Paper 8 annex 1 Committee minutes

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

Page 1 of 32

Minutes of the Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Held online 20 Septem­ber 2024

Present Kenny Deans (Con­vener) Sandy Brem­ner Elean­or Mack­in­tosh Chris Beat­tie Dr Han­nah Grist (sub for Steve Micklewirght) Ann Ross

In Attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Dav­id Clyne, Head of Cairngorms 2030 Colin McCle­an, Head of Land Man­age­ment Eilidh Todd, Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager Kar­en John­stone, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies John Kirk Steve Micklewright

Wel­come and introduction

1. The Chair wel­comed every­one to the meet­ing of the Per­form­ance Committee.

Minutes of Pre­vi­ous Meetings

1. The minutes of the pre­vi­ous meet­ing, 14 June 2024 were approved with no amendments.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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Mat­ters Arising | ACTION | Status | | — — — — — — - | — — — — — — - | | Draft Minutes – 14 June 2024 | | | Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ings | | | 11 Feb­ru­ary 2022 | In hand | | ii. Item 3.13a1 an accur­ate record of Vis­it Scot­land | Update at next fund­ing ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ will be brought to the meet­ing | | Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee in due course as | | | extern­al aud­it­ors are still work­ing through | | | records. | | | Paper 2 — Cairngorms 2030: Q1 2024 (Jan – Mar) | | | At para 9c | | | i. Chair of Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee, Kenny Deans | Com­pleted. | | and Deputy CEO, Dav­id Camer­on to dis­cuss and | | | make a plan for how best to share with the | | | Board Mem­bers the for­ward look doc­u­ment to | | | allow them to see what’s com­ing up. | |

1. Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee meet­ing on 14 June 2024 — 9^d — update on the act­ive travel budget between Trans­port Scot­land and Sus­trans. Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer (CEO) stated this would be addressed under the Cairngorms 2030 update.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. Elean­or Mack­in­tosh noted she sits on board of both the Cairngorms Trust and Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme Board, both of which are con­nec­ted to reports presen­ted to this meeting.

Cairngorms 2030: Quarter two 2024 (April – June) Pro­gramme update (Paper 1)

1. Dav­id Clyne intro­duced the paper which presents an update to the Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee on the risks under man­age­ment by the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme team. This paper presents the status of pro­gramme man­age­ment, includ­ing risk man­age­ment status, based on inform­a­tion in pro­ject reports for the peri­od from March to June 2024, updated where appro­pri­ate to reflect cur­rent pos­i­tion as at the time of writ­ing, and the planned work to end Septem­ber 2024.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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1. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) b) c) A board mem­ber raised con­cerns regard­ing if pro­vi­sions have been made in the case that fund­ing is with­drawn due to Scot­tish Government’s (SG) cur­rent fin­an­cial situ­ation. Head of Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) reas­sured com­mit­tee mem­bers that changes to Gov­ern­ment fund­ing will not impact on the Cairngorms 2030 budget from the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund. There are some issues spe­cific­ally around the match fund­ing asso­ci­ated with trans­port pro­jects, but staff are hav­ing con­struct­ive dis­cus­sions with Trans­port Scot­land and Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. CEO noted from the pre­vi­ous mat­ters arising, that the Park Author­ity is in a reas­on­able place at the moment fol­low­ing recent dis­cus­sions with Trans­port Scot­land and shar­ing the Park Authority’s pro­posed expendit­ure for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ and ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇ with them. CEO high­lighted the Park Author­ity are con­fid­ent they will receive fund­ing for design work as they have strong con­struc­tion match fund­ing in place. A board mem­ber ques­tioned if there were any pub­licly sens­it­ive pro­jects that are not pro­gress­ing at the moment. Head of C2030 noted there are a range of pro­jects all at design stage now, how­ever in Car­rbridge they have some push back relat­ing to act­ive travel designs. The team are aware of the dif­fer­ing views, it was noted that the pro­ject is not going for­ward in the fore­see­able future. d) Clar­ity was sought regard­ing the Red Amber Green (RAG) rat­ing of risk status. Head of C2030 noted that fol­low­ing a meet­ing with Trans­port Scot­land and Sus­trans, the red risk rat­ing moved to amber to reflect improved expect­a­tions of fund­ing being made avail­able and con­tin­ues to be at amber status as there is suf­fi­cient time to mit­ig­ate risk around deliv­ery of these tar­gets. e) A board mem­ber ques­tioned the scope of the infra­struc­ture of the sus­tain­able trans­port pro­jects, spe­cific­ally, if there would be places for pub­lic to park their bikes. Head of C2030 con­firmed that there would be as this was a fun­da­ment­al part of the cycle friendly and beha­viour change pro­jects, along with trans­port loc­a­tions where there will be bike parks, char­ging sta­tions. These pro­ject ele­ments will all be con­nec­ted in a stra­tegic way.

2. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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1. Action Point Arising: None

Verbal Update on Cairngorms 2030 Empower­ment Theme

1. Eilidh Todd, Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager gave a present­a­tion on Cairngorms 2030 Empower­ment Theme.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A board mem­ber ques­tioned how the loc­al com­munit­ies’ views were gauged without them hav­ing a com­munity coun­cil to speak for them as a whole and high­lighted that res­id­ents not engaged with the park are the most under­rep­res­en­ted groups. Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager noted that using mul­tiple chan­nels of com­mu­nic­a­tion, innov­at­ive meth­ods, listen­ing to indi­vidu­als, meet­ing people where they are based; allow­ing them to be as involved as they chose to be; and not for­cing pres­sure or opin­ions on them are all mech­an­isms being deployed to engage with loc­al res­id­ents. b) A board mem­ber ques­tioned if the SG budget restric­tions were hav­ing an impact on how they engage with the pub­lic. Head of C2030 noted that though they were not dir­ectly impacted, they have to act sens­it­ively and appro­pri­ately giv­en the cur­rent cir­cum­stances. c) A board mem­ber raised con­cern about the lan­guage used in the present­a­tion and how this would help engage the pub­lic and sug­ges­ted focus­ing more on qual­ity con­ver­sa­tions. CEO high­lighted that there has been a lot of pub­lic engage­ment from recent events. These events and their fol­low up allow the pub­lic to share their feed­back, thoughts and opin­ions with the team openly. The lan­guage used in the present­a­tion is designed to explain the pro­cesses being deployed and would not be used pub­licly. d) There was a dis­cus­sion about the reg­u­lar­ity of com­munity events, such as the recent events at Boat of Garten, the CEO con­firmed they are hope­ful to hold anoth­er event annu­ally, if not more reg­u­larly. e) A board mem­ber ques­tioned man­aging volun­teer burn out. Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager agreed that this was a con­cern, and the team are very aware of how much time and effort is involved for volun­teers. Going for­ward the team plans to improve on build­ing rela­tion­ships and creating

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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pos­it­ive memor­ies with the pub­lic; hav­ing open and hon­est con­ver­sa­tions, being action focused and deliv­er­ing on mean­ing­ful objectives.

1. The Com­mit­tee noted the verbal update.

2. Action points: None

Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme (Paper 2)

1. Colin McLean intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ and con­sid­er­a­tion of plans for the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ pipeline of activity.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) CEO stated the Park Author­ity had atten­ded a peat­land con­fer­ence in Aviemore with 400 people from across the UK where Jim Farlie con­firmed £250 mil­lion of cap­it­al from SG over the next 10 years and the Pro­gramme for Gov­ern­ment for ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ con­firms at least 10,000 hec­tares will be restored in Scot­land per annum. Fund­ing appears to be pos­it­ive for next year, espe­cially with the match fund­ing, how­ever not­ing that it is always bene­fi­cial to have private fund­ing as well. It was also high­lighted that there were three more peat­land pro­jects applic­a­tions sub­mit­ted before clos­ing the pro­gramme for this year, tak­ing the hec­tares restored over tar­get, and sig­ni­fic­antly redu­cing the fore­cast under­spend. b) A ques­tion was raised regard­ing the cir­cum­stances around los­ing a big pro­ject. Head of Land Man­age­ment stated that this was due to a unique situ­ation with com­plic­ated land own­er­ship around the car­bon cred­its, how­ever noted that this is unlikely to have con­straints on the pro­gramme going for­ward for oth­ers. c) The CEO noted ongo­ing part­ner­ship between aca­dem­ic insti­tu­tions and oth­er part­ners regard­ing long term agree­ments on car­bon cred­its and will share the update with the com­mit­tee when inform­a­tion is avail­able. SG are cur­rently car­ry­ing out work regard­ing ten­ant and landown­ers on forestry and peat­land car­bon cred­its and if there is some Inform­a­tion, this will be shared.

3. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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1. Action Point Arising: i. Updated on car­bon cred­it work being under­taken with­in the sector.

Cairngorms Trust and Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment update (Paper 3)

1. Dav­id Camer­on intro­duced the paper which presents an update on the work of the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group Trust (‘the Cairngorms Trust’) and the col­lect­ive work of the Cairngorms Trust and the Park Author­ity in Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) activity.

2. The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the update and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) A dis­cus­sion was had around the pos­sib­il­ity of using lev­el­ling up funds, how­ever Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices noted that this was dif­fi­cult for the Park Author­ity to access as it is alloc­ated to loc­al author­it­ies and as the Park Author­ity sits in five dif­fer­ent loc­al author­it­ies this would be a chal­lenge to coordin­ate. b) Ques­tions were raised if Cairngorms Trust have com­bined with sim­il­ar c) d) organ­isa­tions to lobby for a change in fund­ing. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices assured the Com­mit­tee that this work is already ongo­ing, how­ever not­ing this is a slow pro­cess as it involves cre­at­ing a new struc­ture. Com­ments were made regard­ing the frus­tra­tion around the slow decision- mak­ing pro­cess on award­ing funds by gov­ern­ment to the Trust, res­ult­ing in fears of job losses where com­munity pro­jects and their staff­ing were poten­tially depend­ent on these fund­ing decisions. A board mem­ber ques­tioned wheth­er the three fund­ing streams on offer were pro rata or if they were con­cen­trat­ing on altern­at­ive funds. Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices stated that regard­ing Com­munity Lead vis­ion funds, some pro­jects have already been fun­ded, some are ready to go wait­ing on approv­al from SG. Nature fun­ded steams are fully com­mit­ted, alloc­at­ing £90,000. There are still three strands of fund­ing, but the com­munity lead vis­ion fund had to be paired down.

3. The Com­mit­tee noted the paper.

4. Action Point Arising: None.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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1. None

2. Date of next meet­ing 13 Decem­ber, hybrid at the moment, but may get moved to online only.

3. The meet­ing closed at 11.27am Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Action Points: | ACTION | Status | | — — — — — - | — — — — — - | | Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ings | | | 14 June 2024 | | | Action points arising from pre­vi­ous meet­ings | | | 11 Feb­ru­ary 2022 | In hand | | ii. Item 3.13a1 an accur­ate record of Vis­it Scot­land | Update at next | fund­ing ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ will be brought to the | meet­ing | | Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee in due course as | | | extern­al aud­it­ors are still work­ing through | | | records. | | | Vis­itScot­land through Rur­al Trans­port Infra­struc­ture | | | Fund­ing which had been car­ried in deferred income | | | deployed in ²³⁄₂₄ to: | | | Glen­more toi­let refur­bish­ment £35,000 | | | Path sur­vey work £12,339 | | | Oth­er pro­jects £6,371 | | | Action points arising from this meet­ing | | | 20 Septem­ber 2024 | | | Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Pro­gramme (Paper 2) | | | At para 13c | | | 1 Updated on car­bon cred­it work under­taken | | | with­in the sec­tor between aca­dem­ic | | | insti­tu­tions and landowners. | |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Minutes Held Online on 27 Septem­ber 2024 at 12.30

Present: Fiona McLean (Chair) Peter Cos­grove (Deputy Chair) Bill Lob­ban Geva Black­ett Paul Gibb Duncan Miller

In Attend­ance Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Dav­id Camer­on, Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions Gregory Oduor, Maz­ars Stephanie Hume, Azets Alix Hark­ness, Clerk to the Board

Apo­lo­gies: None

Wel­come and introduction

1. Fiona McLean, the Chair wel­comed every­one to the meeting.

Approv­al of minutes of pre­vi­ous meeting

1. The draft minutes of the meet­ing on the 21 June 2024 were approved with no amendments.

Mat­ters arising not covered in agenda

1. Updates on out­stand­ing actions as sum­mar­ised in the table at the end of this minute were noted.

Declar­a­tions of interest

1. No interests declared.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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²⁰²³⁄₂₄ Final Accounts (Paper 1)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which presents and seeks approv­al to the annu­al report and accounts for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ pri­or to their being sub­mit­ted to Audit Scot­land for final cer­ti­fic­a­tion. Louise out­lined the main sec­tions of this report and presen­ted the key res­ults for the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ fin­an­cial year.

