Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Annu­al report and accounts ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ …an out­stand­ing nation­al park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive together…

AITH­ISG BHLIADH­NAIL AGUS CUN­NTAS­AN ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ …SÀR PHÀIRC NÀISEANTA, A THA A’ CÒRDADH RIS A H‑UILE DUINE AGUS AIR A BHEIL IAD UILE A’ CUR LUACH, AGUS FAR A BHEIL NÀDAR AGUS DAOINE A’ SOIRBHEACHA…

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CON­TENTS

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority 

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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1 PER­FORM­ANCE REPORT Page

• 1.1 Key Per­son­nel and spon­sor­ing Body 3
• 1.2 Chief Executive’s For­ward 5
• 1.3 The Park Author­ity 7
• 1.4 Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ and bey­ond 12
• 1.5 Key issues and Risks 15
• 1.6 Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Sum­mary 15
• 1.7 Oper­at­ing Per­form­ance Sum­mary 23

2 ACCOUNT­AB­IL­ITY REPORT

• 2.1 Gov­ernance Report 33
• 2.1.1 Dir­ect­ors’ Report 33
• 2.1.2 State­ment of Nation­al Park Authority’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 40
• 2.1.3 State­ment of Board’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 41
• 2.1.4 State­ment of the Account­able Officer’s Respons­ib­il­it­ies 42
• 2.2 Gov­ernance State­ment 43
• 2.3 Remu­ner­a­tion report and key inform­a­tion on staff 52
• 2.4 Par­lia­ment­ary account­ab­il­ity dis­clos­ures 70
• 2.5 Inde­pend­ent auditor’s report to the mem­bers of the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity, the Aud­it­or Gen­er­al for Scot­land and the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment 72

3 FIN­AN­CIAL STATEMENTS

• 3.1 State­ment of Com­pre­hens­ive Net Expendit­ure 78
• 3.2 State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion 79
• 3.3 State­ment of Cash Flows 80
• 3.4 State­ment of Changes in Tax­pay­ers’ Equity 81
• 3.5 Notes to the Fin­an­cial State­ments 82

APPENDIX 1 Accounts Dir­ec­tion 104

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority 

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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1 PER­FORM­ANCE OVERVIEW

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity presents this Annu­al Report and Accounts for the year from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 in accord­ance with The Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000.

The accounts have been pre­pared on a going con­cern basis as the Board and Account­able Officer believe that future liab­il­it­ies will be met from a com­bin­a­tion of cash budget alloc­a­tion from the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, future grants from part­ner agen­cies, and income from chargeable activities.

This over­view out­lines the pur­pose of the Author­ity and its per­form­ance dur­ing the year.

1.1 Key Per­son­nel and Spon­sor­ing Department

Spon­sor­ing body

Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Government

The Nation­al Park Author­ity Board is made up of nine­teen Board Mem­bers. Five mem­bers are elec­ted by the com­munity, sev­en are appoin­ted by Scot­tish Min­is­ters, and sev­en fol­low­ing nom­in­a­tions by the Loc­al Author­it­ies. The Board is led by the Con­vener and Deputy Convener.

Con­ven­or

Sandy Brem­ner — appoin­ted 26 May 2023 (Con­ven­or from July 2023)

Xan­der McDade, Chair Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee (Con­ven­or to July 2023)

Board mem­bers

Chris Beat­tie — appoin­ted 1 Octo­ber 2022

Geva Black­ett — reappoin­ted 1 Octo­ber 2022

Peter Cos­grove — appoin­ted 7 Septem­ber 2023

Kenny Deans — appoin­ted 23 March 2023

Paul Gibb — appoin­ted 23 March 2023

Han­nah Grist — appoin­ted 26 May 2023

Rus­sell Jones — appoin­ted 1 Octo­ber 2022

John Kirk — re-elec­ted 23 March 2023

Bill Lob­ban — appoin­ted 1 Octo­ber 2022

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Lauren Mac­Cal­lum — appoin­ted 23 March 2023

Dr Fiona McLean – reappoin­ted 1 Novem­ber 2022

Elean­or Mack­in­tosh — re-elec­ted 23 March 2023

Duncan Miller – appoin­ted 9 Novem­ber 2023

Steve Mickle­wright – appoin­ted 26 May 2023

Anne Ross — appoin­ted 1 Octo­ber 2022

Derek Ross — reappoin­ted 1 Octo­ber 2022

Peter Argyle — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022

Car­o­lyn Cad­dick — Deputy Con­ven­or — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022

