Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 6 Annex 1 23 March 2026

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Paper 6

Annex 1

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MEMOR­ANDUM OF AGREEMENT

BETWEEN

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL ACTION GROUP TRUST, a registered char­ity with char­ity num­ber SC046495 and hav­ing their Office at 14 The Square, Grant­own on Spey PH26 3HG (here­in­after referred to as ​‘the Trust’), and any sub­si­di­ary and / or incor­por­ated entity of the Trust

And

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY being a Nation­al Park Author­ity incor­por­ated under the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000 and hav­ing their Prin­cip­al Office at Four­teen The Square, Grant­own on Spey PH26 3HG (here­in­after referred to as the ​“Author­ity”).

This MEMOR­ANDUM OF AGREE­MENT is hereby made and entered into by the Author­ity and the Trust.

DEFIN­I­TIONS

The fol­low­ing terms appear­ing in this Memor­andum of Agree­ment are to be inter­preted solely in line with the fol­low­ing definitions.

Term	Defin­i­tion
Cli­ent Director	The Park Author­ity Dir­ect­or with lead respons­ib­il­ity for deliv­er­ing People and Place ele­ments of the Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan and for coordin­a­tion of those pri­or­it­ies of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.
Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment or ​‘CLLD’	Means a meth­od for involving part­ners at loc­al level, includ­ing the civil soci­ety and loc­al eco­nom­ic act­ors, in design­ing and imple­ment­ing loc­al integ­rated strategies that help their areas make a trans­ition to a more sus­tain­able future.
“Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy”	Means a doc­u­ment which sets out the invest­ment pri­or­it­ies, agreed fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion with­in the area, for Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment with­in that area and which will be delivered through pub­lic fund­ing by a Loc­al Action Group (LAG).
Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan	Means a 5 year plan (or such peri­od as is determ­ined by the Author­ity) set­ting out how the Cairngorms Nation­al Park will be man­aged and which demon­strates how the pub­lic sec­tor, busi­nesses, land man­agers and com­munit­ies will con­tin­ue to come togeth­er to help keep these nation­al assets spe­cial and achieve the four aims of the Nation­al Park — bene­fit­ting both the people of Scot­land and vis­it­ors alike.
Nom­in­ated Director	The Park Author­ity Dir­ect­or who takes on line man­age­ment of staff deliv­er­ing sup­port for the Trust and who has gen­er­al respons­ib­il­ity for CLLD deliv­ery and stra­tegic and oper­a­tion­al liais­on with the Trust.
Pub­lic funding	Funds made avail­able by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity, or any oth­er Scot­tish pub­lic body.

PUR­POSE

1. This agree­ment explains the respect­ive roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies of the Author­ity and the Trust in the devel­op­ment, deliv­ery and man­age­ment of a pub­licly fun­ded com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment (CLLD) pro­gramme with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

STATE­MENT OF MUTU­AL BENE­FIT AND INTERESTS

1. The Trust and the Park Author­ity have com­mon interest in sup­port­ing sus­tain­able com­munity devel­op­ment and in sup­port­ing the com­munit­ies of the Cairngorms toward achiev­ing their loc­al pri­or­it­ies and aspir­a­tions with­in a con­text of sus­tain­ing and enhan­cing the wider cul­tur­al her­it­age and nature of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Both organ­isa­tions are com­mit­ted to a well-resourced, robust pro­gramme of CLLD as a key policy means of deliv­er­ing these object­ives, and through that CLLD pro­gramme con­trib­ute to deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (CNPPP).

2. The four stat­utory aims of the Nation­al Park are set out in the Nation­al Parks (Scot­land) Act 2000. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity works togeth­er with oth­ers to ensure that the unique aspects of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park — the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, the cul­tur­al her­it­age, the loc­al com­munit­ies — are cared for, sus­tained and enhanced. While to an extent the Author­ity is assisted in meet­ing all four stat­utory aims through its sup­port to the oper­a­tion of an effect­ive CLLD pro­gramme and the work of the Trust, the stat­utory aim of pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment of the area’s com­munit­ies stands to be very dir­ectly benefited by and of rel­ev­ance to the work of the Trust.