Grant Moir arrived at 12.56

1. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) The Chair praised the excel­lent res­ults and well writ­ten report and expressed her grat­it­ude to the Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions and the wider team with spe­cial men­tion to Daniel Ral­ph, Fin­ance Man­ager, for the amount of work done in bring­ing this doc­u­ment togeth­er. b) With ref­er­ence to the CEO’s sec­tion in the fore­word, the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age fund should be writ­ten out in full and not just the first two words. c) Resound­ing praise for the min­im­al over­spend of £4k which was an excel­lent turnout and recog­ni­tion that it was dif­fi­cult to bal­ance to the dot when deal­ing with such large sums of money. d) With regards to the per­cent­age of reduc­tion in CO2 emis­sions by 2030 on page 50 a mem­ber noted that this dif­fers to the com­ment on p64 on over­all account­ab­il­ity report, could it be cla­ri­fied which was the cor­rect per­cent­age? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO con­firmed that the cor­rect fig­ure was 59 tonnes so 60% reduc­tion CO2 emis­sions by 2030. e) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO high­lighted that there have not been any changes in account­ing policies to bring to mem­bers’ atten­tion, nor does man­age­ment think there have been any estim­ates that need high­lighted to the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee. f) The Chair asked if next year there would be dif­fer­ent account­ing require­ments? Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions con­firmed there would be slight changes and the extern­al aud­it­or would relay these as they come up.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee approved the annu­al report and accounts pri­or to sub­mis­sion to Maz­ars and Audit Scot­land for final cer­ti­fic­a­tion sub­ject to two amend­ments: a) b) Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund to be writ­ten out in full in the CEO’s fore­word. Per­cent­age of reduc­tion in car­bon emis­sions to be cor­rec­ted so that the fig­ures match through­out the document.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

1. Action points arising: None.

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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Extern­al audit update (Paper 2)

1. Gregory Oduor, the extern­al aud­it­or, Maz­ars presen­ted the report on the audit of the annu­al report and accounts for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) The Chair thanked the team for their great work and expressed sat­is­fac­tion to receive the reas­sur­ance the extern­al aud­it­ors provide. b) The Chair quer­ied where it said it was best value for the com­mit­tee to self-assess their per­form­ance annu­ally? Gregory Oduor, Maz­ars cla­ri­fied this was refer­ring to the Nation­al Park Author­ity and not the Audit and Risk com­mit­tee. c) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO advised that they were not anti­cip­at­ing any delays, aim­ing to get the full accounts signed off by end of Octo­ber. There is an intern­al dead­line for audit firms to sign off accounts by 31 Octo­ber and they were work­ing to achieve that. He com­men­ted that they were ahead of timetable from last year. If any­thing of mater­i­al­ity arose he would alert the chair and deputy chair. He is not anti­cip­at­ing that or any delay in timetable to sign accounts. Tom Reid, Maz­ars has sug­ges­ted for trans­par­ency to bring the final report fol­low­ing accounts sign off to the next meet­ing in Novem­ber for information.

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee: a) Con­sidered the auditor’s report and find­ings. b) Con­sidered the draft man­age­ment rep­res­ent­a­tion let­ter provided with­in the report and approve it for sig­na­ture by the Account­able Officer.