Deirdrie Fal­con­er — resigned 21 March 2023

Pippa Had­ley — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022

Janet Hunter – resigned 7 Septem­ber 2023

John Lath­am — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022

Douglas McAdam – resigned 31 Octo­ber 2023

Anne Rae Mac­Don­ald — resigned 31 March 2023

lan Maclar­en — resigned 30 Septem­ber 2022

Wil­lie McK­enna — resigned 23 March 2023

Wil­li­am Mun­ro — resigned 31 March 2023

Dr Gaen­er Rodger ‑resigned 31 Octo­ber 2023

Judith Webb — resigned 31 Janu­ary 2023

The Board agrees the over­all dir­ec­tion of the Author­ity and over­sees the work of the Chief Exec­ut­ive and Nation­al Park staff. The exec­ut­ive man­age­ment of the Author­ity is under­taken by an Exec­ut­ive team that com­prises the Chief Exec­ut­ive and three Directors.

Chief Exec­ut­ive and Account­able Officer

Grant Moir

Dir­ect­ors

Dav­id Camer­on — Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Deputy Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer

Mur­ray Fer­guson — Plan­ning and Place

Andy Ford — Nature and Climate

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority 

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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1.2 Chief Executive’s Forward

I have pleas­ure in present­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Annu­al Report and Accounts cov­er­ing its 19^th year of oper­a­tion, from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.

Toward the end of March, I cel­eb­rated 10 years as Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer of the Park Author­ity and this gave me cause to reflect on the massive change there has been over those years. The Park Author­ity is a very dif­fer­ent organ­isa­tion from 10 years ago and there is a tre­mend­ous amount of work being done out on the ground in the Nation­al Park across our key themes of Nature, People and Place.

The launch of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 in August 2022 and the staff con­fer­ence in Novem­ber sig­nalled the start of a new chapter post- pan­dem­ic. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan is an ambi­tious plan set­ting out our approach between now and 2045. It was developed in col­lab­or­a­tion with over 100 part­ners and is driv­ing work both with­in the Park Author­ity and across the Nation­al Park as a whole.

The Park Author­ity con­tin­ued through­out the year to deliv­er on our key stra­tegic pri­or­it­ies. This involved provid­ing effect­ive and effi­cient pub­lic ser­vices around our stat­utory func­tions of plan­ning and out­door access, as well as work­ing with a diverse range of part­ners to com­plete pro­jects on the ground and deliv­er the col­lect­ive Nation­al Park out­comes. We have provided these ser­vices and achieved our object­ives while mak­ing our con­tri­bu­tion to the nation­al pri­or­it­ies and chal­lenges of address­ing the cli­mate and natures crises, build­ing a well-being eco­nomy, deliv­er­ing afford­able hous­ing and more.

We also con­tin­ued our work on the devel­op­ment phase of the Nation­al Lot­tery- fun­ded Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme, along­side a wide range of part­ners. This devel­op­ment phase has now come to a close and we will find out in Decem­ber 2023 wheth­er we have been suc­cess­ful with our £43 mil­lion deliv­ery phase applic­a­tion. Cairngorms 2030 is all about the Nation­al Park becom­ing a rur­al exem­plar of work­ing with people to tackle big issues such as cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adap­tion, nature recov­ery, rur­al regen­er­a­tion, com­munity engage­ment and sus­tain­able transport.

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Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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There are plenty of high­lights from ²⁰²²⁄₂₃, from the cre­ation of new vis­it­or facil­it­ies to pine hov­er­fly rein­tro­duc­tion, afford­able hous­ing being delivered, and record amounts of peat­land being restored.

Scotland’s nation­al parks have nev­er been in a bet­ter place and, whilst future deliv­ery will be a chal­lenge giv­en the scale of the issues we face, I am excited by the task in hand. We’re for­tu­nate to have a com­mit­ted and tal­en­ted staff group, a know­ledge­able and con­nec­ted board and an unpar­alleled net­work of part­ners, land man­agers, char­it­ies, loc­al busi­nesses and com­munit­ies, all determ­ined to make the Cairngorms Nation­al Park the best it can be.

We are an organ­isa­tion that deliv­ers innov­a­tion, col­lab­or­a­tion and ambi­tion, and I am extremely proud to be its CEO.

