Performance Paper 5 - Comms update - March 2026

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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For dis­cus­sion

Title: Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment update Pre­pared by: Oliv­er Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement

Pur­pose

This paper presents an update of cur­rent com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment activ­ity, plus out­lines a num­ber of key pri­or­it­ies for the next quarter. It also includes a stra­tegic risk register and accom­pa­ny­ing mit­ig­a­tion measures.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to:

a) Review activ­ity across a range of com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment chan­nels in the past three months and dis­cuss the iden­ti­fied pri­or­it­ies for quarter two of 2026. b) Review the accom­pa­ny­ing risk register to ensure key risks are cap­tured and that mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures are appropriate.

Key com­mu­nic­a­tion and engage­ment deliv­er­able / achievements

Web­site and social media

1. Between Novem­ber 2025 and March 2026, we reached a col­lect­ive social media audi­ence of 89,425 across Face­book, Ins­tagram, Linked­In and BlueSky, up 8,608 (or 32%) on the same peri­od last year. This has been primar­ily focused on Ins­tagram, but we have gained 1,960 new Face­book fol­low­ers in this peri­od, a chan­nel that con­tin­ues to reach a high pro­por­tion of residents.
2. Unfor­tu­nately, with staff capa­city sig­ni­fic­antly impacted by staff sick­ness and the induc­tion of a new staff mem­ber, we were unable to post as fre­quently across all chan­nels. This res­ul­ted in impres­sions fall­ing by 19% to 3,601,436 and engage­ments by 5% to 190,377. Link clicks rose 45% to 19,974 and the over­all engage­ment rate rose 17% to 5.3%.
3. It is encour­aging is that, des­pite lower reach and impres­sions as a res­ult of less fre­quent posts, our engage­ment rate remained high and indeed increased over the

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peri­od. In part this is a res­ult of some select­ive and stra­tegic post­ing, ie less con­tent, but more mean­ing­ful interactions.

1. Video views over the peri­od fell by 18% to 836,808, again the res­ult of reduced capa­city, but this will be a key a focus for the team over the months ahead. In par­tic­u­lar, we are explor­ing cost-effect­ive ways of devel­op­ing our You­Tube chan­nel, with the plat­form being one of the few social media sites to genu­inely engage a multi-gen­er­a­tion­al audience.
2. 35,000 users vis­ited the new Nation­al Park web­site dur­ing the peri­od (no fig­ures avail­able for last year), with key devel­op­ments rolled out includ­ing a new ​‘map build­er’ func­tion to allow us to cre­ate our own maps (see our new health walks page), a bulk doc­u­ment func­tion to stream­line and stand­ard­ise board / plan­ning paper uploads, and an upcom­ing meet­ings and events sec­tion. We also rolled out ded­ic­ated fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and tender oppor­tun­it­ies pages, giv­ing com­munit­ies and busi­nesses all the inform­a­tion they need in one place.
3. Con­tent high­lights from the peri­od include: a ​‘View fae the ploo’ inter­view with loc­al snow plough oper­at­ors; a Cairngorms Voices piece about a mem­ber of the Brae­mar Moun­tain Res­cue team; a photo story about Jean, who lives with demen­tia; a new format exper­i­ment on Ins­tagram to cel­eb­rate Gael­ic place names; and a cam­paign to encour­age EOls for the C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund.

Press and media

1. We have been work­ing with cre­at­ive agency Bright Sig­nals to devel­op a coordin­ated com­mu­nic­a­tions cam­paign for fire byelaws, under the umbrella title of ​‘Pro­tect our Nation­al Park. No flame. No spark’. The cam­paign is under­pinned by beha­vi­our­al sci­ence research includ­ing the EAST Beha­viour Change Mod­el, which Bright Sig­nals used in their recent award-win­ning ​‘Leave Space for a Life’ cam­paign on cycle safety.
2. Our cam­paign will fea­ture res­id­ents / work­ers from across the Nation­al Park, call­ing on vis­it­ors and res­id­ents alike to join them in help­ing reduce the threat of wild­fires, util­ising the prin­ciple of ​‘social norming’.

