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CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY 


MINUTES OF THE BOARD MEETING 
held at The Village Hall, Braemar 
on Friday 11th July 2008 at 11.30am 

PRESENT 

Eric Baird 		Eleanor Mackintosh 
Geva Blackett		Ian MacKintosh 
Duncan Bryden 		Anne MacLean 
Nonie Coulthard 		Alastair MacLennan 
Jaci Douglas 		Mary McCafferty 
Dave Fallows 		William McKenna 
Lucy Grant 		Fiona Murdoch 
David Green 		Sandy Park 
Drew Hendry 		Richard Stroud 
Marcus Humphrey 		Susan Walker 
Bruce Luffman 		Ross Watson 

In Attendance: 

Jane Hope 		Andy Rinning 
Francoise Van Buuren 	Fiona Milligan 
Andrew Harper 		Francesca Scott 
Murray Ferguson 		Elspeth Grant 
Hamish Trench 
Fiona Spencer, Scottish Government in attendance for Items 1 and 2 

Apologies: 

Bob Kinnaird 
Andrew Rafferty 
Stuart Black 

Welcome and Introduction 

1. The Convener welcomed to the meeting and noted the previous 
evenings meeting with members of the community to look at the work on 
renovating and developing Braemar Castle as a visitor attraction. Various 

public sector bodies (including CNPA) have supported the work, but the 
tremendous input by the community was to be commended, led by Bill 
Marshall. David Green reported he would be sending a follow up letter of 
congratulation to everyone involved. Sue Walker reported on some 
immediate feedback from the local community who had welcomed the 
opportunity to display what had been achieved through a huge amount 
of voluntary effort. They had also welcomed the style of meeting which 
had been contusive to open discussion. Finally, she noted that the work 
illustrated the importance of the cultural heritage in the Park and the 
need for the CNPA to take more of a lead on this than had been possible 
in the past. 

Minutes of Last Meeting – approval 

2. Minutes of the meeting on 16th May, and the special meeting on 13th June, 
were both approved with no changes. It was noted that in respect of the 
minutes of 16th May under paragraph 11(a), the Conveners meeting with 
Fiona Spencer who was conducting the Strategic Review of National 
Parks, which had also including the CNPA Chief Executive, had been 
purely informal. 

Matters Arising 

3. Dave Fallows reported that further to the main paper considered at the 
meeting of 16th May, he had attended a meeting of the Cairngorms 
Outdoor Access Trust. He also noted that support from other organisations 
for joining as affiliate members was looking good. 

Declarations of Interests 

4. None 

Support for Destination Management Organisations (Paper 1) 

5. Andrew Harper introduced the paper which sought approval to grant aid 
two Destination Management Organisations within the Cairngorms 
National Park. (He noted the error in paragraph 9 which referred to a 
contribution of £15,000 to the DCDMO 2008/09 business plan – this should 
have been a reference to £20,000 as per the rest of the paper.) 

6. The principle of Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) was that 
they were business led groupings aimed at driving up the quality of the 
visitor experience; they have a strong role to play in helping to deliver the 
objectives set out in the National Park Plan. Following the Board’s 
informal discussion on tourism in March, the feeling had emerged, 
backed up by a board open evening at Tomintoul around about the 
same time, that while the business led approach was right, it ran the risk of 
being some what disjointed across the Park. Work was now under way to 


ensure a more co-ordinated approach by the private sector across the 
Park; the Convener had facilitated several meetings involving the 
Chamber of Commerce, the ACDMO, DCDMO, Glenlivet and the 
Cairngorms, and business interests from Angus and Blair Atholl. All these 
organisations were working together to see if a model could be 
developed for more collaborative working. The benefits of this approach 
were set out at paragraph 8 in the paper. The aim was to bring forward a 
proposal in September 

7. The paper sought the Board’s approval for the award of grants of £25,000 
and £20,000 respectively to the ACDMO and DCDMO. The paper also 
asked the Board to consider whether in view of the benefits of more 
collaborative working and in particular insuring good value for public 
money, the award of these grants should be conditional upon progress 
being made with the work for more collaborative business working across 
the Park. The paper also posed the question to the Board as to whether 
any future CNPA funding should be channelled through such 
collaborative mechanism. Andrew Harpers advice was that while this 
might be a desirable outcome ultimately, it was premature to impose 
such condition at this stage; he suggested that the Board should consider 
this in the light of the outcome of the work being taken forward, and due 
to report in September, on a collaborative business working model across 
the Park. 