Grant Moir

Chief Exec­ut­ive and Account­able Officer

18 Decem­ber, 2023

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority 

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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1.3 The Park Authority

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is the largest Nation­al Park in the United King­dom and cov­ers 4,525 square kilo­metres, twice the size of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and 40% lar­ger than the Lake District.

The Park Author­ity is a Non-Depart­ment­al Pub­lic Body sponsored by the Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, estab­lished under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 with the pur­pose of being a mod­el of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment work­ing towards achiev­ing four stat­utory aims:

• to con­serve and enhance the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the area;
• to pro­mote sus­tain­able use of the nat­ur­al resources of the area;
• to pro­mote under­stand­ing and enjoy­ment (includ­ing enjoy­ment in the form of recre­ation) of the spe­cial qual­it­ies of the area by the pub­lic; and
• to pro­mote sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s communities.

Strategy and busi­ness model

The Park Author­ity has a key role in lead­ing the deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP). The Plan sets the con­text for close cooper­a­tion and part­ner­ship across pub­lic, private, and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions in the Park, towards an agreed set of shared pri­or­ity object­ives. The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan sets out three long term out­comes for the Park and provides the over­all guide for stra­tegic align­ment between pub­lic agen­cies, private com­pan­ies and com­munity organ­isa­tions with­in the Park who are sig­nat­or­ies to, and part­ners in, deliv­ery of the Cairngorms NPPP.

Over the course of the last year the Park Author­ity has developed and extens­ively con­sul­ted on a new NPPP to span 2022 to 2027. This new NPPP was approved by the Park Authority’s board in June 2022 and by Scot­tish min­is­ters in August 2022.

The Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan is derived from the NPPP. The Cor­por­ate Plan for the peri­od 2017 – 22 was approved by the Board and Scot­tish Min­is­ters in Spring 2018. Sub­sequently, the Author­ity has oper­ated against a trans­ition­al plan bridging the peri­od between the end of the 2017 – 22 NPPP and the com­mence­ment of the 2022 – 27 Plan. In the wider Scot­tish con­text, the Park

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority 

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Author­ity will also work on ensur­ing great­er stra­tegic align­ment to ensure deliv­ery of key nation­al strategies, such as cur­rent and future Pro­grammes for Gov­ern­ment and oth­er rel­ev­ant nation­al strategies.

Our stra­tegic work includes being an act­ive mem­ber of the Envir­on­ment and Eco­nomy Lead­ers’ Group, togeth­er with input to a range of nation­al lead­er­ship and stake­hold­er groups.

Our com­mit­ment

Our vis­ion, mis­sion state­ment and val­ues, are led by our board and staff and are cent­ral to our pur­pose and stra­tegic context:

Our vis­ion — an out­stand­ing Nation­al Park, enjoyed and val­ued by every­one, where nature and people thrive together.

Our mis­sion – to lead the way in deliv­er­ing for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park by bring­ing people togeth­er towards a com­mon pur­pose, enhan­cing the Park for every­one and inspir­ing new gen­er­a­tions to be Park Champions.

Our val­ues – the Park Author­ity is an open, inclus­ive, innov­at­ive, and pro­fes­sion­al organ­isa­tion that behaves with integ­rity. The Park Author­ity will also oper­ate in an envir­on­ment­ally friendly way that provides lead­er­ship in this area.

Our cul­ture — …to be the best small pub­lic body in Scotland.

We aspire to be the best small pub­lic body in Scot­land. Our staff sur­vey res­ults, under­taken every two years through ​“The Best Com­pan­ies Sur­vey”, have shown that we are a people-ori­ented organ­isa­tion per­form­ing well. We are lis­ted amongst the Top 100 Not for Profit Organ­isa­tions in the UK, and we are also recog­nised by Flex­ib­il­ity Works as one of the Top 10 employ­ers in Scot­land because of our approach to flex­ible work­ing for our staff group.