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(Image con­tent on this page depicts cam­paign mater­i­als includ­ing posters, social media graph­ics, and a magazine spread for the ​‘Pro­tect our Nation­al Park. No flame, no spark’ cam­paign, fea­tur­ing a fire­fight­er and mes­saging about fire and bar­be­cue restrictions.)

1. The cam­paign will start rolling out week com­men­cing 16 March, fea­tur­ing everything from phys­ic­al road sig­nage to social media videos and adverts, ranger con­ver­sa­tions, part­ner sig­nage, beer mats, win­dow stick­ers and leaf­lets. Video and radio adverts will also be shot in loc­a­tions across the Nation­al Park week com­men­cing 16 March, fea­tur­ing five loc­al res­id­ents and fre­quent visitors.
2. We are explor­ing part­ner­ships with key social media influ­en­cers (eg Adven­tures with Rebecca), with a spe­cif­ic focus on teen­agers / men in their early twen­ties and ​‘van life’ adven­tur­ers to ensure we get the mes­sage across to key high risk audi­ences. Our paid online / social media activ­ity will help us reach far bey­ond our

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own chan­nels, tar­get­ing those plan­ning a trip to the Cairngorms (eg via spe­cif­ic keywords), as well as key demo­graph­ics and geo­graph­ies. Advert­ising spend will auto­mat­ic­ally increase based on factors includ­ing the num­ber of dry days in the fore­cast, and the prox­im­ity of key school hol­i­day periods.

1. The press team is work­ing on a range of pro­act­ive media oppor­tun­it­ies, with film­ing already planned with Chan­nel 4 News, STV News and BBC Report­ing Scot­land. Spe­cial­ist pub­lic­a­tions are also being tar­geted to max­im­ise cov­er­age and aware­ness of the byelaw as we approach launch date.
2. The suc­cess of the cam­paign will be tracked via a spe­cif­ic pre-and-post-cam­paign sur­vey with a ran­dom sample of 100 res­id­ents and 400 vis­it­ors, as well as through the next tranche of our vis­it­or and res­id­ent sur­veys. We will also keep track of (and report on) over­all cam­paign per­form­ance over the com­ing months, and com­pare this to res­ults on the ground from our ranger team in terms of eg act­ive fire sites, con­ver­sa­tions had with tar­get demo­graph­ics etc. Qual­it­at­ive feed­back will be sought through our fam­ily of ranger ser­vices, util­ising the reg­u­lar Man­aging for Vis­it­ors meetings.
3. Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) pro­jects have also been a key focus over the past few months, with a range of cov­er­age secured on C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund recruit­ment and the C2030 cre­at­ive res­id­ency. We also marked the launch of a new fund for farm­ers and crofters in the Nation­al Park, along­side a new cycle hub fund to help loc­al com­munit­ies and part­ners take for­ward act­ive travel pro­jects. Ger­man TV com­pany ZDF filmed with Glen­k­il­rie Lar­der and Grant­own Gram­mar for a piece on the deer lar­der pro­ject (yet to air).
4. Nature stor­ies included a fea­ture on fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels by BBC Out of Doors, the launch of this year’s Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund and the res­ults of the first sur­vey on per­eg­rine fal­con num­bers for 20 years.
5. Staff have con­trib­uted news­pa­per columns for the Strath­spey and Badenoch Her­ald and Deeside Piper on a range of top­ics includ­ing wood­lands, ranger work and youth pro­jects. We’ve secured a new column with the Press and Journ­al and the Cour­i­er for Mal­colm Smith, our Agri­cul­tur­al Advisor, which has been well received so far.
6. The pre-elec­tion peri­od comes into force on 26 March, which will restrict the volume of out­go­ing PR and media activ­ity the team can deliv­er. We plan to use this time to plan ahead for the sum­mer sea­son, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on fire byelaws, the launch of the C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund and a vari­ety of upcom­ing nature news items. We also plan to con­tin­ue meet­ing key con­tacts across loc­al and national

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media out­lets, explor­ing how we can best work togeth­er and what types of stor­ies they are most keen on.