3. Both parties will col­lab­or­ate in the devel­op­ment and con­sulta­tion on the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy for CLLD in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, and will bene­fit from access to each party’s wider net­works and deliv­ery mech­an­isms in estab­lish­ing and deliv­er­ing the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy. Both parties may act as com­mu­nic­a­tions or con­sulta­tion chan­nels when seek­ing to access groups involved or with his­tory of involve­ment in CLLD and wider com­munity engage­ment activities.

4. Both parties will col­lab­or­ate in sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment and pro­mo­tion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park brand, and through that sup­port main­tain­ing and enhan­cing the pos­it­ive per­cep­tion and repu­ta­tion of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

5. The Trust in its role devel­op­ing and deliv­er­ing its Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy seeks to bene­fit from the range of expert­ise avail­able with­in the Author­ity, both dir­ectly in assist­ing with the oper­a­tion of the Trust, its sys­tems and pro­ced­ures, and in advising on the tech­nic­al con­sid­er­a­tions arising in con­sid­er­ing the mer­its of fund­ing application.

6. The cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan for 2022 to 2027 Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2022 – 27 estab­lishes a range of pri­or­it­ies for nature, people and place, many of which can be sup­por­ted and con­trib­uted to by the Cairngorms Trust through its grant awards and wider sup­port to com­munity aspir­a­tion and involve­ment. In par­tic­u­lar, the Trust is recog­nised as a key deliv­ery part­ner in respect of object­ive B7: com­munit­ies are sup­por­ted by a com­munity-led loc­al devel­op­ment fund­ing pro­gramme, deliv­er­ing the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. The Park Author­ity and Trust will work togeth­er to agree and achieve agreed object­ives deliv­er­ing the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, and ensure the Nation­al Park brand is appro­pri­ately recog­nised with­in the deliv­ery of those objectives.

7. Deliv­ery of the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) Pro­gramme will also involve col­lect­ive action by both the Park Author­ity and Trust with regard to modes of cit­izen par­ti­cip­a­tion in decision-mak­ing, con­sid­er­a­tion of new mod­els for decision-mak­ing at loc­al levels, and deliv­ery of com­munity grant schemes. This work deliv­ers against object­ive B6 of the cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan: Strengthen the par­ti­cip­a­tion struc­tures that sup­port plan­ning and decision-mak­ing at a loc­al level. The Trust is itself an innov­a­tion in Scot­tish CLLD prac­tice, with an incor­por­ated char­it­able entity tak­ing respons­ib­il­ity for CLLD pro­grammes. The input of the Trust’s know­ledge and exper­i­ence to the con­sid­er­a­tion of new mod­els for and strength­en­ing of loc­al par­ti­cip­a­tion struc­tures will be invaluable.

8. More widely, the work of the Trust in deliv­er­ing CLLD invest­ments between 2024 and 2028 is recog­nised as a match fund­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the C2030 programme.