We will con­tin­ue to build on our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy to imbed a high per­form­ance, high achiev­ing and high-qual­ity cul­ture based on an equal­it­ies and staff focused cul­ture. The Park Author­ity will con­tin­ue to be innov­at­ive and quick to act and will empower staff to deliv­er the strategies put in place by our Board.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority 

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Aims and objectives

The Park authority’s object­ives for the year were formed around the themes of Nature & Cli­mate, People, and Place:

Nature & climate

Wood­land expansion

Peat­land restoration

Nature res­tor­a­tion:

• fresh­wa­ter restoration
• rap­tor conservation
• caper­cail­lie conservation
• re-intro­duc­tion of species

People

Cre­ation of paths and long-dis­tance routes

Pro­vi­sion of ranger services

Improve­ment of vis­it­or infrastructure

For­mu­lat­ing approaches to act­ive travel

Place

Mon­it­or­ing the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan

Deliv­er­ing housing

Con­trib­ut­ing to the devel­op­ment of the well­being eco­nomy plan

Cre­ation of a sus­tain­able tour­ism action plan

In addi­tion to deliv­ery of our estab­lished object­ives, we con­tin­ue to give stra­tegic focus to our work towards a sus­tain­able nature-based, eco­nom­ic recov­ery from the impacts of COV­ID 19 in the Cairngorms, while at the same time, deliv­er­ing urgent action to address cli­mate change. Our ​‘Net Zero with Nature’ Strategy and our Green Recov­ery Strategy were approved by our Board in 2020.

Per­form­ance against these object­ives was strong. Tar­gets for wood­land expan­sion and res­tor­a­tion of peat­land were exceeded; extens­ive con­sulta­tion was under­taken, both with the com­munity and with the part­ners to the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, on a range of issues from act­ive travel and loc­al devel­op­ment to nature res­tor­a­tion; sub­stan­tial path works were car­ried out; ranger ser­vices were exten­ded, and vis­it­or infra­struc­ture devel­op­ments included a new bike trail as well as improve­ments to vis­it­or facilities.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority 

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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The scale of the Park Authority’s work­force and sphere of oper­a­tions con­tin­ues to expand. Over­all, the Park Authority’s respons­ib­il­ity for funds under man­age­ment, primar­ily made avail­able by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, increased from £10.4m for ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ to £13.4m in ²⁰²²⁄₂₃.

Look­ing Forward

This dynam­ic, respons­ive organ­isa­tion­al eth­os will con­tin­ue. The Park Author­ity will con­tin­ue to look at new ways to oper­ate to deliv­er our com­mit­ments in the cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. This will include con­tinu­ing our suc­cess in look­ing for altern­at­ive fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, includ­ing applic­a­tions to funds such as the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund, and spon­sor­ship oppor­tun­it­ies. It also includes col­lab­or­at­ing with part­ners to deliv­er improved ser­vices. We con­tin­ue to strive for more effi­cient, and sus­tain­able intern­al work­ing prac­tices through deliv­er­ing against our Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy.

Our future fund­ing, from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and from extern­al fund­ing part­ners, has remained at a sim­il­ar level for ²⁰²³⁄₂₄, allow­ing us to con­sol­id­ate the work of pre­vi­ous years. The Sea­son­al Ranger Ser­vice will con­tin­ue for a fourth year, while we aug­ment this sup­port for vis­it­ors with cap­it­al invest­ment in vis­it­or infra­struc­ture. Over ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ we will fur­ther build our capa­city to deliv­er peat­land res­tor­a­tion and through this work act on cli­mate change.

In ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ we secured approv­al from Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) for the Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme. Our imple­ment­a­tion of the Devel­op­ment Phase of this pro­gramme, along­side a wide range of part­ners, has con­tin­ued through ²⁰²²⁄₂₃, and rep­res­ents a fur­ther sig­ni­fic­ant step change in the Park Authority’s scale of oper­a­tions. This Devel­op­ment Phase has inves­ted £3.8m, inclus­ive of £1.7m of NLHF fund­ing, across more than 20 pro­jects in scop­ing, tri­al­ling, and final­ising plans for the 5‑year, £42m deliv­ery phase that we expect to com­mence in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄. Pro­jects cov­er con­ser­va­tion, rur­al regen­er­a­tion, access, and sus­tain­able trans­port amongst oth­er areas of work.

Our budget for the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ fin­an­cial year, approved by the board in March 2023, provides total funds under man­age­ment for the year ahead of £13.6m. Our next 4‑year Cor­por­ate Plan, span­ning 2023 to 2027, was approved by the Board at its meet­ing on 24^th March 2023.

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority 

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Per­form­ance monitoring

The vari­ous aspects of the Park Authority’s per­form­ance – fin­an­cial, organ­isa­tion­al, and oper­a­tion­al — are repor­ted over the course of the year to the Authority’s Board and its sub-com­mit­tees. These reports are avail­able on our website.

