Paper 6 Equalities report

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 6

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

28 March 2025

Page 1 of 6

For inform­a­tion

Title: Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty Report

Pre­pared by: Kate Christie, Head of Organ­isa­tion­al Development

Pur­pose The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity is a lis­ted pub­lic author­ity that is required to meet the Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty. There are a num­ber of oblig­a­tions under this duty, includ­ing a require­ment to report on main­stream­ing the equal­ity duty, and to pub­lish pro­gress on deliv­ery of a vari­ety of respons­ib­il­it­ies under that duty, includ­ing devel­op­ing a set of equal­ity out­comes every four years, and report­ing on them every two years. The over­arch­ing report demon­strat­ing what we have been doing to meet the Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty is now due to be pub­lished in April 2025.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Board is asked to: α) Note the report and Annex 1. b) Note the achieve­ments in our work on equalities.

Stra­tegic context

1. The Equal­ity Act 2010 (the Act) became law in Octo­ber 2010 and brought togeth­er all the pre­vi­ous pieces of equal­it­ies legis­la­tion under the one Act. The Act sets out the pub­lic sec­tor equal­ity duty, which makes it unlaw­ful to dis­crim­in­ate against someone because of a ​‘pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ic’. The pur­pose of the pub­lic sec­tor equal­ity duty is to ensure that pub­lic author­it­ies and those car­ry­ing out a pub­lic func­tion con­sider how they can pos­it­ively con­trib­ute to a more equal soci­ety through advan­cing equal­ity and good rela­tions in their day-to-day busi­ness, to: α) Take effect­ive action on equal­ity b) Make the right decisions, first time around c) Devel­op bet­ter policies and prac­tices, based on evid­ence d) Be more trans­par­ent, access­ible and account­able e) Deliv­er improved out­comes for all.

2. The pub­lic sec­tor equal­ity duty requires equal­ity to be con­sidered in all the func­tions of pub­lic author­it­ies, includ­ing decision-mak­ing, in the design of intern­al and extern­al policies and in the deliv­ery of ser­vices, and for these issues to be kept under review.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 6

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

28 March 2025

Page 2 of 6

1. We refer to the pub­lic sec­tor equal­ity duty as set out in the 2010 Equal­ity Act as the ​“gen­er­al equal­ity duty”. The gen­er­al duty requires pub­lic author­it­ies, in the exer­cise of their func­tions, to have due regard to the need to: α) Elim­in­ate unlaw­ful dis­crim­in­a­tion, har­ass­ment and vic­tim­isa­tion and oth­er con­duct pro­hib­ited by the Act; b) Advance equal­ity of oppor­tun­ity between people who share a pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ic and those who do not; and c) Foster good rela­tions between people who share a pro­tec­ted char­ac­ter­ist­ic and those who do not.

2. In Scot­land the Equal­ity Act was fol­lowed by sec­ond­ary legis­la­tion (Equal­ity Act 2010 (Spe­cif­ic Duties) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2012), the pur­pose of which is to set out ​“spe­cif­ic equal­ity duties” to help pub­lic author­it­ies in their per­form­ance of the gen­er­al equal­ity duty. So, in terms of the spe­cif­ic duties, we are required to: a) Report on main­stream­ing the equal­ity duty and pub­lish pro­gress every two years; b) Pub­lish equal­ity out­comes every four years and report pro­gress every two years; c) Assess and review our policies and prac­tices d) Gath­er and use employ­ee inform­a­tion; e) Use inform­a­tion on board mem­bers gathered by the Scot­tish Min­is­ters; f) Pub­lish our gender, race and dis­ab­il­ity pay gap inform­a­tion; g) Pub­lish state­ments on equal pay; h) Con­sider award cri­ter­ia and con­di­tions in rela­tion to pub­lic pro­cure­ment; and i) Pub­lish reports in a man­ner that is accessible.

3. The sub­sequent sec­ond­ary legis­la­tion (Equal­ity Act (Spe­cif­ic Duties) (Scot­land) Amend­ment Reg­u­la­tions 2016) fur­ther­more requires us to report the gender make- up of the Board, and the steps we are tak­ing towards ensur­ing diversity of the Board.

4. The pro­tec­ted Char­ac­ter­ist­ics under the Equal­ity Act 2010 are: α) Race; b) Sex; c) Age; d) Dis­ab­il­ity; e) Sexu­al orientation;

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 6

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

28 March 2025

Page 3 of 6

f) Reli­gion and belief; g) Gender re-assign­ment; h) Mar­riage and civil part­ner­ship; and i) Preg­nancy and maternity.