8. In opening the discussion, the Convener noted that the issues in front of 
the Board arose from the Boards informal discussion and the public 
meeting in Tomintoul in March. A clear message emerged that the Board 
of the CNPA was expected to lead such progress. Nevertheless the CNPA 
had received clear messages in the previous five years that their role was 
to facilitate and it was for the industry to lead. With this in mind, the 
CNPA’s role had concentrated in the last few months on helping and 
facilitating the industry to move towards a more collaborative approach 
across the Park. The work of the DMOs, and in particular a more 
collaborative approach, was very much in line with the Scottish 
Government purpose of sustainable economic growth. There was a 
balance to be struck between what it was appropriate to do at a local 
level, and what it was appropriate to do on a Park wide basis. The CNPA 
certainly did not want to interfere with progress at the local level in 
delivering the tourism objectives set out in each of the DMOs’ business 
plans. It was not for the CNPA to be prescriptive; on the other hand it was 
legitimate to seek good value for public money and secure benefits 
across the whole of the Cairngorms National Park. 

9. In discussion the following points were made: 

a) Clarification was sought in respect of the ACDMO (annex 1 page 
13) on the difference between participating businesses and 
membership. It was noted that the ACDMO was set up as 

membership organisation, but there were certain packages in 
addition to the basic membership fee in to which members could 
buy. 

b) It was suggested that there had been some unease in the DCDMO 
about the difficulties of working pan park and therefore working 
with the west side of the Park which would imply deploying funding 
from public sector agencies whose remit did not run to that 
geographic area. However, it was quite clear from questions posed 
and answered at a recent public meeting between Aberdeenshire 
Council and Scottish Enterprise (SE), that SE were supportive of an 
umbrella organisation as an opportunity to provide a single funding 
route. It therefore appeared that the senior levels of both SEG and 
HIE were supportive of this general approach. 

c) The more collaborative approach being proposed in the paper 
certainly provided opportunities in terms of efficiency savings in 
respective of shared functions such as Corporate Services. But it 
was also about preventing duplication on other issues as well; 
relatively high amounts were being paid by both DMOs on staff 
salaries and there was a danger these would be working in parallel 
in two different parts of the Park rather than working together. In this 
respect paragraph 12 of the paper deserved to be strengthened to 
put more emphasis on collaborative working, not less. It was 
appropriate to back this up with conditions to ensure better use of 
what otherwise could appear to be rather disparate approaches to 
use of pubic monies. 

d) There were issues of membership in respect of the DCDMO which 
currently included members beyond the Park boundary. While this 
was not necessarily wrong, given that activities on the borders of 
the Park were liable to benefit a National Park as a whole, 
nevertheless the Board needed to take a clear position on its 
approach to this question. [Note: The criterion of a 70-30 ratio had 
been decided by the Brand Management Group, which had 
delegated authority.] There was always a danger that of the 
relatively small membership of 24, a very small proportion of 
relatively big businesses could dominate the organisation, and 
these could be outside the Park. 

e) The view was expressed that the proposals in the paper were not 
strong enough and that the current arrangements of disparate 
DMOs covering only small parts of the Park were divisive. These 
arrangements were precisely those that one might have expected 
in the absence of Park/Park Authority; the CNPA needed to show 
some leadership in creating a much more cohesive approach to 
the delivery of tourism within the National Park. 

f) The view was expressed that condition (b) in the paper was 
reasonable, as it was perfectly appropriate to make funding 
conditional upon progress being made with work on a collaborative 
business model. However this needed to be given a much clearer 


target, the current wording on the condition being rather too ill-
defined. 

g) The tourism industry had been left rudderless following the demise of 
the area tourist boards. The ACDMO had had a difficult start 
although was now beginning to find its feet and was taking a more 
inclusive approach to membership. Mechanisms to ensure a Park-
focused delivery of the tourism product were important. It was not 
right to suggest, as at paragraph 12, that the CNPA were ‘forcing’ 
industry, and any public body was entitled to ensure best use of 
public money. Progress may not have been as good or as rapid 
with the DMOs in recent years as expected but it was still difficult to 
see a better alternative at this stage. It would be preferable to stick 
with this model and to make very clear what was expected as part 
of any further public funding. Condition (b) was appropriate 
provided the CNPA made very clear that it wished to see positive 
progress by September; condition (c) was not possible yet. 