By the nature of the Park Authority’s role, in seek­ing to lead col­lab­or­at­ive effort to tackle the big issues for the Cairngorms, per­form­ance is rarely entirely con­trol­lable by the Park Author­ity. Rather, achieve­ment of object­ives requires effect­ive lead­er­ship and influ­en­cing, and col­lab­or­a­tion and engage­ment with our part­ners, com­bined with our dir­ect invest­ment of fin­ance and staff resources, to address our priorities.

Risk man­age­ment

Risk man­age­ment and con­sid­er­a­tion of issues arising that may impact the deliv­ery of our stra­tegic cor­por­ate pri­or­it­ies are cent­ral to our man­age­ment activ­it­ies with­in the Park Author­ity. The Man­age­ment Team reviews stra­tegic risks at least quarterly, and we have developed and embed­ded risk man­age­ment prac­tices, togeth­er with pro­ject man­age­ment pro­cesses, to take full cog­nis­ance of these core aspects of effect­ive organ­isa­tion­al and stra­tegic con­trol arrangements.

The Park Author­ity has developed a Stra­tegic Risk Man­age­ment Strategy and asso­ci­ated Stra­tegic Risk Register, which, in tan­dem with our cor­por­ate per­form­ance and mon­it­or­ing sys­tem, details the key issues and risks around deliv­ery of our Cor­por­ate Plan togeth­er with the stra­tegic object­ives and key per­form­ance indic­at­ors set out in that plan. The Board receives detailed reports and com­ments on key issues and risks twice annu­ally, with the Board’s Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee review­ing stra­tegic risk man­age­ment between these Board meetings.

Sig­ni­fic­ant pro­jects also have their own embed­ded risk registers and risk mit­ig­a­tion plans, for example, we have estab­lished sep­ar­ate risk registers to sup­port the deliv­ery of the Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 Pro­gramme. More inform­a­tion on risk and intern­al con­trols can be found in the Gov­ernance State­ment with­in this doc­u­ment and in our Risk Man­age­ment Strategy.

The key risks faced by the Park Author­ity included:

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Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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• Fin­an­cial resources: in-year adjust­ments to fund­ing provided by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment; dif­fi­culties in plan­ning future pro­grammes with­in the con­text of poten­tial fin­an­cial constraints.
• Human resources: increased work­load and high activ­ity gen­er­ated from con­cur­rent pro­grammes of activ­ity — cor­por­ate plan and large-scale projects.
• Tech­nic­al issues: cyber-secur­ity issues with asso­ci­ated threats of fraud and theft.

PER­FORM­ANCE REPORT: PER­FORM­ANCE ANALYSIS

This sec­tion provides inform­a­tion on the per­form­ance of the organ­isa­tion over the year ended 31 March 2023, our aims and pri­or­it­ies, our achieve­ments and fin­an­cial results.

1.4 Stra­tegic Aims and Pri­or­it­ies ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ and beyond

We con­trib­ute to deliv­ery of the long-term out­comes in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 (NPPP) through work­ing to achieve our agreed Cor­por­ate Plan stra­tegic objectives.

Our stra­tegic aims and pri­or­it­ies are set out across the three themes of Nature and cli­mate, People, and Place. Each of these themes sets out a num­ber of pri­or­ity out­comes in line with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. Cor­por­ate Ser­vices and Com­mu­nic­a­tions sup­port the main themes and their out­comes. The Plan was approved by Scot­tish Min­is­ters in August 2022.

Nature a car­bon neg­at­ive and biod­iversity rich Nation­al Park with bet­ter func­tion­ing, bet­ter con­nec­ted and more resi­li­ent ecosystems.

Out­comes:

1. Moor­land is more diverse,
2. Wood­land is expanding,
3. Peat­lands are restored,
4. Rivers are reconnected,
5. Spe­cies are recovering,
6. Farm­ing is car­bon neutral.

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Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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People – a well­being eco­nomy that works for all the people of the Cairngorms.

Out­comes:

1. Com­munit­ies are empowered,
2. Well­being comes first,
3. Green jobs are growing,
4. The Cairngorms is a Park for All,
5. Volun­teer­ing is on the rise,
6. Young people stay and thrive.

Place a place that people want to live in, work in and vis­it that works for all.

Out­comes:

1. Hous­ing is more affordable,
2. Trans­port is more sustainable,
3. Com­munit­ies are connected,
4. Vis­it­or facil­it­ies are first class,
5. Cul­tur­al her­it­age is celebrated.

