Performance Paper 5 - Delivery of statutory duties as conferred by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003

Draft Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 5 12 June 2026

For inform­a­tion

Title: Deliv­ery of stat­utory duties as con­ferred by the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003

Pre­pared by: Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel and Adam Streeter-Smith, Recre­ation Access and Infra­struc­ture Manager

Pur­pose

This paper is presen­ted in order to update mem­bers on deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s stat­utory duties under the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003. While activ­ity is delivered by officers with annu­al report­ing to the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF), as this is a stat­utory func­tion it is also con­sidered appro­pri­ate that there is an ele­ment of Board over­sight and scru­tiny of related casework.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to: a) Note the sum­mary of access case­work under­taken by the Access and Infra­struc­ture Team. b) Con­sider find­ings, trends and oth­er rel­ev­ant issues arising.

Stra­tegic context

1. Part one of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act 2003 (“the LRA” or ​“the Act”) estab­lishes stat­utory rights of respons­ible access on and over most land, includ­ing inland water. Part one of the Act sets out the stat­utory duties, respons­ib­il­it­ies and powers of Nation­al Park Author­it­ies in rela­tion to the pro­vi­sion and pro­mo­tion of the right of access, Part one of the Act also places emphas­is on the loc­al man­age­ment of access which is the respons­ib­il­ity of the Park Author­ity as the recog­nised Access Authority.

2. In addi­tion, the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) includes under C8 – Access­ible path and cycle net­work, the object­ive ​“improve path, cycle and out­door access net­works to give out­stand­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to exper­i­ence the nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al her­it­age of the Nation­al Park to the widest range of people, while min­im­ising dis­turb­ance to vul­ner­able spe­cies, hab­it­ats and sites.” Achiev­ing this object­ive requires the deliv­ery of the Park Authority’s stat­utory access duties to com­ple­ment oth­er activ­ity such as infra­struc­ture invest­ment and promotion.

Stake­hold­er engagement

1. The LRA required the Park Author­ity to estab­lish a LOAF to provide advice and sup­port to the author­ity. The LOAF which nor­mally meets three times per annum con­tains a range of mem­bers drawn from user groups, land man­agers and part­ner organ­isa­tions who can reflect the interests of these parties. The LOAF is updated annu­ally on access casework.

2. As the Park Author­ity has been con­sult­ing on a revi­sion of the Core Paths Plan fur­ther stake­hold­er engage­ment took place dur­ing the year ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ spe­cific­ally on this activ­ity and fur­ther details are provided with­in this report.

Stra­tegic risk management

1. No sig­ni­fic­ant stra­tegic risks have been iden­ti­fied as a res­ult of the access case­work described.

Implic­a­tions

1. There is a risk of repu­ta­tion­al dam­age if cases are not resolved par­tic­u­larly if these cases are high pro­file. While most cases are resolved through dir­ect engage­ment with the parties con­cerned, there is the poten­tial for some cases to require fur­ther leg­al action to resolve them, and this adds an ele­ment of fin­an­cial risk through leg­al costs.

Back­ground

1. Part one of the LRA sets out the stat­utory duties, respons­ib­il­it­ies and powers of Nation­al Park Author­it­ies in rela­tion to the pro­vi­sion and pro­mo­tion of the right of access.

2. Under part one of the LRA the Park Author­ity has four spe­cif­ic duties: a) Sec­tion 10: The Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (“the Code”) — There is a duty imposed on the Park Author­ity, by sec­tion 10(7) (a) of the Act, to pub­li­cise the Code. b) Sec­tion 13: Duty to uphold access rights — Sec­tion 13(1) of the Act places a duty on the Park Author­ity to uphold access rights which entails assert­ing, pro­tect­ing, keep­ing open and free from obstruc­tion any route, water­way or oth­er means by which access may reas­on­ably be exer­cised. c) Sec­tions 17, 18 and 20: Core Paths Plan — The Park Author­ity has a duty, to draw up, pub­lish and review a plan for a sys­tem of core paths suf­fi­cient to provide reas­on­able pub­lic access through­out their areas. d) Sec­tion 25: Loc­al Access For­um — Sec­tion 25 of the Act places a duty on the Park Author­ity to estab­lish a loc­al access for­um con­sist­ing of per­sons, and bod­ies rep­res­ent­ing the interests of such per­sons, with an interest in pub­lic access on and over land includ­ing the exer­cise of access rights, rights of way, core paths plans and the use of core paths, and own­ers, or bod­ies rep­res­ent­at­ive of own­ers, of land in respect of which access rights are exercisable.

3. This paper high­lights the deliv­ery of those stat­utory duties above for the peri­od April 2025 — March 2026.

Pro­mo­tion of the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code

1. Dir­ect pub­lic engage­ment — activ­it­ies pro­mot­ing respons­ible beha­viour and the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (SOAC) are under­taken by Park Author­ity access and ranger staff. Details of this engage­ment are giv­en below for the peri­od April 2025 to March 2026. NB This describes form­al ded­ic­ated access activ­ity only, so does not include ranger patrolling and inform­al con­ver­sa­tions at oth­er com­munity events.