Pub­lic and stake­hold­er engagement

1. Recruit­ment for the C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund pan­el opened on 07 Janu­ary for six weeks. The paid oppor­tun­ity was pro­moted extens­ively (includ­ing via loc­al and nation­al press, a door-drop to 30,000 house­holds, social media videos, part­ner com­mu­nic­a­tions and posters in com­munit­ies across the Nation­al Park) and we were delighted that over 250 people expressed an interest in being involved.
2. We received applic­a­tions from every major town and vil­lage in the Nation­al Park and from every age group, with applic­ants ran­ging from 16 to 85 years old. All sev­en of our C2030 tar­get audi­ences were well rep­res­en­ted and we had strong engage­ment from a range of under-rep­res­en­ted groups, includ­ing eth­nic minor­it­ies and dis­abled people. Anoth­er pos­it­ive sign was that just under half of applic­ants repor­ted hav­ing ​‘min­im­al’ or ​‘no pre­vi­ous con­tact’ with the Park Author­ity. A final short­l­ist of 18 people is cur­rently being pulled togeth­er, ahead of their first ses­sion on 25 March (led by our part­ners Involve UK).
3. An Aviemore road­show event took place on 11 Decem­ber. Aligned to the next stage of con­sulta­tion around C2030 act­ive travel pro­pos­als, the event included inform­a­tion about loc­al health walks, trans­port and land­scape pro­jects, and craft activ­it­ies such as Lego build­ing and screen print­ing. Des­pite its prox­im­ity to Christ­mas, 49 people joined the team over the course of the day, and this has been fur­ther sup­ple­men­ted by a busi­ness drop-in ses­sion and a night­time safety audit with mem­bers of the loc­al access panel.
4. A Boat of Garten road­show event took place on 15 Janu­ary, linked to the act­ive community’s con­sulta­tion and designs for improv­ing cross­ing points / walk­ing routes with­in the vil­lage. The C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund was also pro­moted, and the beaver team came along with video cam­era foot­age of recent activ­ity in the loc­al area. The Engage­ment team are cur­rently final­ising plans for spring and sum­mer, with road­show events planned in the Angus Glens, Blair Atholl, and Lag­gan / Dal­whin­nie, togeth­er with High­land games in Strath­don and Tomin­toul (via the ranger team).
5. Build­ing on the suc­cess of the cul­tur­al her­it­age net­work­ing event in Boat of Garten last year, a fol­low up meet­ing has been arranged in early March, with the agenda shaped by the prac­ti­tion­ers them­selves. Key top­ics include devel­op­ing a con­nec­ted archive for the Nation­al Park and agree­ing the scope and key pri­or­it­ies for a new Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Network.

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1. We have been work­ing with the Cairngorms Trust over the past few months on a ded­ic­ated Com­munit­ies and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Fund, with a total of £65,000 awar­ded to 11 pro­jects cel­eb­rat­ing loc­al her­it­age, crafts, art and music. Among those gran­ted fund­ing were the Brae­mar Loc­al His­tory Group for digit­ising their archive mater­i­al, a Kin­gussie High School pro­ject to design, build and launch tra­di­tion­al boats (includ­ing a canoe, kayak and Spey cor­acle), and the cre­ation of a her­it­age hub in Strath­don, provid­ing a work­space and archive stor­age. We hope to repeat the fund next year.
2. Our C2030 Engage­ment team have been research­ing and identi­fy­ing meth­ods of reach­ing out to under-rep­res­en­ted groups with­in the Nation­al Park, in par­tic­u­lar those on low incomes and those from eth­nic minor­ity back­grounds. The team dis­cussed poten­tial approaches with our Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el Meet­ing last month, receiv­ing pos­it­ive and con­struct­ive feed­back on poten­tial engage­ment meth­ods. These will be rolled out over the next few months.