Sup­port themes

The deliv­ery of the themes and pri­or­it­ies is sup­por­ted by the Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Cor­por­ate Ser­vices teams. Our Com­mu­nic­a­tions team works with vis­it­ors, com­munit­ies, and stake­hold­ers to raise the pro­file of the Park and cre­ate a con­nec­tion and com­mit­ment to care for it. Our Cor­por­ate Ser­vices team ensures the deliv­ery of effect­ive, effi­cient, and sus­tain­able ser­vices in addi­tion to pro­mot­ing the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance, both with­in the Park Author­ity itself and also in work­ing with com­munity and vol­un­tary organ­isa­tions involved in deliv­ery of NPPP priorities.

Cor­por­ate services

The aim of the Cor­por­ate Ser­vices team is to deliv­er effect­ive, effi­cient, and sus­tain­able ser­vices, pro­mot­ing the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance to sup­port deliv­ery of the Cor­por­ate Plan and Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan by the Park Author­ity and our com­munity and char­ity part­ners. We also play an act­ive role in the Envir­on­ment and Eco­nomy Lead­ers’ Group.

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Pri­or­it­ies:

• Imple­ment the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy and embed the organ­isa­tion­al and cul­tur­al improve­ments to make the Park author­ity the best small pub­lic body in Scotland.
• Ensure that our accom­mod­a­tion and its infra­struc­ture sup­port the deliv­ery of the Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment Strategy.
• Deliv­er ongo­ing ser­vice improve­ment, includ­ing appro­pri­ate shared ser­vices devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion, to the Park Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support.
• Pro­mote and sup­port the highest stand­ards of gov­ernance and man­age­ment, includ­ing equal­it­ies actions, with­in the Park Author­ity, oth­er pub­lic bod­ies and the com­munity and char­it­able organ­isa­tions we support.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and engagement

Com­mu­nic­at­ing with a wide range of stake­hold­ers – from loc­al res­id­ents to vis­it­ors, busi­nesses and land man­agers – is vital for the work of the Park Author­ity. It sup­ports the work being under­taken across the organ­isa­tion to deliv­er on the Nature and Cli­mate, People and Place pri­or­it­ies out­lined in our Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. Our role is to raise the pro­file of the Nation­al Park and cre­ate mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions between key audi­ences and the land­scape of the Cairngorms. We are seek­ing to build a com­munity of people who act­ively sup­port and care for the Nation­al Park and who bene­fit from doing so.

Pri­or­it­ies:

• Deliv­er the Com­mu­nic­a­tion and Engage­ment Strategy and increase aware­ness, engage­ment and involve­ment with the Nation­al Park.
• Coordin­ate engage­ment for our Cairngorms 2030 pro­gramme and tell the story as it pro­gresses, help­ing stake­hold­ers see their role in tack­ling the nature and cli­mate crises.
• Ensure high qual­ity intern­al com­mu­nic­a­tions that help deliv­er the key pri­or­it­ies of the Cor­por­ate Plan.
• Cel­eb­rate a diverse range of per­spect­ives and exper­i­ences in our com­mu­nic­a­tions, help­ing the Cairngorms become a ​‘Park for All’ where every­one is welcome.

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1.5 Key Issues and Risks

Stra­tegic delivery

Deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan will test the poten­tial for enhanced approaches to con­ser­va­tion and the pro­tec­tion of endangered spe­cies, includ­ing deliv­ery of out­comes on wild­life crime.

Fin­an­cial resources

The Scot­tish Government’s con­tin­ued and heightened con­cerns on for­ward sta­bil­ity of cur­rent fin­an­cial alloc­a­tions presents the risk of in-year adjust­ments, and uncer­tainty over future year fund­ing levels. The oppor­tun­ity to access UK Gov­ern­ment fund­ing to replace EU losses is unclear and the impact of wider changes to agri-envir­on­ment schemes also remains uncer­tain. Con­straints on pub­lic sec­tor fin­ances may restrict our capa­city to alloc­ate suf­fi­cient resources to deliv­er the cor­por­ate plan.

Human resources

Deliv­ery of extern­ally fun­ded pro­jects has become an intrins­ic part of our oper­a­tion­al plan­ning so that we main­tain the capa­city of the organ­isa­tion to achieve pro­ject out­comes, while work­ing in an increas­ingly com­pet­it­ive and restric­ted recruit­ment climate.

Tech­nic­al issues

The Author­ity recog­nises depend­ency on inform­a­tion tech­no­logy for effect­ive and effi­cient oper­a­tions. The incid­ence of cyber­crime increases the need for invest­ment in both secur­ity meas­ures and resourcing of IT ser­vices. Busi­ness con­tinu­ity plan­ning remains a focus.

