Cairngorms Resources Com­mit­tee Paper 4 Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh 16 May 2025 Page 1 of 7

Draft minutes of the Staff Con­sultat­ive Forum

Held at Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey Hybrid 12 March 2025 at 02.00pm

Present Adam Streeter-Smith Brenna Jessie Char­lotte Mil­burn Dav­id Camer­on (Chair) Derek Ross (Boar Mem­ber) Kate Christie Mari­aan Pita Mike Woolv­in Nas­im Mehr­abi Pip Mack­ie (arrived late)

Apo­lo­gies James Lee Richard Hardy (Pro­spect) Rus­sell Jones (Board Member)

Item 1: Wel­come and introductions

1. Dav­id Camer­on (DC) wel­comed everyone.
2. Apo­lo­gies were received from the above.

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Item 2: Social Media Policy

1. Brenna Jessie intro­duced the policy explain­ing that: α) It came about in con­text of all of our con­ver­sa­tions around val­ues and cul­ture it is some­thing that staff have ques­tions about and are unsure of. b) Also came about in response to a gap we have a very out of date digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tions policy that more focussed around people want­ing to set up Nation­al Park chan­nels and it doesn’t reflect where we cur­rently are or the role that social media has in most of our lives. c) We are at a point where there’s a lot of online dis­course around the Nation­al Park, and when a lot of media get their stor­ies from socials, and there­fore the onus is on us to be really clear about the expect­a­tions we have of staff using social media and how that relates to their role in terms of civil ser­vice. d) This is a vital piece of infra­struc­ture to make sure our approach is con­sist­ent and fair, but also that it’s robust enough to be able to actu­ally deal with any inap­pro­pri­ate con­duct online. e) The policy has been worked on col­lab­or­at­ively with Kate, Olly and Dav­id Camer­on. This is organ­isa­tion­al and not a com­mu­nic­a­tions policy because fun­da­ment­ally it relates to people’s job roles / per­son­al lives. f) The inten­tion is that the policy is robust but also sup­port­ive and provides clar­ity of under­stand­ing. Board mem­bers have wel­comed that this policy applies equally to mem­bers and staff.
2. The fol­low­ing points were raised: α) A rep said that staff rep­res­ent­a­tions to them indic­ated that the policy has been well receive. There is recog­ni­tion that it is a com­plic­ated area, and that we are unlikely to keep every­one happy, but the policy is clear, and it is good to have this in place. b) It was asked what the policy is for and how does it relate to actions out­side of work, and a sug­ges­tion that it over­laps with the Code of Con­duct. Respon­ded that the policy was developed because staff had expressed uncer­tainty how to use social media in their per­son­al lives – the policy provides this clar­ity. We are put­ting togeth­er policy pro­vi­sions to guide staff’s use of social media so as to pre­vent any situ­ations that may prompt use of the code of con­duct. c) DC explained that social media use involves extern­al per­cep­tion, which is some­thing staff can­not con­trol. Per­cep­tion is the onus of the receiv­er of inform­a­tion, and they can delib­er­ately or not con­fuse that per­cep­tion. So, the

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d) receiv­er may well choose to per­ceive yours com­ments on social media as being made as a staff mem­ber, even if the com­ments were made in a per­son­al capa­city. A rep asked if this policy may be per­ceived by staff as over poli­cing people in their per­son­al lives. Respon­ded that the policy is about giv­ing staff tools to use social media in line with the respons­ib­il­it­ies that they signed up to when they agreed to be a mem­ber of the Park Author­ity staff com­ple­ment. So, work­ing for the Park Author­ity imposes upon us respons­ib­il­it­ies that may impinge on our per­son­al lives. We recog­nise and appre­ci­ate that our staff are ener­gised, motiv­ated and pas­sion­ate, and this is not just at work. Through this policy, we are try­ing to be sup­port­ive, albeit in a policy envir­on­ment. So, this is a sup­port­ive first step to ensure that staff don’t blun­der inad­vert­ently into an issue. e) A mem­ber asked to which extent we can be crit­ic­al of a part­ner and also if there were guideline on day-to-day issues. Respon­ded that this about per­son­al use of social media, not cor­por­ate use, and it is import­ant to note the vol­un­tary nature of staff inter­ac­tions. We respect staffs right to free speech, but staff do need to exer­cise cau­tion in per­son­al responses. It was stated that if staff want to get involved with on-line dis­cus­sions, they should first speak to the com­mu­nic­a­tions team and use the com­mu­nic­a­tions staff as a resource for guid­ance. f) It was agreed to tri­al the policy, and review in 18 months.