RESPONS­IB­IL­IT­IES OF PARTIES

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL ACTION GROUP TRUST

1. The Trust’s respons­ib­il­it­ies will be to: a. have over­sight of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy (LDS) and busi­ness plan, ensur­ing that pub­licly fun­ded invest­ments are made com­men­sur­ate with the Trust’s char­it­able object­ives and busi­ness plan, and com­ply with any spe­cif­ic fund­ing terms and con­di­tions, while achiev­ing the out­comes in the LDS; b. ensure appro­pri­ate arrange­ments are put in place to ​“anim­ate” (encour­age / sup­port / make hap­pen) com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment in line with the LDS and to be pro­act­ive in com­mis­sion­ing spe­cif­ic com­munity sup­port for Cairngorms com­munit­ies where gaps in that anim­a­tion sup­port are iden­ti­fied; c. define fund­ing and pro­ject selec­tion cri­ter­ia com­men­sur­ate with the require­ments of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy, any rel­ev­ant terms and con­di­tions asso­ci­ated with fund­ing alloc­a­tions, and the Trust’s char­it­able object­ives and busi­ness case; d. pre­pare and pub­lish calls for pro­ject pro­pos­als and pro­ced­ures for pro­ject sub­mis­sion and eval­u­ation; e. con­sider com­munity led devel­op­ment ideas and pro­ject pro­pos­als and determ­ine wheth­er they are eli­gible for and mer­it fund­ing from the Trust’s fin­ances; f. con­sider devel­op­ment of region­al, nation­al and / or inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ship and col­lab­or­at­ive activ­it­ies that can bring real bene­fit to com­munity devel­op­ment with­in the Cairngorms’ com­munit­ies and sup­port evol­u­tion and devel­op­ment of the Scot­tish CLLD sec­tor; g. ensure the Trust, as respons­ible body for invest­ment of nation­al com­munity led devel­op­ment fund­ing, is main­tain­ing appro­pri­ate rela­tion­ships and com­mu­nic­a­tions with oth­er key stake­hold­ers inter­ested in com­munity led devel­op­ment in the Cairngorms; h. mon­it­or the deliv­ery of the LDS and the Trust’s busi­ness plan, in terms of invest­ments made and deliv­ery of out­comes as assessed against adop­ted key per­form­ance indic­at­ors; i. com­mis­sion pro­ject deliv­ery and spe­cif­ic out­comes where mon­it­or­ing of LDS and the Trust’s busi­ness plan deliv­ery indic­ates there are sig­ni­fic­ant gaps in deliv­ery from com­munity led pro­jects com­ing for­ward; j. ensure appro­pri­ate gov­ernance, admin­is­trat­ive and tech­nic­al sup­port is in place to sup­port effect­ive oper­a­tions of the Trust; k. under­take reg­u­lar reviews of gov­ernance and tech­nic­al arrange­ments for deliv­ery of the Trust’s pro­grammes and oper­a­tions, ensur­ing the Trust’s mem­ber­ship remains appro­pri­ate to needs, and that recruit­ment and appoint­ment to the Trust board is under­taken in a trans­par­ent man­ner; l. estab­lish such sub groups of the Trust as are deemed neces­sary to sup­port effect­ive and effi­cient deliv­ery of the Trust’s busi­ness plan and Loc­al Devel­op­ment Strategy, ensur­ing that any sub groups cre­ated have clear terms of ref­er­ence and levels of del­eg­ated author­ity agreed by the Trust board; m. respond to the Park Author­ity with regard to any spe­cif­ic requests for feed­back and learn­ing asso­ci­ated with the Trust’s areas of activ­ity, provided the resource require­ments to ful­fil those requests are reas­on­able; n. estab­lish appro­pri­ate onward report­ing mech­an­isms to ensure Trust decisions are clearly com­mu­nic­ated and the report­ing require­ments of all extern­al fun­ders are met.

THE PARK AUTHORITY

1. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (Park Author­ity) has agreed with the Trust to act as its as account­able body for Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment CLLD fund­ing. As such, the Park Author­ity is respons­ible for the receipt and effect­ive stew­ard­ship of all CLLD fund­ing made avail­able by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to the Cairngorms Trust, act­ing as the Cairngorms Loc­al Action Group, in deliv­ery of Scot­tish Government’s CLLD policy object­ives. The Park Author­ity sup­plies cash flow fin­an­cing for the Trust and provides sup­port on fin­an­cial and man­age­ment account­ing, bank­ing, cred­it­or pay­ments, and grant dis­burse­ments. The Park Author­ity also accepts some risk in the case of ineligible grant payments.

2. The account­able body also acts as the employ­ing organ­isa­tion for any staff required by the LAG and Trust in dis­charge of their respons­ib­il­it­ies for Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fun­ded CLLD. As such, the Trust’s admin­is­tra­tion team sup­port­ing Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fun­ded pro­grammes for which the Park Author­ity is the Account­able Body are Park Author­ity employ­ees, with access to the stand­ard terms and con­di­tions of the CNPA, while being dir­ec­ted for 100% of their fun­ded time on Trust operations.