h) It was acknowledged that five years ago when the Park was 
established, the CNPA was given some very clear messages from 
the industry about not interfering with issues which were best left to 
the industry to sort out. At that stage, many people were suspicious 
of what a CNPA would do. However, after five years attitudes had 
shifted some what, and it was only now that the view was emerging 
that people expected the CNPA to take a strong hand in causing a 
more joined up approach to tourism within the Park. As an enabling 
body, the CNPA had to judge when was the right time to show a 
lead on certain issues, and the time had now arrived in respect of 
the co-ordinated approach to tourism across the Park; five years 
ago there had been little receptiveness to this idea. Further to this, 
the question was asked about how much support there was from 
other public sector partners for the current proposals. It was noted 
that discussions had been held with the other major funders, all of 
whom saw the advantages of greater collaborative working. The 
only rider being made by the other funders was that we should not 
prejudice the delivery plans that were already in train through the 
DMOs at present, and it was vital that they made progress with this 
so they could secure more members quickly. So while all appeared 
to be supportive of some sort of collaborative mechanism, they 
were wary of explicitly tying their funding to any prescriptive 
mechanism. It was noted that as a result of the discussions had to 
date with the DMOs and Chamber of Commerce, the Cairngorms 
Chamber of Commerce were coming back with proposals in 
September and this would be the opportunity to get the other 
public sector funding partners to support a specific proposal. 

i) It was noted by some Board members that the ACDMO literature to 
prospective members appeared to make no mention of the 
Cairngorms National Park at all even though they were using the 
family brand. There was also nothing about environmental quality 

criteria associated with the brand. It was however noted that the 
public marketing material produced by the organisation was quite 
explicit about these things. Even so, it was important that all 
materials produced by the organisation whether for members or for 
wider public marketing use, should be very clear in its references to 
the National Park and the environmental quality criteria. Andrew 
Harper agreed to take this up with the ACDMO. It was also noted 
that the objectives for the ACDMO listed in the annex appeared to 
make no reference to the National Park(albeit the business plan 
did); while it was acknowledged that both DMOs had signed up to 
delivering the National Park Plan, references should be rather more 
explicit. 

j) Condition (b) was a perfectly reasonable condition and while 
condition (c) was premature there should be a very clear statement 
of what the CNPA was looking for. Now was not the time to be 
backing out of support for the DMOs; instead a very clear steer 
should be given on what was expected in the future from them in 
return for public support. There was a counter view that the DMO 
approach was the wrong direction but this was not held by the 
majority of members. 

k) The relationship between various DMOs and the various public 
sector funding partners gave the impression of being conducted as 
a set of entirely separate individual relationships with everyone 
talking separately to everyone else. There was potential for the 
CNPA to brigade the public sector together and to use this as a 
mechanism for steering the private sector towards a particular 
approach. It was confirmed by the Convener that this had been 
precisely the aim stated to the private sector in the two meetings 
that he had facilitated so far. The collaboration was one required 
between the private sector partners but also between the public 
sector partners. The expectation was that the paper being 
prepared by the Chamber of Commerce for September would 
provide the model for doing this. 

l) It was noted that some caution was required in that the primary 
concern of the industry would be customers and the National Park 
was merely a way of enhancing this approach. The public sector 
needing to ensure that they were not losing sight of the industry’s 
priorities which would be their customers, not the National Park Plan 
per se. 

m) The CNPA (like other public sector bodies) must fund responsibly 
and not be unduly swayed by needing to “walk on egg shells”. In 
offering support financially and morally to private sector bodies, the 
CNPA had to give a very clear steer as to why it was giving that 
support and what it was looking for longer term. It was essential to 
get these messages across. The language in the paper was 
somewhat woolly, and would benefit from being more direct in 
terms of expressing what CNPA sought. This was not about being 

prescriptive but was about setting the clear parameters for future 
funding. 

n) It was pointed out that the membership of the various DMOs 
totalled a very small number of businesses in relation to the total 
operating within the Park. The vast majority of tourism businesses 
were not members of the DMOs. Indeed, the Cairngorms Chamber 
of Commerce had a significantly larger membership than the 
DMOs. 

10.The Convener summed up the discussion as follows. The current DMOs 
provided a mechanism to work with and all things considered it was best 
to build on what we have and concentrate on setting clearer and 
tougher parameters in return for public funding rather than being 
prescriptive about the precise mechanisms for delivering good value for 
public money. On this basis the majority view was content with the 
proposal at recommendation (a) to grant aid the ACDMO £25,000 and 
the RDDMO £20,000 for 2008/09 but this would conditional upon a clear 
proposal from the recipients working in conjunction with the Chamber of 
Commerce for a collaborative business working model set out in a paper 
by the end of September. This paper should indicate timescales and how 
such a model would be implemented. At its heart would be the delivery 
of the benefits as set out in the paper at paragraph 8. The Board would 
consider this model and on that basis consider whether the proposal 
enshrined in condition c was appropriate for future funding. 