Pub­lic­a­tions and branding

1. The spring edi­tion of Cairn magazine – a fire byelaw spe­cial – will hit door­steps across the Nation­al Park week com­men­cing 23 March. Along­side fea­tures on the byelaw and short inter­views with res­id­ents and part­ners back­ing the cam­paign, there are a range of oth­er stor­ies includ­ing fund­ing updates, peat­land archae­ology train­ing and a men­tal health course for the farm­ing com­munity. The issue also fea­tures a piece on the over £1 mil­lion of path upgrades taken for­ward in the Nation­al Park over the past three years.
2. Work to install new inter­pret­a­tion pan­els at the Charter Chest Path near Brae­mar, the Cairns Walk on Bal­mor­al Estate, and the Sky Hide star­gaz­ing spot at Tomin­toul is pro­gress­ing well, with deliv­ery expec­ted in time for the busy sum­mer sea­son. Anoth­er key pri­or­ity is refresh­ing sig­nage at Glen­more Vis­it­or Centre and Café, to include byelaw mes­saging at this stra­tegic vis­it­or spot.
3. The 2025 pro­gramme report for C2030, fea­tur­ing a range of high­lights from its second year, has been sent to print. Work is also pro­gress­ing well on new com­munity path leaf­lets, with Tomin­toul the first to get a refreshed look.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment activ­ity over the next three months

1. A range of com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment activ­it­ies are planned over the next three months; these are sum­mar­ised below. These pro­jects will take place along­side a reg­u­lar pro­gramme of activ­ity, coordin­ated through our cent­ral­ised Con­tent Work­ing Group, Engage­ment cross-cut­ting board and C2030 Engage­ment strand:

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a) Rol­lout of the fire byelaw com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment cam­paign, includ­ing phys­ic­al mater­i­als on the ground (sig­nage, leaf­lets, pro­mo­tion­al mater­i­als) and tar­geted online activ­ity (influ­en­cer part­ner­ship, tar­geted social media advert­ising, Spo­ti­fy and video ads etc). b) Work with a pan­el of 18 people – along­side our appoin­ted agency Involve UK – to make key decisions on the £1 mil­lion C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund. A total of eight ses­sions (five even­ing ses­sions online and three face-to-face ses­sions at week­ends) will take place over the next few months, with the aim of launch­ing the fund in sum­mer 2026. c) Take for­ward recom­mend­a­tions from the cul­tur­al her­it­age event and sup­port prac­ti­tion­ers in estab­lish­ing a Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Net­work for the Nation­al Park, includ­ing work on a col­lect­ive archiv­ing pro­ject. d) Pro­gress the second phase of Your Future Here activ­ity, encour­aging young people to explore careers in the Nation­al Park. Build­ing on the learn­ings from our inaug­ur­al event in Septem­ber 2024, we will explore events in the east and west of the Nation­al Park, tying in with careers fairs held at schools includ­ing Alford, Aboyne, Kin­gussie and Grant­own. e) Con­tin­ue deliv­ery of a pro­gramme of pro­act­ive com­mu­nic­a­tions around farm­ing and land man­age­ment in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, high­light­ing ongo­ing sup­port offered to the sec­tor and encour­aging two-way dia­logue. This includes the new P&J / Cour­i­er column with Mal­colm Smith. f) Rol­lout a series of nature news announce­ments, includ­ing on fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel, fur­ther beaver releases and the Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund. g) Con­tin­ue devel­op­ments with the new Nation­al Park web­site, includ­ing the poten­tial cre­ation of micros­ites for the Cairngorms Nature Index, a C2030 data portal and the reviv­al of the Cairngorms Photo Posts pro­ject. h) Take for­ward a range of pri­or­ity inter­pret­a­tion pro­jects, con­tinu­ing to reduce the back­log caused by last year’s Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment budget freeze.

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Risk register for com­mu­nic­a­tions and engagement

1. Fol­low­ing on from dis­cus­sions at a Gov­ernance Com­mit­tee meet­ing in 2024, we have developed a spe­cif­ic risk register to cap­ture the main risks facing the Park Author­ity from a repu­ta­tion stand­point, plus rel­ev­ant mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. This will be updated on a quarterly basis. Unless oth­er­wise stated, the risk own­er is the Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment. Assess­ment of like­li­hood and impact from last quarter’s report are shown in brackets.

