Paper 7 Committee annual reports

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Form­al Board Paper 7 28 March 2025 Page 1 of 1

For Inform­a­tion Title: Board Committee’s annu­al reports to the Board Pre­pared by: Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Manager

Pur­pose

1. This paper presents the annu­al report of the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee, Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee and Resources Com­mit­tee to Board mem­bers for comment.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Board is asked to note the Annu­al Reports to the Board from the: a) Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee b) Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee c) Resources Committee

Back­ground

1. In line with intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions and as an ele­ment of the remit of the Com­mit­tees, each Com­mit­tee sub­mits an annu­al report cov­er­ing its activ­it­ies and reflect­ing on its oper­a­tions over the course of the last year to the full board. This paper presents the report for the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee, Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee and Resources Com­mit­tee over the last annu­al cycle.

Mari­aan Pita 12 March 2025 Mariaanpita@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report Au ust Page 1 of 3

For inform­a­tion Title: Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report Pre­pared by: Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Manager

Pur­pose

1. This paper rep­res­ents the draft Annu­al Report of the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee to the mem­bers for com­ment pri­or to cir­cu­la­tion to the full board.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the draft annu­al report of the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee. b) Agree any amend­ments to the draft pri­or to cir­cu­la­tion to the full board.

Back­ground

1. In line with intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions and as an ele­ment of the remit of the Com­mit­tees, each Com­mit­tee sub­mits an annu­al report cov­er­ing its activ­it­ies and reflect­ing on its oper­a­tions over the course of the last year to the full board. This paper presents the report for the Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee which has now com­pleted the annu­al cycle.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report Au ust Page 2 of 3

Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to the Board for Peri­od Novem­ber 2023 to Octo­ber 2024

Activ­ity in period

1. The Com­mit­tee met a total of four times up to and includ­ing the meet­ing of 16 August 2024 in the peri­od covered by this report.

2. The Com­mit­tee has sought assur­ance over the fol­low­ing key aspects of the Park Authority’s oper­a­tions and Gov­ernance arrange­ments over the course of the report­ing peri­od: a) Chairs Open dis­cus­sion. b) Applic­a­tion of Policy to allow sub­sti­tutes for meet­ings. c) Com­mu­nic­a­tion strategy and its imple­ment­a­tion. d) Review of Code of Con­duct and guid­ance. e) Board devel­op­ment, eval­u­ation and train­ing. f) Dir­ect­or appoint­ment pro­cesses. g) Board appoint­ment pro­cesses, includ­ing com­plaint hand­ling on this mat­ter. h) Pro­gress on pro­cure­ment action plan.

Review of Activ­it­ies and Commentary

1. The Com­mit­tee appoin­ted a sub-com­mit­tee of three mem­bers to over­see the recruit­ment of the Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place. This included agree­ing the job descrip­tion, advert and salary to take respons­ib­il­ity for inter­view­ing and select­ing the suc­cess­ful can­did­ate in con­junc­tion with mem­bers of the Exec­ut­ive Team.

2. Key areas of Board devel­op­ment and eval­u­ation have been dis­cussed, res­ult­ing in an agree­ment to do hori­zon scan­ning annu­ally. Addi­tion­ally, train­ing pro­vi­sion for 2025 has been estab­lished, which includes Code of Con­duct training.

3. The Com­mit­tee has had a con­sist­ent mem­ber­ship over the course of the peri­od covered by this report. This annu­al report is more a fac­tu­al record of the activ­it­ies of the Com­mit­tee over the peri­od, rather than a qual­it­at­ive eval­u­ation of the work of the Committee.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report Au ust Page 3 of 3

1. Part of the Committee’s role is to over­see the gov­ernance arrange­ments with­in the Author­ity ensur­ing arrange­ments remain appro­pri­ate to the needs and ful­fil the require­ments of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment in gov­ernance of a Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Body.

2. There have been no instances of need for escal­a­tion of con­cerns around any items of busi­ness con­sidered by the Com­mit­tee to the full board. Some minor mat­ters have been made known to oth­er com­mit­tees to enhance coordin­ated assur­ance over organ­isa­tion­al performance.

Con­clu­sions

1. This annu­al report is a rel­at­ively fac­tu­al state­ment of busi­ness con­duc­ted over the peri­od in ques­tion, rather than any eval­u­ation of the value of the Com­mit­tee as an ele­ment of the Park Authority’s gov­ernance and assur­ance systems.

2. The Com­mit­tee will con­sider its role and con­tri­bu­tion to the Park Authority’s gov­ernance and assur­ance frame­work over the com­ing year.

