Making decisions on planning applications is a function that is split between officers and elected members sitting on planning committees.  

A council’s scheme of delegation will set out what criteria are used to decide if an application will be decided at committee or by officers. These criteria are locally set by each council. 

The most common criteria requiring an application to go before a planning committee for a decision are related to the size of the proposed development, compliance with local plan policies, or an application receiving a set number of objections.

At present, the Planning Advisory Service conservatively estimates that over 90% of applications are determined by officers, with the remainder being decided at planning committees. 

The working paper

The government has published a Planning Reform Working Paper: Planning Committees that proposes adopting a national scheme of delegation that determines at a national level what applications go before the planning committee versus what is decided by officers. 

The intention is that this will provide a ‘standardised consistent approach to delegation of decisions in all local planning authorities’. This comes as part of wider planning reforms aimed at speeding up the planning process and increasing house-building numbers. 

The specific target of this reform is to make it easier for applications that accord with an adopted local plan to obtain planning permission. The rationale is that these applications have effectively already had democratic approval through the local plan adoption process so it is unnecessary for this to happen again. 

The working paper provides examples of committees who have refused permission for allocated sites against officer advice leading to a costly and time-consuming planning appeal process which eventually allowed permission. 

Presently, there is no statutory power to set a national scheme of delegations, so this would be an entirely new legal process. 

Proposed models

The working paper suggests three different options for how the national scheme of delegation could function, briefly, these are as follows:

1. Any application that conforms with the development plan would be decided by officers and the local authority would decide what happens to all other applications.
2. Any application is to be decided by officers unless it departs from the development plan and is recommended for approval or is submitted by the local planning authority – there is a risk that this would result in a large increase in the number of applications going to committee as many schemes that make minor departures from local policy would still be acceptable. 
3. Delegation to officers is the default unless an application meets an exception in a prescriptive list – this list could include things like major development on a non-allocated site or green belt development that engages the exceptional circumstances test (the paper gives further examples). 

Alternatively, the working paper suggests that a model that is a hybrid of the above approaches could be adopted.

Thoughts

Deciding planning applications is a local function that people engage in enthusiastically and there is value in making decisions in a way that is public-facing and democratic. Whilst it is likely that the option adopted will preserve this element for contentious schemes it is important that local people remain engaged in the planning process. 

Generally planning committees operate in a way that is sensible and reasonable and there does not appear to be a pressing need for a national scheme. However, we do see benefits in speeding up the determination process for allocated sites as ultimately these should not be contentious. 

These changes could potentially lead to a major shift in how applications are decided and would affect everyone in the planning ecosystem.  

There is currently no deadline for responding and we would recommend that anyone with strong opinions makes them known to the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.