Brenna Jessie left the meet­ing. Pip Mack­ie joined the meeting.

Item 3: Driv­ing at Work Policy

1. Kate Christie (KC) intro­duced the policy and reques­ted feedback.
2. The fol­low­ing points were raised: α) Where there are con­cerns regard­ing a colleague’s driv­ing abil­ity, should the whis­tleblow­ing policy be used? KC respon­ded that the whis­tleblow­ing policy may be too robust, and it may escal­ate the situ­ation bey­ond what is neces­sary. KC advised that the guid­ance included in the revised Driv­ing at Work policy was developed fol­low­ing an incid­ent last year. The policy ref­er­ences staff not hav­ing to have a con­ver­sa­tion with the indi­vidu­al if they

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7.

b)

c) do not feel com­fort­able to do so and to raise the issue with their line man­ager instead. DC advised that if the HR team received a whis­tleblow­ing, griev­ance or com­plaint and it was clear that no pre­lim­in­ary steps had been taken, it would be advised that it would be too early to invoke these pro­cesses, and a more inform­al approach should be star­ted with. This could be either dir­ectly, through the line man­ager or the HR team before invok­ing a more form­al pro­cess. The guid­ance in the revised policy provides that more inform­al step. KC to provide link in the Driv­ing at Work policy to the Whis­tleblow­ing and / or Com­plaints policy advising that this is also an option if the situ­ation requires it. It was raised that if someone is driv­ing a car and speed­ing, this needs to be repor­ted as it’s break­ing the law. As this would poten­tially put the next per­son that goes in the car with the indi­vidu­al at risk. DC respon­ded that per­cep­tions of driv­ing can be dif­fer­ent and there was no con­don­ing of break­ing of traffic rules. KC advised that some­times the best response to a situ­ation is that provided ​“in the moment”. There had been rep­res­ent­a­tion about the policy mak­ing little ref­er­ence to sus­tain­ab­il­ity. KC poin­ted out that the travel and sub­sist­ence policy clearly sets out hier­archy of vehicle use to ensure the most sus­tain­able beha­viour. The policy was adopted.

Item 5: Equal­ity Main­stream­ing and Out­come Report

1. KC intro­duced the report and advised this was an oppor­tun­ity to share the doc­u­ment in advance of wider pub­lic­a­tion. Work was being done with the Com­mu­nic­a­tions team to share some of the stor­ies through a vari­ety of cam­paigns and to share pub­licly the work that is being done.
2. No points were raised.

Item 6: Sexu­al Har­ass­ment Risk Assessment

1. KC picked up at the last SCF that organ­isa­tions now have pro­act­ive respons­ib­il­ity to pre­vent sexu­al har­ass­ment. Part of this was devel­op­ing a sexu­al har­ass­ment risk assess­ment. The risk assess­ment has been through the Health and Safety Com­mit­tee and Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT). Fol­low­ing feed­back from SMT,

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the doc­u­ment would be amended to include ref­er­ence to the mul­tiple means of report­ing (as spe­cified in the Dig­nity at Work policy).