11.While it was not for the CNPA to be prescriptive about the mechanisms for 
achieving these benefits, it was appropriate to give a very clear steer 
about the outcomes required and the parameters. Andrew Harper would 
take this forward immediately following the meeting. On a similar 
timescale, CNPA would be discussing with public sector funding partners 
the proposal to look for a more efficient and joined up way of providing 
public sector funding; these discussions would be finalised on the back of 
the proposal brought forward by the industry at the end of September. 

12.Two further points were to be factored in; firstly that all the funded DMOs 
should make very explicit reference to National Park and the quality 
criteria associated with use of the brand/family brand in all their literature; 
Andrew Harper would take this work forward. Secondly, it was noted that 
under the current arrangements there were some parts of the National 
Park not covered by DMOs. The ongoing discussions were including 
business representatives from the Angus Glens and Blair Atholl; an 
important outcome of the discussions was that through these 
organisations, and/or through the proposed model expected in 
September, all parts of the National Park were covered by effective 
tourism delivering arrangements. 

13.The Board agreed the recommendations of the paper as follows: 

a) Approved grant awards of £25,000 and £20,000 respectively to 
Aviemore and the Cairngorms, and the Royal Deeside and the 
Cairngorms Destination Management Organisations, tied to 
specified Park Plan deliverables; 

b) Agreed that this funding for 2008/09 was conditional upon progress 
being made on a model for collaborative business working across 
the Park. Specifically, this would require a proposal delivered in the 
form of a paper by the end of September indicating timescales for 
implementation, and how the model would deliver the outcomes 
within the parameters described by the CNPA (the parameters to be 
communicated by Andrew Harper to the Chamber of Commerce 
and the DMOs and based on the benefits set out in the paper 1, but 
without being prescriptive about the mechanism); 

c) Concluded that it was premature to make any firm statement about 
the CNPA channelling future funding through any collaborative 
mechanism, but agreed that such consideration should be reviewed 
once the proposed paper on collaborative business model had 
been prepared at the end of September. 

14.Action: 

a) Andrew Harper to write to the Chamber of Commerce and the 
DMOs setting out the outcomes which the CNPA would wish to see 
from a future collaborative mechanism as a basis for co-ordinating 
and channelling any future funding. 
b) Andrew Harper to take forward discussion with the other major 
funding partners with a view to brigading the various public sector 
funding streams together, and tying this in with the proposed model 
for collaborative business working, ensuring a joined up approach 
by both the public and private sector. 
c) Andrew Harper to bring further report to the Board for a decision on 
future funding arrangements in respect of DMOs and tourism. 


Stakeholder Engagement Programme 2008/09 (Paper 2) 

15.Francoise Van Buuren introduced the paper which sough agreement on 
the role of Board Members in supporting the Stakeholder Engagement 
Programme for 2008/09 along with the agreement to the core 
communication themes and the objectives for the opinion poll survey to 
be carried out during the year. In particular, members attention was 
drawn to paragraph 4 and the reference was made to the briefing note 
on current issues that was being circulated along with a forward look 
setting out the main stakeholder engagement activities that were taking 
place. Comment and feedback on these briefing documents were 
sought in order to ensure they were of maximum value to Board Members. 

16.In discussion the following points were made: 

a) It was generally accepted that members had a role as 
ambassadors for the Park and Park Authority. However, it was noted 
that attendance by stakeholders at one of the recent advisory 
forums had not been good and it was important if Board Members 
were to exercise their role properly that such meetings had a good 
attendance. 

b) In annex 1, the main contacts for Inclusive Cairngorms should be the 
Chair, Alex Murray. 

c) The Board had a wide range of expertise and experience among 
and across its membership which was therefore able to contribute 
across a wide range of issues. To tap in to this, it was important to 
ensure some continuity and therefore a more rigorous approach to 
which events and meetings were attended by which members. The 
skills matrix recently developed would help to define this. It was 
noted that with members having many other demands on their 
time, they were not always available for specific meetings, and 
therefore considerable forward planning was required to keep 
some sort of continuity across subject matter. 

d) There was some comment on the wording of the various themes 
and the examples given of core messages that could be included. 
The main point made was that in respect of theme one in particular 
land managers wanted to hear that they are important to the Park. 
Some of the messages were drafted in a way that sounded rather 
defensive. Paragraph 9 (e) had it right in concentrating on what 
value the Park was to land managers. Other core messages 
needed some subtle redrafting to change the focus away from the 
CNPA and towards the other stakeholders. 

e) It was noted that the continuity of experience was not necessarily 
all- important and there were times when having a Board Member 
attend an event when they had no prior knowledge of the issues 
could be quite helpful in terms of challenging conventional wisdom. 

