Scotland's New National Park Appraisal Panel: final report

Appendix 1

Title

Scotland’s New National Park(s) Appraisal Panel – Terms of Reference (ToR)

Governance

The New National Park(s) in Scotland Appraisal Panel is responsible for appraising nominations for a new National Park (or parks) in Scotland using the appraisal framework (see below).

Legal basis

The New National Park(s) in Scotland Appraisal Panel is an ad-hoc (non-statutory) expert advisory group that will be established in accordance with the RAM Doctrine and is expected to operate from March until June 2024.

Rationale - delivering the SG commitment to establish a New National Park

The Scottish Government has committed to designating at least one new National Park in Scotland. Following a call for expressions of interest in new National Parks in May 2023, communities and organisations that wish to put their area forward for designation as Scotland’s next National Park were invited in October 2023 to develop and submit a formal proposal or ‘nomination’ to the Scottish Government (by 29 February 2024).

In order to ensure an open and transparent process, nominations for National Park status will be appraised based on specific criteria set out in the New National Parks: nominations guidance and appraisal framework. The appraisal of nominations received will be undertaken by a panel of Scottish Government officials (and wider agency and external expertise). This document sets out the Terms of Reference for the appraisal panel.

Purpose of the Panel

The appraisal of nominations for new National Park status will be based on the full appraisal panel (see below) assessing the nomination forms, which all applicant groups will be required to complete and submit by the deadline (end February 2024). In considering the nominations, the panel will apply the appraisal framework, which sets out the criteria against which nominations will be appraised. The panel will bring together knowledge and expertise from across a range of areas to facilitate a comprehensive assessment of each nomination against the appraisal criteria.

Based on the outcome of this appraisal process, the panel will provide advice to Ministers (in the form of a summary appraisal report) on the extent to which nominated areas meet each of the criteria and could therefore be considered for designation as new National Parks. This advice will support ministers in determining which area or areas should go forward to the statutory reporter investigation phase as ‘National Park Proposals’, with a view to laying the designation order(s) before Parliament in order to establish Scotland’s next National Park(s). It is not the purpose of the panel to make a decision on which nominated area or areas should be selected as ‘National Park Proposals’ or designated as a National Park.

Membership, structure and role of the panel

The appraisal panel will consist of two linked teams: i) a small core appraisal team; and ii) a larger expert appraisal team. The core appraisal team (see Table 1) will appraise all new national park nominations in full with input from the expert appraisal team (see Table 2). The appraisal panel will be supported by a secretariat consisting of Scottish Government officials from the Nature Division and RESAS.

The expert appraisal team will be invited to consider specific aspects of each nomination (i.e. sections of the nominations relating to specific appraisal criteria) relevant to their area of expertise and to provide written comments and scores for these sections. Table 2 sets out the key policy divisions and/or government agencies relevant to each criterion in the appraisal framework. It is proposed that each of these policy leads is asked to nominate someone to become a member of the expert panel.

The framework and appraisal criteria are not weighted and nominations should be appraised on the merits of the overall submitted nomination and relevant supplementary evidence (see below) and the extent to which they meet each of the criteria. For each criterion, the expert panel are asked to advise on whether the nomination has met the criterion minimally, partially, significantly or extensively and detailed scoring guidance has been provided.

The work of the panel will include the following key stages (see also timescales below):

i) Appraisal Panel (core and expert teams) initiation meeting (Week commencing 4 March 2024): An initial briefing session will be scheduled with the entire panel to share the panel terms of reference, process and stages for appraising nominations, timescales and panel member questions/clarifications.

ii) Distribution of nomination forms: Following the initiation meeting the core and expert panellists will be sent the full set of submitted National Park nomination forms (by 8 March).

iii) Expert team appraisal: For each of the six criteria to be assessed by the expert appraisal team, the identified lead panellist will collate a single scoring/comments sheet for that criterion. It is expected that a meeting will be convened by the panel secretariat (during w/c 18 March or w/c 25 March) for each criterion which brings together the nominated experts in order to discuss and agree the score and comments for that criterion for each of the nominations (see Appendix 1). The lead panellist for each of the six criteria will then submit the agreed comments and scores for all nominations to the core appraisal team by 29 March using a standard template.

iv) First core appraisal team meeting (with presentations from lead expert panellists) (w/c 15 April): Once the expert lead panellists have all submitted their comments and scores, the core appraisal team members will be sent this information from the expert team. For each criterion in turn, the relevant lead expert panellist will be asked to join a meeting with the core appraisal team to present and discuss their proposed scores and comments for all nominations (see Appendix 1). They should also flag up with the core appraisal team any additional information from nominating groups that they consider would be helpful to request. Any requests for further information should be issued to nominating groups by the secretariat by 19 April, with a deadline of 3 May for any further information to be supplied.

v) Expert appraisal of supplementary information (w/c of May 6): The lead panellist for each criterion will be sent a summary of the supplementary evidence based on additional work commissioned/undertaken by Scottish Government in addition to any further information provided by the nominating groups in response to additional information requests. Following their review of this additional information the lead panellists will provide commentary in the response template on whether this information alters their score in any way.

vi) Core team appraisal (to be completed by 10 May): Following receipt of any additional information requests (by 3 May), each member of the core appraisal team will appraise each nomination individually (taking into consideration the nomination, the expert appraisals, any additional information that has been requested, any further comments from the lead expert panellist in response to this information and any relevant supplementary evidence – see below).

vii) Second core team appraisal meeting (w/c 13 May): Following the appraisal of all nominations and expert input, the core appraisal team will meet to discuss and agree (by consensus) a single combined score and agreed set of comments on each criterion for each nomination. This will form the basis of the appraisal report for Ministers.

viii) Agreement of appraisal report for ministers (By 31 May): Based on the conclusions of the second core team appraisal meeting, the secretariat will produce a draft report on the outcome of the appraisal process with recommendations and advice for Ministers. This will be circulated to the core team for comments and will be discussed at a final meeting of the core team (w/c 27 May). A final version of this report, signed off by the Panel Chair, will be submitted to Ministers.

Table 2 National Parks Appraisal panel - Expert Appraisal Team Membership

Use of supplementary evidence by the appraisal panel

In addition to assessing the nomination forms the appraisal panel (core and expert) will also be invited to consider relevant supplementary evidence (see above). This will include any additional information/clarifications submitted by nominees following any specific additional requests for information by the expert appraisal team following their initial assessment.

In addition, the Scottish Government will collate relevant publicly available data as the basis for providing supplementary evidence relating to some of the specific selection criteria for the new National Park proposals to support the appraisal process (to be completed by April 15). This will include a spatial assessment of statutory and non-statutory/other designated sites for all of the proposed National Park areas (to help assess national importance). It will also include (where feasible) an assessment of the habitat types and restoration potential for each of the nominated areas. This evidence will provide summary descriptive statistics and a brief narrative on the individual nominated areas to support and inform panel members’ appraisals. The analysis will not in itself assess the individual areas based on any form of scoring or make a recommendation as to the area or areas which most strongly reflect certain criteria.

Meetings and papers

The proposed timeline for the appraisal of nominations, appraisal meetings, drafting and agreement of the appraisal report and provision of advice to Ministers is summarised in Table 3 below (see Appendix 1 for meetings plan). Following the appraisal of all nominations received, a summary report and advice to Scottish Ministers on the outcome of the appraisal process will be produced by the core panel supported by the panel secretariat. This will include a summary of the scoring of the criteria for each nomination and a brief summary narrative outlining the key strengths and potential risks or other considerations of each nomination as identified from the appraisal process.