1. No points were raised.

Item 7: Pay Award

1. DC advised that the paper set out the approach to the agreed three year pay award. The budget would be presen­ted to the Board on 28 March, and it was con­firmed that 2.5% pro­gres­sion award was afford­able and had been budgeted for. The pay award had also been signed off by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. If there were gen­er­al agree­ment with the staff group, then the organ­isa­tion was on track to imple­ment pay award from 01 April payroll, sub­ject to capa­city in the fin­ance team.
2. DC advised the Cost-of-Liv­ing ele­ment was set at 2.3%. He said that mon­it­or­ing on infla­tion would con­tin­ue and that the last infla­tion rate from Janu­ary had increased to approx­im­ately 3%. Dis­cus­sions with the Staff Con­sultat­ive For­um (SCF) would also con­tin­ue and ensur­ing that the pay pos­i­tion was still in con­text to wider eco­nom­ic position.
3. It was asked when pro­gres­sion awards would be imple­men­ted. DC advised that the whole pay award would be imple­men­ted in April.
4. KC to issue an update on per­form­ance devel­op­ment con­ver­sa­tions and work plan­ning for the forth­com­ing year. A remind­er would be pos­ted on Eolas request­ing staff to set their work plans for the next 12 months. An update regard­ing the imple­ment­a­tion of the pay award would be provided either at next week’s staff meet or by correspondence.

Item 8: Health and Safety Update

1. KC advised that the Health and Safety Com­mit­tee minutes were avail­able on Eolas.
2. There had been a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in the num­ber of acci­dents / incid­ents being repor­ted. It was felt that the num­ber of these had not neces­sar­ily increased. How­ever, with the imple­ment­a­tion of the new sys­tem report­ing was now easi­er. This would indic­ate that that there was pre­vi­ously sig­ni­fic­ant under reporting.

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Item 9: Leadership

1. DC advised that the work on cul­ture and prin­ciples needed draw­ing togeth­er, includ­ing future actions.
2. The ongo­ing work with staff in Bands D / E regard­ing col­lab­or­a­tion, line man­age­ment etc. was raised. It was quer­ied if ele­ments of those should come back to SCF, due to these staff rep­res­ent­ing oth­er bands in the organ­isa­tion. KC advised that an action plan was cur­rently being for­mu­lated, which impacted on all staff and there­fore it would be brough to SCF.

Item 10: Equalities

1. KC advised that there was now a neurodi­versity sup­port group, as advert­ised on Eolas. It was high­lighted that there were also sup­port groups for carers, men­o­pause and auto immune con­di­tions. An equal­it­ies page would be developed on Eolas to share these groups with staff.

Item 11: AOB

1. No items were raised.
2. The meet­ing con­cluded at 03:25pm.

   Ref	Action	Respons­ible	Due Date
   06.12.21	Elec­tric Car Salary Sac­ri­fice Scheme
   Para 19	Future updates to be brought back to SCF	KC	June 22
   27.06.22: Fin­ance team look­ing into and any pro­pos­al will be brought to MT
   07.11.22: Still progressing
   25.01.23: Ongo­ing
   20.03.23: Update: Sup­port had been received from NatureScot who had recently launched a sim­il­ar scheme. Any pro­pos­als would go to MT then be brought back to SCF
   19.06.23: still progressing

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| | 19.02.24: Craig Lewis from the fin­ance team will come to SMT to give an update. | | | | 12.06.24: Ongo­ing | | | | 16.09.24: Craig Lewis (fin­ance team) to pull togeth­er a paper for SMT set­ting out pro­pos­als and options on EV. Should be at SMT in next month and should be at next SCF. | | 19.02.24 | Intern­al Recruit­ment Policy | | Para 21 | Intern­al recruit­ment oppor­tun­it­ies not being cir­cu­lated to be raised with SEPA /​NatureScot. | KC | Jun 24 | | 12.06.24: SEPA reques­ted that the intern­al recruit­ment of posts was paused. NatureScot are keen for this to be rein­stated, as are CNΡΑ. | | | | 16.09.24: Dis­cus­sions ongo­ing and will be updated in due course. | | 12.06.24 | Cred­it Uni­on | | Sept 24 Para 18 | To con­sider how to take for­ward | DC | | | 16.09.24: Ongo­ing | | 12.03.25 | Driv­ing at Work Policy: | | Para 11a | Include link to Whis­tleblow­ing or Com­plaints Policy – whichever is appro­pri­ate. | KC | Mar 25 12.03.25 | Equal­it­ies | | Para 25 | Eolas page to be developed | KC | Sept 25