1.6 Fin­an­cial Per­form­ance Summary

This sec­tion provides a sum­mary of the Park Authority’s fin­an­cial per­form­ance for the year against the Board approved budget and grant-in-aid awar­ded by the Scot­tish Government.

The Park Author­ity is expec­ted to man­age its budget in accord­ance with its Fin­an­cial Memor­andum and the Scot­tish Pub­lic Fin­ance Manu­als, and to deliv­er an out­turn for the fin­an­cial year with­in Scot­tish Government’s budget lim­its. The com­ment­ary and tables below show how the budgets agreed by the Board have been applied dur­ing the year with com­par­is­ons to pre­vi­ous years’ income and expenditure.

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Income

The main source of our fund­ing for the year was grant-in-aid fund­ing from our spon­sor­ing body, the Envir­on­ment and Forestry Dir­ect­or­ate, Nat­ur­al Resources Divi­sion, of the Scot­tish Government.

We also acted as Account­able Body for the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) sup­port­ing sig­ni­fic­ant ongo­ing pro­jects: the deliv­ery phase of the Caper­cail­lie Frame­work and the devel­op­ment phase of the Cairngorms 2030 Pro­ject (Her­it­age Horizons).

The grant-in-aid set­tle­ment rep­res­ents an agreed budget with our spon­sor­ing depart­ment with an agreed level of fund­ing sup­port rep­res­ent­ing the Park Authority’s alloc­a­tions of Depart­ment­al Expendit­ure Lim­its (DEL) which cov­ers all expendit­ure net of income from all oth­er sources. DEL is fur­ther split between cash alloc­a­tions to meet oper­a­tion­al cost (resource or RDEL) and cap­it­al expendit­ure (cap­it­al or CDEL) and non-cash alloc­a­tions. The non-cash alloc­a­tion cov­ers depre­ci­ation and impair­ment of non-cur­rent assets, which are cap­it­al­ised tan­gible and intan­gible assets and now include, fol­low­ing the intro­duc­tion of IFRS 16, right-of-use assets (rent­al prop­er­ties, leased vehicles and leased office equip­ment) car­ried in the State­ment of Fin­an­cial Pos­i­tion at the year end.

The grant-in-aid set­tle­ment for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ was again favour­able and increased in total by £1.671m with uplifts for both peat­land res­tor­a­tion, a cap­it­al increase of £0.806m (though an increase of £1.732m was ori­gin­ally offered and reflec­ted in the budget) and a cap­it­al increase of £0.178m for con­ser­va­tion, spe­cific­ally for nature biod­iversity and recov­ery. Fund­ing received in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ to reduce the impact of COVID19 on activ­it­ies with­in the Park (£0.5m) was not provided again in ²⁰²²⁄₂₃. How­ever, an addi­tion­al £0.5m was received to sup­port vis­it­or man­age­ment in the Park.

The fol­low­ing income and expendit­ure account provides a sum­mary of our actu­al fin­an­cial per­form­ance, cash, and non-cash, for the year against the final budget. This final budget equates to the ori­gin­al budget, presen­ted to the Board on 25^th March 2022, with the addi­tion of a £0.350m cap­it­al grant for nature recovery.

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Income and expenditure

	Out­turn £’000	Budget £’000	Vari­ance £’000
Income
Grant-in-aid Resource funding	7,472	7,472	-
Grant-in-aid Cap­it­al fund­ing general	600	600	-
Grant-in-aid Cap­it­al fund­ing peat­land recovery	2,214	2,962	(748)
Grant-in-aid Cap­it­al fund­ing nature recovery	350	350	-
	10,636	11,384	(748)
Oth­er gen­er­ated income*	898	182	716
Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD)	366		366
Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie project	474	915	(441)
Her­it­age Horizons	1,031	2,753	(1,722)
	2,769	3,850	(1,081)
Total income	13,405	15,234	(1,829)
Expendit­ure
Staff and board costs**	5,071	4,624	447
Run­ning costs	796	809	(13)
Oper­a­tion­al plan costs	2,818	2,834	(16)
Peat­land cap­it­al spend	1,945	2,962	(1,017)
Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD)	366		366
Nature Recov­ery cap­it­al spend	348	350	(2)
Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie project	474	915	(441)
Her­it­age Horizons	1,031	2,753	(1,722)
Total expendit­ure	12,849	15,247	(2,398)
Surplus/(deficit) on cash activities	556	(13)	569
Depre­ci­ation (non-cash)	321		321
Out­turn taken to Tax­pay­ers’ reserves	235	(13)	248