1. The Cairngorm Nation­al Park Authority’s Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Report (Annex 1) sum­mar­ises the key activ­it­ies the Park Author­ity has engaged in over the last two years to meet its respons­ib­il­it­ies under the Pub­lic Sec­tor Equal­ity Duty (PSED). It demon­strates what the Park Author­ity has been doing to main­stream the equal­ity duty into our daily work. It details how we have integ­rated equal­ity into our nat­ur­al think­ing, plan­ning and deliv­ery cycle. This cov­ers engage­ment and par­ti­cip­a­tion; cor­por­ate func­tions and pro­cesses; and ser­vice pro­vi­sion. The report also provides an ana­lys­is of staff and board equal­ity data as is required by the PSED. There is a detailed update on deliv­ery of the pre­vi­ous set of equal­ity out­come (2021 – 2025). The report then sets out a new set of equal­ity out­comes for deliv­ery over the next four years.

Stra­tegic policy consideration

1. Board mem­bers need to be aware of the Gen­er­al Equal­ity Duty and Spe­cif­ic Duties in how they set stra­tegic dir­ec­tion, review per­form­ance and ensure good gov­ernance of the organ­isa­tion. Board mem­bers’ Code of Con­duct (which states each board member’s per­son­al respons­ib­il­ity) sets out that board mem­bers ​“will advance equal­ity of oppor­tun­ity and seek to foster good rela­tions between dif­fer­ent people”

2. The Park Authority’s Frame­work Agree­ment sets out at para­graph 30: The Chief Exec­ut­ive, chal­lenged and sup­por­ted by the Board, has respons­ib­il­ity for the recruit­ment, reten­tion and motiv­a­tion of its staff. The board respons­ib­il­it­ies toward staff are to ensure that: HR policies, prac­tices and sys­tems com­ply with employ­ment and equal­it­ies legis­la­tion, and stand­ards expec­ted of pub­lic sec­tor employers.

3. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) 2022 – 2027 has equal­ity at its core, and par­tic­u­larly with regards the People and Place themes. Sev­er­al out­comes are expli­cit about equal­it­ies – B1 – Work­ing age pop­u­la­tion; B2 – Well­being eco­nomy; B8 – Men­tal and phys­ic­al health; B10 – Park for all; B11 – Volun­teer­ing and out­door learn­ing; C8 – Access­ible path and cycle net­work; C9 – High qual­ity vis­it­or experience.

4. The Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme has as one of its pri­or­ity out­comes that ​“a wider range of people will be involved in her­it­age”. There is a par­tic­u­lar focus on

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 6

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

28 March 2025

Page 4 of 6

con­nect­ing with hard-to-reach groups, identi­fy­ing bar­ri­ers that will pre­vent these people from being able to engage, and find­ing ways to over­come these barriers.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. No spe­cif­ic stra­tegic risks are impacted. The impact of not deliv­er­ing this duty is sig­ni­fic­ant as the Park Author­ity is leg­ally required to meet the PSED. The Equal­ity and Human Rights Com­mis­sion can serve an improve­ment notice if they con­sider any of the pro­vi­sions have not been adequately delivered. A mem­ber of the pub­lic may be able to use the PSED to take leg­al action if they think a decision or policy dis­crim­in­ates against them or dis­ad­vant­ages them because of who they are.

Implic­a­tions

1. Deliv­ery of this duty and all the pro­vi­sions set out in it are being achieved with­in resources avail­able with no addi­tion­al resource implications.

Suc­cess measures

1. The report sets out the equal­ity out­comes and asso­ci­ated tar­gets. Suc­cess against equal­ity actions is covered in the detail of the report.

Sup­port­ing information

1. We have set out below a few of the key equal­it­ies’ achieve­ments dur­ing the report­ing peri­od: α) Pro­act­ive Equal­it­ies Groups – the extern­al Equal­ity Advis­ory Pan­el, with 15 mem­bers who pro­act­ively advise on all our pro­jects, policies and strategies; the intern­al Equal­ity Advocacy Group, com­pris­ing staff has played a key role in sug­gest­ing and imple­ment­ing innov­at­ive pro­jects and policies; and the Lived Exper­i­ence Pan­el, cre­ated as part of our Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme, com­pris­ing 10 – 15 people from a range of eth­nic minor­ity back­grounds, who ensure we bet­ter deliv­er for the often over­looked com­munit­ies that group mem­bers are from. b) Act­ive Cairngorms Youth Action Team, who have run three rounds of Youth Loc­al Action Group fund­ing since 2023, award­ing almost £50,000 to 52 youth pro­jects in the Nation­al Park. c) An expand­ing Volun­teer Cairngorms pro­gramme, with 59 volun­teer rangers, sup­port­ing a range of activ­it­ies to sup­port and engage those who may exper­i­ence exclu­sion. d) Increased and inclus­ive com­munity engage­ment through Cairngorms 2030, that has engaged with audi­ences that are typ­ic­ally hard to reach.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 6