Mari­aan Pita Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Man­ager mariaanpita@​cairngorms.​co.​uk 16 Janu­ary 2025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 5 13 Decem­ber 2024 Page 1 of 3

For inform­a­tion Title: Com­mit­tee Annu­al Reports Pre­pared by: Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Manager

Pur­pose

1. This paper presents the draft Annu­al Report of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee to mem­bers for com­ment pri­or to cir­cu­la­tion to the full board.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the draft annu­al report of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee. b) Agree any amend­ments to the draft pri­or to cir­cu­la­tion to the full board.

Back­ground

1. In line with intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions and as an ele­ment of the remit of the Com­mit­tees, each Com­mit­tee sub­mits an annu­al report cov­er­ing its activ­it­ies and reflect­ing on its oper­a­tions over the course of the last year to the full board. This paper presents the report for the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee which has now com­pleted the annu­al cycle.

Cairngorms Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 5 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 13 Decem­ber 2024 Page 2 of 3

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to Board for Peri­od Octo­ber 2023 to Octo­ber 2024

Activ­ity in period

1. The Com­mit­tee met four times up to and includ­ing the meet­ing of 20 Septem­ber 2024 in the peri­od covered by this report.

2. The Com­mit­tee has sought assur­ance over the per­form­ance of the fol­low­ing pro­grammes and major pro­jects where the Park Author­ity is either lead deliv­ery body, or holds sig­ni­fic­ant respons­ib­il­ity as a lead applic­ant and / or account­able body for fund­ing deployed: a) Cairngorms 2030 includ­ing updates by theme leads. b) Cairngorms Beaver Pro­ject. c) Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject. d) Cairngorms Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) and Cairngorms Trust deliv­ery. e) For­ward look­ing at sched­ule of com­mit­tee items. f) Deliv­ery of stat­utory duties as con­ferred by the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003. g) Cairngorm and Glen­more Strategy. h) Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Programme.

Review of Activ­it­ies and Commentary

1. Key areas of the Park Author­ity man­aged and part­ner led activ­it­ies have been iden­ti­fied for report­ing with a tem­plate report­ing struc­ture final­ised and main­tained over the course of the peri­od. Use of exist­ing reports sub­mit­ted to pro­ject boards and oth­er struc­tures has been max­im­ised to min­im­ise addi­tion­al report­ing bur­dens on staff.

2. The cur­rent mem­ber­ship of the Com­mit­tee has been estab­lished. This annu­al report is more a fac­tu­al record of the activ­it­ies of the Com­mit­tee over the peri­od, rather than a qual­it­at­ive eval­u­ation of the work of the Committee.

3. There have been no instances of need for escal­a­tion of con­cerns to the full board, while some minor mat­ters have been made known to oth­er com­mit­tees to enhance coordin­ated assur­ance over organ­isa­tion­al per­form­ance. Gen­er­ally, per­form­ance reports have been pos­it­ive. Activ­ity on sig­ni­fic­ant pro­grammes and pro­jects has

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 5 13 Decem­ber 2024 Page 3 of 3

gen­er­ally secured agreed object­ives with minor devi­ations noted, as has been more fully rep­res­en­ted in cor­por­ate per­form­ance report­ing to the full board.

1. The Com­mit­tee has agreed a planned scope of activ­ity for the com­ing year, cov­er­ing the fol­low­ing areas of the Park Authority’s activ­it­ies: a) Cairngorms 2030 – with quarterly updates from theme leads delving deep­er into their pro­jects for a bet­ter under­stand­ing. b) Peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­gramme. c) Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment and Cairngorms Trust. d) Cairngorms Beaver pro­ject. e) Deer man­age­ment / ven­ison sub­sidy scheme. f) Oth­er one-off reports on key pro­ject activ­it­ies as iden­ti­fied by mem­bers from time to time.

Con­clu­sions

1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee has oper­ated over the peri­od to provide the ele­ments of gov­ernance and assur­ance sys­tems as set out in the terms of ref­er­ence for board committees.

2. Cur­rent mem­bers believe they have a clear focus for the year ahead and have scoped the for­ward agenda for the Com­mit­tee accordingly.

3. The Committee’s mem­bers have expressed their grat­it­ude for the sup­port of officers provided over the year; for full and clear papers; and for effect­ive, help­ful engage­ment at meetings.

Mari­aan Pita 26 Novem­ber 2024 mariaanpita@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Paper 6 Resources Com­mit­tee 24 Janu­ary 2025 Resources com­mit­tee annu­al report Page 1 of 4

For inform­a­tion Title: Pre­pared by: Mari­aan Pita, Exec­ut­ive Sup­port Manager

Pur­pose

1. This paper presents the annu­al report of the Resources Com­mit­tees to mem­bers for com­ment pri­or to cir­cu­la­tion to the full board.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. The Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Con­sider the draft annu­al report of the Resources Com­mit­tee. b) Agree any amend­ments to the draft pri­or to cir­cu­la­tion to the full board.