Activ­ity	No. of people	No. of ses­sions	Activ­it­ies
School groups	347	14	* Deliv­ery of SOAC edu­ca­tion pro­gramme to four high schools and one primary school. Addi­tion­al refresh­er SOAC camp­ing ses­sion before school expeditions.
Pub­lic events	244	5	Ranger ​“pop-up” events (stall in car park on busy day). Ranger attend­ance at events eg Thrive bike fest­iv­al. * Two recre­ation and wild­life present­a­tions to out­door activ­ity pro­viders (part of Beaver sessions).
Con­tinu­ing Per­son­al Devel­op­ment (CPD) / Training	28	4	Teach­er train­ing ses­sion – deliv­ery of SOAC edu­ca­tion resource. SOAC train­ing ses­sions to Park Author­ity staff, volun­teer rangers and part­ner ranger services.
Juni­or rangers	29	2	* Wild­life dis­turb­ance and cre­at­ing videos about respons­ible access.
Total num­ber of people dir­ectly engaged with	485

1. Pub­lic­a­tions — The Park Author­ity con­tin­ues to pro­mote the code under the aus­pices of ​‘Tread Lightly in the Park’, the list of tread lightly pub­lic­a­tions include: a) Main gen­er­al Tread Lightly leaf­let. b) Revised Fire and barbe­que leaf­let that details the sea­son­al fire bylaw and respons­ible beha­viour out­with the bylaw peri­od. c) ​“High Fire Risk” mag­net­ic vehicle signs for all rangers’ vans and part­ner ranger ser­vice vehicles. d) Respons­ible beha­viour poster signs – suite of five poster signs. e) Caper­cail­lie and dogs on lead signs.

2. Digit­al pro­mo­tion — social media – Respons­ible beha­viour mes­sages were pro­moted on social media (Face­book and Ins­tagram) between March and Octo­ber on sub­jects such as respons­ible dog own­er­ship, wild­life dis­turb­ance, wild­fire aware­ness and mush­room for­aging. A total of 32 posts ran (58), which achieved 319,120 impres­sions (156,137), 550 com­ments (85) and 4,483 reac­tions (3,661). [2024 fig­ure in brackets].

3. Post num­bers are less than last year as more work was done in part­ner­ship with Vis­it­Cairngorms who delivered a lot of the vis­it­or man­age­ment cam­paign posts. As they are the main loc­al tour­ism body, the social media fol­low­ers of Vis­it­Cairngorms con­sist of a high pro­por­tion of vis­it­ors to the Park, who are a key tar­get audi­ence for much of the respons­ible beha­viour messaging.

Duty to uphold access rights

1. The cur­rent record shows a slight decrease in Sec­tion 14 case­work (obstruc­tions to access rights eg locked gates) for the 12-month peri­od April 2025 to March 2026 versus the pre­vi­ous year. Records for the review peri­od com­pare as fol­lows: a) ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ – 15 cases (five cur­rently live for ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇) b) ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ — 26 cases c) ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ — 33 cases d) ²⁰²²⁄₂₃ — 28 cases

2. Break­down of cases by area and type: a) Of the 15 access obstruc­tion cases received 01 April 2025 to 01 April 2026:

   i. 10 locked gates / barriers
   ii. Two obstructive signage
   iii. Two obstructive behaviour
   iv. One other access restriction
   

3. The num­ber of cases repor­ted are sig­ni­fic­antly high­er in Badenoch and Strath­spey com­pared to the oth­er areas with­in Nation­al Park. This is likely to reflect a high­er pop­u­la­tion and great­er vis­it­or num­bers rather than any beha­vi­our­al differences.

Core Paths Plan

1. Tak­ing dir­ec­tion both from min­is­ters and from the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan the Access Team are under­tak­ing a review of the Core Paths Plan. The pub­lic were invited to com­ment on these amend­ments via an inform­al con­sulta­tion that ran over three months from the 29 May to 31 August 2025. All the feed­back and com­ments received dur­ing the inform­al con­sulta­tion have been reviewed and assessed by the Access team, with the LOAF con­sul­ted as required. The Board con­sidered the find­ings of this inform­al review on 27 March 2026 and approved the move to form­al con­sulta­tion. Formal-Board-Paper-4-Core-Paths-Plan-review.pdf

2. The form­al 12-week con­sulta­tion on the amended Core Paths Plan com­menced on 26 of May and will be com­pleted by 21 of August. Landown­ers with new or amended core paths have been noti­fied and key stat­utory con­sul­tees invited to make representations.

LOAF

1. The Cairngorms LOAF had been oper­a­tion­al for 21 years on the 31 March 2026 and has played a cru­cial role in help­ing the Park Author­ity shape and devel­op policies and plans, address access issues and advise on the sus­tain­able man­age­ment of out­door access. Mem­bers time and ded­ic­a­tion is highly val­ued by the Park Author­ity and by the Park Author­ity Board.

2. The LOAF met three times in ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ and covered top­ics as wide ran­ging as: b) Drones and Events Guid­ance c) Out­door access case­work d) Core Paths Planning

3. The LOAF oper­at­ing pro­ced­ures state there will be a max­im­um of 15 mem­bers includ­ing one Park Author­ity board mem­ber. Cur­rently there are nine mem­bers, three exist­ing mem­bers have served in excess of six years and will be stand­ing down over the year, so addi­tion­al recruit­ment will be tak­ing place to ensure con­tinu­ity and rep­res­ent­a­tion. The Con­vener has severed his full six-year term and elec­tions were held at the March 2026 meet­ing. No volun­teers came for­ward so pro­pos­als are going to the June 2026 meet­ing for the next steps.

Con­clu­sions: Per­form­ance Overview

1. There are no mat­ters of stra­tegic sig­ni­fic­ance which mer­it escal­a­tion at this time in the opin­ion of seni­or man­agers lead­ing the Park Authority’s deliv­ery of stat­utory duties. Case­work hand­ling capa­city and pro­ced­ures have proven resi­li­ent to fluc­tu­ations in num­bers and types of issues over­all although any sus­tained upward trend requires mon­it­or­ing in respect of staff capacity.

Adam Streeter-Smith 28 May 2025 adamstreetersmith@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Colin Simpson 28 May 2025 colinsimpson@​cairngorms.​co.​uk