3. The Park Author­ity will provide facil­it­ies and oth­er sup­port to the Trust. These areas of sup­port are likely to include though not lim­ited to the fol­low­ing: a. The Park authority’s office is the Trust’s registered office and postal address; b. Office and oth­er facil­it­ies are made avail­able to staff work­ing on behalf of the Trust; staff employed by the Trust; and for meet­ings of the Trust; c. IT and com­mu­nic­a­tions sup­port may be provided to sup­port the robust and secure oper­a­tions of the Trust; d. Inform­a­tion and data man­age­ment ser­vices will be sup­plied to the Trust; e. Fin­ance sup­port for account­ing, payroll pro­cessing and bank­ing; f. Human resource and leg­al sup­port may be provided on a pre-agreed, case by case basis.

4. As a con­sequence of these rela­tion­ships, the Park Author­ity will store inform­a­tion owned by the Trust in its inform­a­tion sys­tems. a. Where the inform­a­tion is held by the Park Author­ity clearly as a con­sequence of the Park Authority’s respons­ib­il­ity as account­able body for Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment CLLD fund­ing, that inform­a­tion will be deemed to be park author­ity inform­a­tion and sub­ject to all stand­ard inform­a­tion man­age­ment and pub­lic­a­tion prac­tices, includ­ing pro­vi­sions of the Free­dom of Inform­a­tion (Scot­land) Act 2002 (FOISA). b. In all oth­er cir­cum­stances, includ­ing cor­res­pond­ence relat­ing to grant decisions and grant fund­ing by the Trust, the inform­a­tion held will be deemed to be Cairngorms Trust inform­a­tion and held in con­fid­ence by the Park Author­ity on behalf of the Trust. Any FOISA request linked to these records will be deemed to be held in con­fid­ence and a breach of con­fid­ence if released without con­sent. c. With respect to 14b, there shall be no action­able breach of con­fid­ence where the Park Author­ity dis­closes the inform­a­tion under the dir­ec­tion of the Scot­tish Inform­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er, of Inform­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er in the case of sub­ject access requests.

5. The Park Authority’s nom­in­ated Dir­ect­or will have lead over­sight of deliv­ery against expect­a­tions estab­lished in this agree­ment and any require­ments which may be set out in agreed cor­res­pond­ence between the Park Author­ity and the Trust from time to time. The nom­in­ated Dir­ect­or will rep­res­ent the interests of the Trust with­in the Park Authority’s man­age­ment struc­tures, and will liaise as neces­sary between the Trust and account­able body in effect­ive dis­charge of this agreement.

6. The nom­in­ated Dir­ect­or will be a mem­ber of the Trust as a Vice Chair and will take lead respons­ib­il­ity on behalf of the account­able body and Trust for liais­on with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment on all mat­ters relat­ing to their CLLD fund­ing and policy approaches. The nom­in­ated Dir­ect­or will brief the Trust board on rel­ev­ant Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and wider sec­tor­al policy devel­op­ment and deliv­ery considerations.

7. The Park Author­ity will also have a ​‘Cli­ent Dir­ect­or’ who will have lead respons­ib­il­ity for rel­ev­ant policy deliv­ery by the Park Author­ity and for lead­er­ship and coordin­a­tion of rel­ev­ant pri­or­it­ies of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan. The Cli­ent Dir­ect­or will advise on the Park Authority’s views of the oper­a­tion of the Trust and the con­tri­bu­tions the Trust may make to NPPP pri­or­it­ies. The Cli­ent Dir­ect­or will lead on the terms of this agree­ment from the Park Authority’s deliv­ery per­spect­ive. The Cli­ent Dir­ect­or will typ­ic­ally be a dif­fer­ent Dir­ect­or of the Park Author­ity from the Nom­in­ated Dir­ect­or, and will not be involved in the gov­ernance of the Trust oth­er than from the per­spect­ive of over­sight of com­pli­ance with this Memor­andum of Agree­ment and any grant awards to the Trust issued in their name.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY BOARD

