Man­ager will con­tact the respons­ible Grant Man­ager and request these entries are com­pleted. They will also review entries where the status has appeared to be stat­ic for a long time, query­ing why this is with the rel­ev­ant Grant Man­ager.

Our root cause ana­lys­is finds that the require­ment to review the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List is not form­al­ised with­in the		LowWe recom­mend that Organ­isa­tion form­al­ise the require­ment to con­duct peri­od­ic spot-checks of the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List with­in the Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess. Spot-checks should be recor­ded to con­firm com­ple­tion each month.

Con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to adding a field dir­ectly to the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List indic­at­ing which grants have been spot-checked, and the date this was performed.
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

2 Detailed recommendations

Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess, or related doc­u­ment­a­tion. The Com­munity Grant Man­ager has iden­ti­fied the need for peri­od review, how­ever spe­cif­ic require­ments around this are not set out.

Where spot-checks are not per­formed, this cre­ates a risk that the qual­ity of the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List as a mon­it­or­ing tool would decline.
Man­age­ment responseRespons­ib­il­ity and imple­ment­a­tion date
Recom­mend­a­tion accep­ted.

Com­munity Grants Man­ager to lead and work with Grants team to cre­ate a spot check check­list / form that will be used to com­plete a monthly check. Checks will then need to be filed and acknow­ledged for future audit / refer­ral. Con­sid­er­a­tion to be giv­en to the best mech­an­ism for record­ing — using exist­ing Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment list togeth­er with an MS form that will col­lect all the spot checks as well as the List entry.		Respons­ible Officer:
Brid­get Trus­sell

Imple­ment­a­tion Date:
31 Decem­ber 2026
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

2 Detailed recommendations

Post-com­ple­tion review

Ref.Find­ing and RiskGradeRecom­mend­a­tion
2.As part of the com­ple­tion and final­isa­tion of grants admin­istered, qual­ity-assur­ance checks should be per­formed.

Dis­cus­sions with the Com­munity Grants Man­ager noted that there is cur­rently no form­al post-grant com­ple­tion review. The Com­munity Grants Man­ager has begun per­form­ing ad-hoc reviews of com­pleted grants to ensure that all required details and evid­ence are stored, in line with the Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess.

Our root cause ana­lys­is finds that require­ment to com­plete post-com­ple­tion review checks is not included with­in the Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess. As a res­ult, there is no form­al pro­cess for the post-com­ple­tion review, or for record­ing the review com­pleted.

Where grants are not giv­en a post-com­ple­tion review, this cre­ates a risk that final steps of the pro­cess may be fol­lowed incor­rectly, with details or evid­ence not obtained. Opportunities		LowWe recom­mend that the Organ­isa­tion form­al­ise a pro­cess for the post-com­ple­tion review of grants with­in the Grant Man­age­ment Pro­cess. This should include require­ments around record­ing this review.

Con­sid­er­a­tion should be giv­en to adding a field dir­ectly to the Grant Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment List indic­at­ing where post-com­ple­tion review checks have been performed.
Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
Grants Admin­is­tra­tion & Management

2 Detailed recommendations

| | to identi­fy any ​‘les­sons learned’, or any poten­tial trend