4. Action points arising: None.

Extern­al audit assur­ances (Paper 3)

1. Gregory Oduor, Maz­ars presen­ted the paper that presents the Request for inform­a­tion from Man­age­ment and Those Charged with Gov­ernance pre­pared by Mazars.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee: a) Con­sidered the auditor’s request for inform­a­tion and Management’s response to this.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

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b) Provided assur­ance that its gov­ernance extends to cov­er the items on which assur­ance is reques­ted. c) Agreed the inform­a­tion as set out in the draft response sub­mit­ted as part of the committee’s meet­ing papers

1. Action points arising: None.

Intern­al audit plan ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅: Oper­a­tion­al and fin­an­cial plan­ning (Paper 4)

1. Stephanie Hume, the Intern­al Aud­it­or, Azets presen­ted the paper that presents the review of the annu­al oper­a­tion­al plan­ning pro­cess at the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, includ­ing how oper­a­tion­al plans are developed along­side, and the extent to which they are integ­rated with­in, the annu­al fin­an­cial plan. The review con­sidered the cycle of spend­ing and mon­it­or­ing of spend through­out the year to achieve the oper­a­tion­al plan, and the link to the deliv­ery of cor­por­ate out­comes, includ­ing the use of scen­ario plan­ning. Stephanie out­lined the recom­mend­a­tions for improve­ment that had been made by the audit team, not­ing in this instance one of the recom­mend­a­tions had not been agreed by the man­age­ment team.

2. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO advised that he wel­comed the work done and the report which they found very help­ful. He explained that unusu­ally there was dis­agree­ment on one of the recom­mend­a­tions. He saw quite an over­lap in recom­mend­a­tions 2.1 and 3.1. He said 2.1 was a good pro­pos­al and agreed there is a need to do more at a gov­ernance level look­ing at key assump­tions giv­en the heavy reli­ance on extern­al fund­ing, and it would be more and more import­ant to mod­el where the organ­isa­tion may be in future years. He explained that the reas­on­ing behind not agree­ing with the detail at 3.1 was it was con­sidered impossible to adhere to the spir­it of this recom­mend­a­tion without get­ting into detail of pos­sible, spe­cif­ic budget changes and con­sidered it was not legit­im­ate to seek to con­sider those at a gov­ernance level under a con­fid­en­tial ban­ner. He was aware of instances of the Inform­a­tion Com­mis­sion instruct­ing organ­isa­tions to release that type of inform­a­tion, with the organ­isa­tion then faced with a risk of repu­ta­tion­al damage.

3. The Chair invited the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee to dis­cuss the report and spe­cific­ally management’s reas­on­ing for not agree­ing with the detail in recom­mend­a­tion 3.1. They made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) Com­ment made that the man­age­ment response was bal­anced and clear and was there­fore happy to sup­port the officer’s recommendation.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

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b) The Chair com­men­ted that she agreed on the sens­it­iv­ity and repu­ta­tion­al risk giv­en pub­lic interest in our activ­it­ies, which appeared much high­er than many oth­er boards she was aware of. She added that if the Com­mit­tee agreed today to accept the man­age­ment recom­mend­a­tion, this would seem reas­on­able giv­en the bal­ance of risk and pub­lic scru­tiny implic­a­tions of put­ting things out in pub­lic domain which could set hares racing. c) A mem­ber asked if it could be con­firmed what the auditor’s response to the rationale provided by man­age­ment was? Stephanie Hume, Azets advised that she appre­ci­ated Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices rationale for the pos­i­tion taken. She advised that these things are seen as good prac­tise how­ever it was accept­able for an organ­isa­tion not to accept all the recom­mend­a­tions so long as the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee were in agree­ment with that. d) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices advised that they would ensure that bal­ance is struck. Plans in place to have a budget dis­cus­sion in Decem­ber with the Board work­ing towards budget paper going before the Board in March. He advised he felt the pos­i­tion between recom­mend­a­tions at 2.1 and 3.1 was actu­ally quite nuanced and it may well be the case that once the audits had sight of the type of mater­i­al planned for the board ses­sion in Decem­ber, they would be more assured of the levels of inform­a­tion being presen­ted and approach to scen­ario plan­ning being taken. e) The Chair wel­comed this pro­pos­al and invited the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Azets to work togeth­er on this and to come back to the Com­mit­tee with how they feel this is work­ing in terms of Com­mit­tee assur­ance. f) A mem­ber com­men­ted that the Board were really con­cerned about budget cuts and would sup­port man­age­ment work­ing with Azets to find com­mon agree­ment. g) The Chair added that if they could come to a com­prom­ise that every­one was reas­on­ably con­tent with, this could be revis­ited at the end of report­ing year. Stephanie Hume agreed the Azets intern­al audit team would work with the staff team to review and report back on this matter.

1. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee: a) Con­sidered the intern­al aud­it­ors report and find­ings. b) Endorsed the man­age­ment responses to recom­mend­a­tions for future action and improvements.

2. Action points arising: i. Update on intern­al audit view on fin­an­cial scen­ario plan­ning to be provided to the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee at the end of the fin­an­cial year.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

Page 13 of 32

Intern­al audit pro­gress report (Paper 5)

1. Stephanie Hume, Azets presen­ted the report on pro­gress against the intern­al audit pro­gramme for ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ pre­pared by Azets.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee Chair quer­ied that there were a lot of pieces of work sched­uled to come before the com­mit­tee in April 2025 and asked for reas­sur­ance that this was achiev­able? Stephanie Hume con­firmed that they were happy with that and had time held for staff and no issues with the timetable.

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee con­sidered the auditor’s report and pro­gress made.

4. Action points arising: None.

Stra­tegic risk registers (Paper 6)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted the paper which sup­ports a review by the Com­mit­tee of the Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk man­age­ment position.

2. The Chair ques­tioned R3 pro­cure­ment and the delay in train­ing: could an excep­tion be made giv­en the crit­ic­al­ity of it? Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions advised that the new Pro­cure­ment Man­ager may be able to give inhouse train­ing once he has a few months to get into the organ­isa­tion and devel­op our pro­cesses. At present he was rais­ing the pro­file of pro­cure­ment inform­ally in the organ­isa­tion. Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO con­firmed that some of the budget could be con­sidered to be used for busi­ness crit­ic­al train­ing pur­poses and pro­cure­ment train­ing would not be lim­ited by cur­rent budget man­age­ment policies.

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee: a) Con­sidered the cov­er­age and adequacy of the Park Authority’s risk man­age­ment pos­i­tion as set out in both the stra­tegic risk register and i. ii. the Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme risk register. b) Advised on any gaps or amend­ments required

4. Action point arising: None.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

Page 14 of 32

Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee annu­al report (Paper 7)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices presen­ted the draft Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee Report for con­sid­er­a­tion pri­or to sub­mis­sion to the Board.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) The Chair com­men­ded the report and noted at para­graph 27 our new­er ser­vice areas have pushed risk recom­mend­a­tions high­er, man­age­ment are recog­nising risk areas and ensur­ing the Com­mit­tee have sight of them. b) The Chair advised that she warmly wel­comes the pri­or­ity focus on intern­al con­trols by our man­age­ment. c) With ref­er­ence to para­graph 24, she praised the work of the Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions and her team and explained she has strengthened the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of our account­ing sys­tem which was tre­mend­ous to see. The Chair exten­ded her thanks to the Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO and said that this was test­a­ment of the good job they were all doing. d) A mem­ber quer­ied new­er work streams areas and pri­or men­tion of cla­ri­fic­a­tion of leg­al ele­ments for peat­land teams on site: had the work gone ahead or had it been hal­ted as a res­ult of the budget cuts? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO advised that the work has been going ahead, with a leg­al frame­work in place to estab­lish roles respons­ib­il­it­ies of Nation­al Park staff in con­text of land man­ager and con­struc­tion team roles. Fol­low­ing staff changes the new man­age­ment struc­ture is becom­ing embed­ded and train­ing going on, fol­low­ing which the value of the leg­al frame­work and doc­u­ments estab­lished would be reviewed. The pro­gramme is not impacted by oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions. e) Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO added that a range of doc­u­ment­a­tion such as Memor­andums of Under­stand­ing are being drawn up to sup­port the range of part­ner­ships the Park Author­ity has across its range of work. How­ever, this doc­u­ment infra­struc­ture work was not yet fin­ished but they were sub­stan­tially fur­ther ahead that were before.

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee con­sidered the report to its cir­cu­la­tion to the Board at their next meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024.

4. Action points arising: None.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

Page 15 of 32

Pro­cure­ment action plan (Paper 8)

1. Louise Allen, Head of Fin­ance and Cor­por­ate Oper­a­tions presen­ted 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.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing com­ments and obser­va­tions: a) The Chair reques­ted a fur­ther update on the work of the pro­cure­ment officer is doing at the next meet­ing of the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee in Novem­ber. b) A mem­ber high­lighted that the main board were con­cerned with ​‘pro­cure­ment issues’ and when pro­gress is made, it would be use­ful to high­light improve­ments made to the board now have a pro­cure­ment officer in place. The CEO agreed to men­tion it in his next CEO report.

3. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee reviewed pro­gress made against each activ­ity in the pro­gramme for improve­ment developed by management.

4. Action points arising: i. ii. Fur­ther update on pro­gress made to be brought to next meet­ing. CEO to men­tion the impact the Pro­cure­ment Officer is mak­ing in the organ­isa­tion with­in his next CEO report for Board meet­ing on 22 Novem­ber 2024.

Pro­cure­ment Strategy (Paper 9)

1. Dav­id Camer­on, Deputy CEO and Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices presen­ted the draft pro­cure­ment strategy, developed fol­low­ing the review of pro­cure­ment car­ried out by Intern­al Audit, as part of their pro­gramme of work for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄, and in accord­ance with the recom­mend­a­tions made by the Auditor.

2. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee dis­cussed the report and made the fol­low­ing obser­va­tion: a) The Chair quer­ied why there was noth­ing on rel­ev­ant staff who have pro­cure­ment respons­ib­il­it­ies hav­ing train­ing, devel­op­ing under­stand­ing, know­ledge and train­ing should it be included in the strategy? Dir­ect­or of Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy CEO advised that there was a sec­tion on the role of the Pro­cure­ment officer and their role in train­ing. How­ever, he would ensure

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

Page 16 of 32

there is some­thing expli­cit in the strategy about the need for appro­pri­ate staff training.

1. The Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee con­sidered the pro­cure­ment strategy and advised on its suit­ab­il­ity as a basis for devel­op­ment of pro­cesses and procedures.

2. Action points arising: AOCB

3. No items presen­ted. None.

4. Motion to take the next item in con­fid­en­tial session.

5. The pub­lic busi­ness of the meet­ing con­cluded at 14.10 pm

6. The next meet­ing is on 8 Novem­ber 2024. | Ref | Action Detail | Who | When | Status | | — — — — — - | — — — — — - | — — — — — - | — — — — — - | — — — — — - | | 24/11/23 | Review accounts fig­ure for | Louise and | Look when | Closed | | | con­sultan­cies (page 68) | Dav­id | final­ise the 23/ | | | | | | 24 accounts, | | | | | | high­light to the | | | | | | Com­mit­tee at | | | | | | that point. | | | | | | Reviewed and | | | | | | cor­rec­ted the | | | | | | fig­ure by Maz­ars, | | | | | | will come with | | | | | | draft accounts. | | | Ref | Action Detail | Who | When | Status | | 27/06/24 | At para 15b | Dav­id and | | Ongo­ing | | | 1 Monthly update on | Louise | | | | | pro­gress to be | | | | | | provided by officers | | | |

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Form­al Board Paper 8 Annex 1

28 March 2025

Page 17 of 32 | | to the Chair and | | | | | | Deputy Chair of the | | | | | | Audit and Risk | | | | | | Com­mit­tee. | | | | | | At para 19a | | | | | | 2 Add pro­cure­ment at | | | | | | 12^th risk (stra­tegic | | | | | | risk register) | | | | | | At para 19c | | | | | 27/06/24 | Update word­ing on | Dav­id | | Closed | | | Impact descrip­tion | | | | | | on risk 7 (C2030 | | | | | | risk register) | | | | | | At para 19^d | | | | | | Review and amend (as | | | | | | appro­pri­ate) the | | | | | | prob­ab­il­ity score for | | | | | | risk 4 (C2030 risk | | | | | | register) | | | | | 27/09/24 | At para 20i | Dav­id and | At the end of the | | | | Update on intern­al | Stephanie | ²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial | | | | audit view on fin­an­cial | | year. | | | | scen­ario plan­ning to be | | | | | | provided to the Audit | | | | | | and Risk Com­mit­tee | | | | | 27/09/24 | At para 36i | Louise | To next meet­ing | | | | Fur­ther update on | | on 8 Novem­ber | | | | pro­gress made to | | 2024 | | | | Pro­cure­ment Action | | | | | | Plan | | | | | | At para 36ii | Grant | Next Form­al | | | | CEO to men­tion the | | Board meet­ing on | | | | impact the |