Paper 7 - Cover Procurement Action Plan

Cairngorms Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Paper 7 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 20 June 2025 Page 1 of 1

For inform­a­tion Title: Pro­cure­ment action plan Pre­pared by: Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Operations

Pur­pose This paper presents an action plan towards improve­ment of the Park Authority’s pro­cure­ment pro­cesses, pro­ced­ures and intern­al con­trols. It has been developed in response to the Intern­al Audit review of pro­cure­ment car­ried out by Azets as part of the approved 2023 – 24 audit programme.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Review pro­gress made against each activ­ity in the pro­gramme for improve­ment developed by man­age­ment. b) Con­sider wheth­er it is con­tent to pass ongo­ing mon­it­or­ing back to the seni­or team.

Pro­gramme for improvement

1. The Annex sets out actions required towards improv­ing the Park Authority’s pro­cure­ment pro­cesses and con­trols and the pro­gress made towards these improvements.

Con­clu­sions

1. Nine actions are now com­plete. Out­stand­ing actions are a) Pro­vi­sion of form­al train­ing for wider staff group (in pro­gress) b) Devel­op­ment of pro­ject ini­ti­ation guid­ance (in pro­gress) c) Devel­op­ment of pro­cure­ment KPIs

2. The Com­mit­tee intim­ated at its meet­ing in March 2025 that it would like to con­sider relin­quish­ing respons­ib­il­ity for mon­it­or­ing of the action plan. If this is still the Committee’s view, then pro­gress against the plan will con­tin­ue to be mon­itored by the seni­or team until com­ple­tion of the remain­ing 3 out­stand­ing actions.

Louise Allen 9 June 2025 louiseallen@​cairngorms.​co.​uk