#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion
1.	Coordin­ated dis­in­form­a­tion cam­paign on social media / in loc­al press seeks to under­mine res­id­ents’ con­fid­ence in the Park Author­ity, par­tic­u­larly in the run up to and imme­di­ate after­math of the Scot­tish elections.	High (high)	Medi­um (medi­um)	- Robust com­munity man­age­ment pro­cesses on social media, provid­ing rap­id response to all fac­tu­ally incor­rect posts and attempt­ing to cre­ate a ​‘safer’ online envir­on­ment where part­ners / sup­port­ers feel com­fort­able chal­len­ging mis­in­form­a­tion. - Con­tin­ue to liaise closely with key report­ers in tar­get loc­al and nation­al titles via the Media Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager and her team, explor­ing pos­it­ive news stor­ies and to make the case for more bal­anced cov­er­age (albeit more lim­ited dur­ing pre-elec­tion peri­od). - Coordin­ated cam­paign of pos­it­ive social media and pub­lic rela­tions (PR) activity,

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#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion
				telling the story of our work eg with land man­agers / farm­ers plus fund­ing for com­munity pri­or­it­ies. - Con­tin­ue to update key facts doc­u­ment to ensure rap­id response to any dis­in­form­a­tion that does appear, plus will­ing­ness to resort to Inde­pend­ent Press Stand­ards Organ­isa­tion (IPSO) com­plaints where all oth­er options are exhausted.
2.	Beaver move­ments and / or death of anim­als leads to ques­tions about our approach to rein­tro­du­cing the spe­cies, plus poten­tial fur­ther objec­tions from land man­agers. Activ­ity else­where in Scot­land – spe­cific­ally the new releases in Glen Affric – leads to great­er scru­tiny on future beaver releases in the Cairngorms.	Medi­um (medi­um)	Medi­um (medi­um)	- Ongo­ing mon­it­or­ing from the Beaver Pro­ject Man­ager and Park Author­ity ranger team with dir­ect line to Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions. - React­ive lines and fre­quently asked ques­tions (FAQs) pre­pared for vari­ous even­tu­al­it­ies, includ­ing links to man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion strategy. - Case stud­ies avail­able from oth­er rein­tro­duc­tions, eg Scot­tish Beaver Tri­al, Loch Lomond release etc. - Reg­u­lar meet­ings and dia­logue with Farm­ers’ For­um and oth­er land man­age­ment groups.

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#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion
				- Clear rationale com­mu­nic­ated – based on pub­lished licence con­di­tions – for all future beaver releases.
3.	Sur­veys show­ing decline in pop­u­la­tion of Cairngorms Nature pri­or­ity spe­cies (eg caper­cail­lie, rap­tors, fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel) and / or wild­life crime incid­ents impact on our repu­ta­tion for spe­cies con­ser­va­tion. Fur­ther illeg­al releases of wild anim­als (fol­low­ing lynx / fer­al pigs) add to this.	High (high)	High (high)	- Pro­act­ive stream of nature news out­lining our coordin­ated action plans for these spe­cies plus sup­port­ing blogs / social media activ­ity / Cairn con­tent. - Ded­ic­ated resource (Char­lotte Mil­burn) focused on nature and land man­age­ment com­mu­nic­a­tions. - Close col­lab­or­a­tion with key agen­cies and part­ners, eg NatureScot, Scot­tish Envir­on­ment LINK mem­bers, caper­cail­lie steer­ing group etc.
4.	Com­plex­ity of C2030 pro­gramme – and time it takes for pro­ject work to fully mater­i­al­ise on the ground – leads to ques­tions about value for money / over­all pro­gramme delivery.	Low (low)	Medi­um (medi­um)	- Ded­ic­ated Engage­ment team for C2030 tasked with pro­gram­ming a series of road­shows in com­munit­ies across the Nation­al Park. - C2030 Com­mu­nic­a­tions Coordin­at­or con­tin­ues to util­ise key mes­sages / storylines

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#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion
				for each of our sev­en tar­get audi­ences and align com­mu­nic­a­tions to these mes­sages. - Con­tin­ued oppor­tun­ity to cel­eb­rate quick wins, eg demen­tia centre, deer lar­der, green health pre­scrip­tions, peat­land tar­gets exceeded etc.
5.	Digit­al team’s capa­city to take for­ward pro­act­ive com­munity man­age­ment on social media is hampered eg by a mater­i­al increase in neg­at­ive posts, staff burnout / fatigue etc.	Medi­um (Medi­um)	High (Medi­um)	- Impact increased due to staff short­ages / ill­ness over recent months, redu­cing capa­city to handle these issues. - Rota imple­men­ted for staff involved to reduce expos­ure to most tox­ic con­tent. Explor­ing train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to assist staff deal­ing with this. - Ded­ic­ated social media mon­it­or­ing ser­vice (Sprout Social) to help track audi­ence activ­ity in real time. - Com­bin­ing mul­tiple social accounts into one to avoid con­ver­sa­tions becom­ing too frag­men­ted. - Identi­fy­ing ​‘seri­al offend­ers’ and keep­ing a closer eye on their activ­ity – escalating