*includes pro­ject staff costs recovered **includes pro­ject staff costs

Income from all oth­er sources, primar­ily part­ner fund­ing, also increased over that received in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂. Pro­ject income increase by £1.313m, with ongo­ing pro­jects (Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie and Her­it­age Hori­zons) gain­ing momentum after the dis­rup­tion caused by COVID19 in the pri­or year, and increased activ­ity in the devel­op­ment phase of the Her­it­age Hori­zon pro­ject. How­ever, activ­ity on Her­it­age Hori­zons has exten­ded into ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ and con­sequently expendit­ure was delayed.

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Over­all total income has grown by 158% in total since ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀, with grant-in-aid grow­ing by 214%, as is shown by the graph below:

Total income ¹⁹⁄₂₀ to ²²⁄₂₃

[Graph is described in OCR]

The sources of oth­er gen­er­ated income are vari­able depend­ing on the pro­gress of pro­jects dur­ing a fin­an­cial year and changes to the emphas­is and object­ives in the cor­por­ate plan. For the four years since ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀, the split of the income, includ­ing com­pleted pro­jects, sig­ni­fic­ant ongo­ing pro­jects and oper­a­tion­al plan activ­ity is:

Oper­at­ing income by activity

[Graph is described in OCR]

Income from oper­a­tion­al plan activ­it­ies has con­sist­ently reduced over the peri­od, reflect­ing the change in emphas­is towards sig­ni­fic­ant ongo­ing pro­jects sup­por­ted by the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund, and the realign­ment of object­ives in this trans­ition­al year (before the next Park Part­ner­ship Plan) and towards Cairngorms 2030.

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The LEAD­ER pro­gramme has been replaced by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fun­ded Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment (CLLD) pro­gramme, which com­menced dur­ing the year and the res­ults of which are included in oper­a­tion­al and oth­er gen­er­ated out­come totals. While the Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship closed in ²¹⁄₂₂ there is a five-year man­age­ment and main­ten­ance peri­od end­ing in early ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇, with min­im­al spend in the year. The deliv­ery phase of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie pro­ject will end in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄, as does the devel­op­ment phase of the Her­it­age Hori­zons pro­ject. From min­im­al spend in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ the spend and matched recov­ery for Her­it­age Hori­zons in ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ was £1.03m.

Oper­at­ing expenditure

Over­all, the increase in income is matched by an increase in expendit­ure, irre­spect­ive of source.

Total expendit­ure ¹⁹⁄₂₀ to ²²⁄₂₃

[Graph is described in OCR]

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Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority 

Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Page 20 of 104

Oper­at­ing expendit­ure (exclud­ing depreciation)

[Graph is described in OCR]

Staff costs, includ­ing Board fees, net of recov­er­ies, accoun­ted for 33% of total income (2021÷22 35.4%). As a per­cent­age of the grant-in-aid received this was 41.6% (2021÷22 41.1%).

By agree­ment, the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment reduced resource grant-in-aid in the autumn of 2022 by £0.117m to assist in meet­ing con­tin­ued fin­an­cial pres­sures. This reduc­tion was sub­sequently reversed, and while we were able to util­ise this late fund­ing adjust­ment, unfor­tu­nately we were not able to com­mit it fully, res­ult­ing in a small resource sur­plus for the year of £0.018m.

We exceeded our tar­get for hec­tares of peat­land res­tor­a­tion dur­ing the year, but these were delivered at a lower cost than ori­gin­ally anti­cip­ated, and con­sequently, we were unable to util­ise the full cap­it­al award drawn down for peat­land recov­ery. This res­ul­ted in a sub­stan­tial cap­it­al under­spend on the peat­land award of £0.269m.

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Page 21 of 104

Non-cash

A non-cash budget of £0.510m was alloc­ated by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment for ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ (21÷22 £0.340m) to cov­er depre­ci­ation of cap­it­al­ised intan­gible and tan­gible assets and right-of-use assets.

Recon­cili­ation of cash spend surplus

	£’000
Sur­plus on cash activities	556
Cap­it­al­ised tan­gible, intan­gible and right of use assets	(267)
Actu­al cash surplus	289
Rep­res­en­ted by
Unders