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

28 March 2025

Page 5 of 6

e) A num­ber of innov­at­ive pro­jects that have received grant fund­ing through the Cairngorms Trust, includ­ing the Act­ive Cairngorms E‑bike pro­ject and the Park for All fund. f) Inclus­ive cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions, in terms of brand­ing and pub­lic­a­tions con­tent and imagery; increased digit­al engage­ment reach­ing more diverse audi­ences; and a soon-to-be launched new web­site that has been designed with access­ib­il­ity at the core. g) Improved vis­it­or infra­struc­ture, that has taken account of the dif­fer­ing needs of the wide range of exist­ing and poten­tial users, not­ably those with dis­ab­il­it­ies or restric­ted mobil­ity. h) Innov­a­tion in our park-wide con­sulta­tions that have helped reach out to a range of under­rep­res­en­ted audi­ences that we had not pre­vi­ously engaged with. i) Organ­isa­tion­al achieve­ment of LGB­TQ+ Charter accred­it­a­tion at Found­a­tion level. j) Imple­ment­a­tion of sev­er­al bold and innov­at­ive policies includ­ing sup­port around Gender Diversity, Neurodi­versity, Fer­til­ity Treat­ment, Preg­nancy Loss, Men­stru­al Health and Endo­met­ri­os­is, fol­lowed by invit­a­tions to speak about them at nation­al conferences.

1. The main body of the report cov­ers the detail of the above achieve­ments, as well as many more activ­it­ies and pro­cesses that have taken place in the report­ing peri­od. It cov­ers all the key pro­vi­sions we are required to ful­fil under the PSED. But this report is not just about provid­ing evid­ence of meet­ing our leg­al oblig­a­tions, it provides com­pre­hens­ive over­sight of the great work that the Park Author­ity is deliv­er­ing to ensure that we are a truly inclus­ive organ­isa­tion, not just for our staff, but also for the Nation­al Park as a whole.

2. The report also sets out the equal­ity out­comes for the next four years, includ­ing evid­ence for choos­ing these out­comes and the activ­it­ies we will engage in to deliv­er those out­comes. The out­comes are: α) We will have an increas­ingly diverse work­force with more under­rep­res­en­ted groups work­ing for us, sup­por­ted by an inclus­ive cul­ture, where all exist­ing, new and pro­spect­ive staff are treated equit­ably, and feel that they belong. b) We will tar­get our infra­struc­ture invest­ment and devel­op our activ­it­ies so as to con­tin­ue redu­cing bar­ri­ers to access and facil­it­at­ing inclus­ive and afford­able access to the nature of the Nation­al Park, and to the oppor­tun­it­ies offered in the Nation­al Park.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Form­al Board Paper 6

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

28 March 2025

Page 6 of 6

c) A more diverse range of audi­ences will be act­ively involved in inform­ing the future dir­ec­tion and man­age­ment of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, includ­ing through dir­ect engage­ment in Park Author­ity-led con­sulta­tions and stake­hold­er for­ums / groups.

1. The equal­ity out­comes have been con­sul­ted with the Equal­ity Advis­ory Pan­el, the major­ity of whom rep­res­ent one or more under­rep­res­en­ted groups, and who have played a sig­ni­fic­ant role in devel­op­ing both the out­comes and their asso­ci­ated action plans. We have con­sul­ted also with the staff Equal­ity Advocacy Group, who heav­ily informed not only the out­comes, but many of the activ­it­ies that have been delivered to main­stream equal­it­ies. All staff have also been con­sul­ted on this work, through the Staff Con­sul­tive Forum.

2. Whilst the report is long, our con­sulta­tions have indic­ated that the inform­a­tion in the report is import­ant and rel­ev­ant, and to cut if back would not do justice to the work we are doing. We have how­ever endeav­oured to ensure that the doc­u­ment is simple to fol­low and reads well, and our test­er groups have indic­ated that it does meet this objective.

3. The annexes to the report are set out in a sep­ar­ate doc­u­ment. These provide sup­port­ive nar­rat­ive on some of the required pro­vi­sions of the PSED, as well as the detailed action plans for the equal­ity out­comes. The annexes can be accessed by board mem­bers on the board portal.

4. We will be work­ing with our Com­mu­nic­a­tions team in the com­ing months to share some of the high­lights of our equal­it­ies work, but in a man­ner that is visu­al and enga­ging, and incor­por­ates per­son­al stor­ies and case stud­ies, told through a vari­ety of media. We will update the board when these stor­ies are launched.

Kate Christie 12 March 2025 katechristie@​cairngorms.​co.​uk