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#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion
				com­ments more quickly to seni­or staff so we can cor­rect the record soon­er. - Review of team capa­city every quarter as part of stand­ard per­form­ance devel­op­ment process.
6.	Back­log of inter­pret­a­tion / sig­nage pro­jects as a res­ult of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment budget freeze causes repu­ta­tion­al dam­age with key com­munity part­ners look­ing for our support.	Medi­um (Medi­um)	Medi­um (Medi­um)	- Pro­act­ive series of vis­its by Park Authority’s Com­mu­nic­a­tions Officer to meet with impacted com­munit­ies. - Pri­or­it­ised action plan for first six months of this fin­an­cial year, delib­er­ately tar­get­ing dif­fer­ent areas of the Nation­al Park. - Identi­fy­ing addi­tion­al funds (eg The Gael­ic Lan­guage Act Imple­ment­a­tion Fund (GLAIF) fund­ing for Gael­ic mater­i­als) to fund addi­tion­al inter­pret­a­tion capacity.
7.	Com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment activ­ity around fire byelaws does not reach all our inten­ded audi­ences, and / or does not pre­vent a poten­tial wild­fire incid­ent, lead­ing to a loss of con­fid­ence in our over­all approach.	High (n/​a)	Medi­um (n/​a)	- Addi­tion­al spend (£50,000) secured to ensure we reach an audi­ence far bey­ond our ​‘owned’ chan­nels. - Multi-chan­nel approach to com­mu­nic­at­ing the byelaw, work­ing closely with partner

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 5 23 March 2026 Page 13 of 14

#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion
				ranger ser­vices, loc­al busi­nesses, com­munity groups etc. - Single, coordin­ated ​‘No, flame, no spark’ mes­saging across all cam­paign mater­i­als, based on sound beha­vi­our­al sci­ence prin­ciples. - Reg­u­lar reviews of cam­paign effect­ive­ness, optim­ising our approach based on what is / is not work­ing. Feed­ing this back to res­id­ents via a range of chan­nels, includ­ing Cairn. - Being clear in all our com­mu­nic­a­tions on the top­ic that pre­vent­ing wild­fires is a shared respons­ib­il­ity and that the risk of fires has sig­ni­fic­antly increased as a res­ult of cli­mate change. Also provid­ing clear guid­ance that if people see a fire, they should call 999 (rather than the Park Author­ity ranger service).
8.	Decisions made by the C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund pan­el prove con­ten­tious with mem­bers of the loc­al com­munity, lead­ing to ques­tions around	Medi­um (n/​a)	High (n/​a)	- Ensur­ing the final 18 pan­el mem­bers reflect the demo­graph­ics of the Nation­al Park and under­stand the issues that mat­ter to

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 5 23 March 2026 Page 14 of 14

#	Risk	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion
	the valid­ity of the pro­cess, and / or pan­el mem­bers being singled out for criticism.			res­id­ents and those with a pas­sion for the Cairngorms. - Robust train­ing and pas­tor­al sup­port provided through inde­pend­ent experts Involve UK – with sig­ni­fic­ant exper­i­ence of run­ning these pro­cesses in the past. - Oppor­tun­it­ies cre­ated for the pan­el to hear dir­ectly from rep­res­ent­at­ives from a range of dif­fer­ent com­munit­ies, break­ing down poten­tial bar­ri­ers / redu­cing chance of mis­un­der­stand­ings. - Clearly com­mu­nic­at­ing the pro­cess the pan­el are going through, intro­du­cing pan­el mem­bers as a diverse group com­ing togeth­er to make dif­fi­cult decisions (as opposed to singling out indi­vidu­als). - Full risk register provided to the Park Author­ity to feed into and review.

Oliv­er Dav­ies 06 March 2026 oliverdavies@​cairngorms.​co.​uk