f) If the opinion poll survey was to be used by the Scottish Government 
and not just the Park Authority, it needed to be made clear to 
respondents. 

g) The importance of the role of Board Members in stakeholder 
engagements was noted; it was also noted in this context that a 
reduction in the number of board members would make the job of 
engagement with stakeholders more challenging. 

h) The recently circulated information sheets were welcomed and very 
helpful. 

i) There were some suggestions made in respect of the opinion poll 
survey objectives as set out in paragraph 12. Asking partners if they 
were ‘committed’ was liable to attract a very predictable response 
in the affirmative without giving any really useful information. It 
would be more helpful to seek here some measurables to indicate 
the level and extent of that commitment. It would also be worth 

adding to the questions asked whether or not people felt that the 

CNPA made a difference. 

j) The mechanisms proposed for evaluating the effectiveness of our 
engagement with stakeholders would be constantly monitored; the 
work by Macaulay Institute was particularly valuable in this respect. 

k) The various groupings and meetings attended by Board Members 
were all very different; Board Members were sometimes there of 
right, sometimes there to contribute, sometimes there simply to 
observe. It was important to make clear the basis on which Board 
Members were attending such events. 

l) The ambassadorial role was clearly seen as important for Board 
Members, but it was vital that it was done in a way that added to 
the work of staff rather than duplicating it. Subject to the various 
comments made, the recommendation of the paper was agreed. 

17.The Board agreed the recommendations of the papers as follows: 

a) Agreed the role played by the Board to support the Stakeholder 
Engagement Programme for 2008/09 as set out on pages 2-3; 
b) Agreed the core communication themes as set out on pages 3-5; 
c) Agreed the objectives for the opinion poll survey to be carried out in 
2008/09 set out on pages 5-6. 

Cairngorms National Park Web Portal (Paper 3) 

18.This paper was for information. The following comments were made: 

a) Concern that CNPA officers appeared to be undertaking the role of 
running the proposed Cairngorms National Park Web Portal. The 
resource implications of doing this as well as the marketing and 
promotion were likely to be extremely high. This needed further 
thought. 

b) Paragraph 9 (f) referred to opportunities to maximise efficiencies. It 
was noted that a certain amount of generic information was 
needed on the site referred to in order to enthuse people – simply 
providing information in relation to events would not be sufficient. 

c) It was essential to have a discussion before the launch of the 
website to ensure the Board was content given the huge number of 
challenges set out in the paper. There appeared to be no obvious 
solution to the tensions set out in the paper and it was therefore vital 
that such a discussion was held involving the Board before any 
launch. 

d) It was suggested the launch of the website should take place when 
the time was right rather than at some arbitrarily determined point 
as proposed in paragraph 15. A judgement needed to be made in 
September whether or not the website was right for launch. It was 
also suggested that a wider board discussion was needed to 
consider in much more depth the future of several interrelated 

issues – web portal, DMOs, etc- and the park Authority’s role in 

taking these forward. 

19.Action: 

a) Further paper/discussion to be held with the Board before the 
launch of the National Park web portal. 

The Cairngorms National Park Authority’s Work Addressing Climate 
Change (Paper 4) 

20.This was an information paper. There were no comments other than to 
compliment Gavin Miles on a useful and informative paper. 

The Cairngorms National Park Authority’s Annual Equality Schemes 
Update (Paper 5) 

21.This paper was for information. There was no further discussion other that 
to compliment the authors (Fran Scott, Claire Ross, Elspeth Grant) on all 
the work behind the scenes to deliver this. 

AOCB 

22. A number of brief items were reported as follows: 

a) The first annual report on progress with the National Park Plan was 
going to press shortly and copies were available for members. 
b) Nonie Coultard gave a brief report as the CNPA member on the 
Cairngorms Local Outdoor Access Forum. The CLOAF had met on 
20th May and papers were available on the CLOAF website for 
anyone who was interested. An outdoor access event was being 
held on 27th September at Braemar for the general public. She also 
noted that there were a number of new members of the Forum 
taking up office shortly. 
c) Fiona Murdoch reported on a SRDP training event which she 
attended recently and noted the complexity of the SRDP 
application process which was currently only available online. 
d) Eric Baird did the opening address at the Mountain Woodland 
Launch [need to check details] 
e) David Green reported that he and Alistair MacLennan had officially 
represented the CNPA at the Highland Show in June. David Green 
had taken part in a meeting of the JNCC (Joint Nature 
Conservation Committee) at Glenmore recently. This group of 
experts had been impressed with work taking place within 
Cairngorms National Park. 

Date of Next Meeting 

23. Friday 5th September, Dalwhinnie Village Hall.