1. As the organ­isa­tion with stat­utory respons­ib­il­ity for coordin­at­ing devel­op­ment and deliv­ery of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, the Park Author­ity Board has an interest in the oper­a­tion of the Trust giv­en its sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to meet­ing the aims of the Nation­al Park, the pri­or­it­ies set out with­in the NPPP, and the poten­tial for part­ner­ship work. The Board will there­fore have the capa­city to nom­in­ate an appointee to the Trust, in addi­tion to the nom­in­ated Dir­ect­or, to ensure there are effect­ive link­ages in place between these two bodies.

2. The Park Author­ity Board also accepts respons­ib­il­ity as the cor­por­ate body for all respons­ib­il­it­ies placed on the organ­isa­tion as a con­sequence of its role as account­able body.

REVIEW OF AGREEMENT

1. This oper­a­tion of this agree­ment shall be reviewed at least every two years by the Park Author­ity and the Trust.

2. Where any mat­ters arise relat­ing to expec­ted oper­a­tions between the Park Author­ity, either party may com­mu­nic­ate that mat­ter to the oth­er party in writ­ing. The Nom­in­ated and Cli­ent Dir­ect­ors CLAG will work to seek res­ol­u­tion of any mat­ters arising with­in 30 work­ing days and jointly respond to both parties on the con­clu­sions of its review.

3. Any adop­ted vari­ations to this agree­ment shall be in writ­ing, either in the form of jointly adop­ted addenda to the agree­ment or in the form of a fully revised and signed agreement.

COM­MENCE­MENT AND TERMINATION

1. This agree­ment will take effect on xxxxx.

2. Either party shall be entitled to ter­min­ate this agree­ment on giv­ing 6 months notice in writ­ing to the oth­er parties.

3. Pri­or to any such notice being issued, and cause which may give rise to a poten­tial notice to ter­min­ate must be com­mu­nic­ated in writ­ing to the office of the rel­ev­ant party, stat­ing clearly the issues which could lead to ter­min­a­tion and the pro­posed rem­ed­ies which could avoid such action. The party mak­ing the writ­ten rep­res­ent­a­tion must allow for at least 6 months for the issues raised and their pro­posed rem­ed­ies to be con­sidered and solu­tions agreed.

4. There is no set date for ter­min­a­tion of this agree­ment. The basis for con­tinu­ation of this agree­ment shall be an ele­ment of the review of the agree­ment as provided for by para­graph 20.

ARBIT­RA­TION

1. In the event of any dis­pute under this agree­ment between the parties a ref­er­ence shall be made to a single arbit­er to be mutu­ally appointed.

2. Fail­ing agree­ment there­on, a single arbit­er shall be chosen by the Cli­ent Dir­ect­or for the Park Author­ity. The decision of any such arbit­er will be final and binding.

Signed on behalf of Cairngorms Trust by chair of Trust board

Date:

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Signed on behalf of Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity by Cli­ent Director

Date:

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Doc­u­ment Control

Ver­sion	Descrip­tion
0	Ini­tial Drafting
0.1	DC draft based on COAT Spey­side Way ver­sion, 9 Sep 2014 and sub­mit­ted to LAG 16 Sep
1	Draft fol­low­ing 16 Sep LAG meeting
1.1	DC amend­ments fol­low­ing LAG dis­cus­sion. Reordered. Account­able Body ter­min­o­logy. Defin­i­tions and review mech­an­ism added. Amend­ment to ter­min­a­tion and arbit­ra­tion clauses. Numbered. Sub­mit­ted in Busi­ness Plan.
2	Draft fol­low­ing Man­age­ment Team Meet­ing 30 Octo­ber 2014
2.1	DC amend­ments to para 3 and add in CLAT respons­ib­il­ity for wider ​“com­mon good fund” type dona­tions fol­low­ing on from CNPA 12 Sep Board and LAG agree­ment to this dir­ec­tion of travel. Cla­ri­fic­a­tion of form of vari­ations to agreement.