Back­ground

1. In line with intern­al audit recom­mend­a­tions and as an ele­ment of the remit of the Com­mit­tees, each Com­mit­tee sub­mits an annu­al report cov­er­ing its activ­it­ies and reflect­ing on its oper­a­tions over the course of the last year to the full board. This paper presents the report for the Resources Com­mit­tee over the last annu­al cycle.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Paper 6 Resources Com­mit­tee 24 Janu­ary 2025 Page 2 of 4

Resources Com­mit­tee Annu­al Report to Board for Peri­od Novem­ber 2023 to Octo­ber 2024

Activ­ity in Period

1. The Com­mit­tee met on five times up to and includ­ing the spe­cial meet­ing of 04 Octo­ber 2024 in the peri­od covered by this report.

2. The Com­mit­tee has sought assur­ance over the fol­low­ing key aspects of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s oper­a­tions over the course of the report­ing peri­od: a) Budget mon­it­or­ing for both ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ and ²⁰²³⁄₂₄. b) Budget man­age­ment and devel­op­ment of future budget estim­ates. c) Stra­tegic risk man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion con­sid­er­a­tions around the Plan­ning Ser­vice and deliv­ery of our plan­ning func­tions. d) Draft fin­an­cial out­turn pos­i­tion for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄. e) The organ­isa­tion­al devel­op­ment and people strategy 2024 – 2027. f) Deliv­er­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Equal­ity Duties, includ­ing scru­tiny of the Park Authority’s Equal Pay Audit. g) Staff engage­ment, includ­ing Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um dis­cus­sions. h) Park Author­ity val­ues and cul­ture review. i) Health and Safety oper­a­tions. j) Staff turnover and staff absence mon­it­or­ing. k) Staff pay and pay awards. l) Peri­od­ic updates on the staff and Board pay awards that was approved in Octo­ber with effect from 01 April 2024.

3. The Park Author­ity con­tin­ues to focus on the poten­tial to secure sig­ni­fic­ant inward grant fund­ing and private fin­ance in sup­port of its activities.

4. Fol­low­ing inform­a­tion received from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment regard­ing fin­an­cial changes due to budget con­trols a budget review was car­ried out in August 2024 fol­low­ing con­firm­a­tion that the Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund not being avail­able to the Park Author­ity, with con­sequent reduc­tions in anti­cip­ated income for the year.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Paper 6 Resources Com­mit­tee 24 Janu­ary 2025 Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Page 3 of 4

Review of activ­it­ies and commentary

1. Over­all, the com­mit­tee feels it has been suc­cess­ful in dis­char­ging its remit and per­form­ing an appro­pri­ate and valu­able ele­ment of the Park Authority’s gov­ernance and assur­ance pro­cesses. Appro­pri­ate areas of over­lap with oth­er com­mit­tees on per­form­ance and risk man­age­ment have been recog­nised and min­im­ised, with mat­ters passed on between Com­mit­tees with­in their remits as necessary.

2. This annu­al report is more a fac­tu­al record of the activ­it­ies of the Com­mit­tee over the peri­od, rather than a qual­it­at­ive eval­u­ation of the work of the Committee.

3. There have been no instances of need for escal­a­tion of con­cerns to the full board, while some minor mat­ters have been made known to oth­er com­mit­tees to enhance coordin­ated assur­ance over resources.

4. The Com­mit­tee covered a wide range of sub­ject areas over the course of the peri­od of this report, as illus­trated by the sum­mary of top­ics covered at point two, provid­ing the board with assur­ance over the man­age­ment and con­trols exer­cised with­in these areas of the Park Authority’s operations.

5. The Com­mit­tee has not iden­ti­fied any changes required to its terms of ref­er­ence over the course of this report­ing period.

Con­clu­sions

1. The oper­a­tion of the Resources Com­mit­tee has provided an import­ant and effect­ive ele­ment of the Park Authority’s assur­ance sys­tems. The Committee’s focus on the com­bin­a­tion of fin­an­cial and staff resource man­age­ment provides for a com­pre­hens­ive scru­tiny of the man­age­ment of these areas, while allow­ing for mem­bers to provide integ­rated stra­tegic dir­ec­tion and sup­port in the for­ward plan­ning of these key resources.

2. Cur­rent mem­bers believe there are no sig­ni­fic­ant changes needed in the Committee’s oper­a­tions over the com­ing year. Com­mit­tee mem­bers will con­tin­ue to work with seni­or officers to evolve and adapt report­ing struc­tures as required.

3. The Com­mit­tee appre­ci­ates the sup­port of officers through­out the year, par­tic­u­larly for their com­pre­hens­ive and clear papers as well as con­struct­ive engage­ment dur­ing meetings.

Cairngorms Paper 6 Resources Com­mit­tee Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 24 Janu­ary 2025 Page 4 of 4

Mari­aan Pita 08 Janu­ary 2025 mariaanpita@​cairngorms.​co.​uk