TCPA Director of Policy Dr. Hugh Ellis reflects on the approval of the National Scheme of Delegation
On the 30th of June a Parliamentary committee approved the secondary legislation1 which will require local authorities to delegate planning applications to officers rather than to democratic planning committees. Guidance on how these rules should be implemented has already been published. 2 Ending local accountability for the decisions which affect people’s lives will further polarise local politics by eroding whatever public trust is left in the planning system. Legislation which diminishes our democracy is a mistake and we hope a new Prime Minister will abolish these regulations and preserve the local democratic legacy created by the 1945 Labour Government.
The powers that government took in section 54 of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 to create a national scheme of delegation are draconian. The primary legislation allows this, or any future government, to impose a mandatory scheme of delegation which could force all planning applications to be decided by officers and therefore bypassing any democratic oversight.
The powers that government took in section 54 of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 to create a national scheme of delegation are draconian.
The new regulations divide planning applications in schedule 1 and schedule 2 projects. Schedule 1 applications must always be delegated. This includes things like residential development up to nine homes, the discharge of reserved matters on certain outline applications and permitted development conversions of any size. This means, for example, that councillors can have no input to the critical design stage known as ‘reserved matters’ of an outline housing scheme of up to 500 homes3 nor to the variation of a section 106 agreement on a schedule 1 projects, nor the development of hundreds of new flats through the permitted development conversion of commercial and office blocks. This is despite the obvious impacts of all these forms of development on the health and wellbeing of new and existing residents.
Schedule 2 projects include a wide range of major residential development but is unclear about other forms of development. The guidance document states at paragraph 12 that ‘The functions which fall within Schedule 2 of the Regulations are: applications for planning permission not listed in Schedule 1.’ At Paragraph 7 the guidance states that some discretion may be available to Local Planning Authorities (LPAs). This confusion is critical because if everything not listed in schedule 1 is presumed to be delegated that would include landfill sites, incinerators and data centres.
If everything not listed in schedule 1 is presumed to be delegated, that would include landfill sites, incinerators and data centres.
The government has made clear that ‘The overriding presumption is that the functions listed in Schedule 2 will be delegated to officers’4 . However, a senior officer and elected member may decide, based on national guidance, that an application should go to full planning committee. The guidance provides very limited circumstances where a scheme can go to committee. Where the chief officer and nominated member cannot agree the dispute is resolved in favour of a decision by officers5. That means that even the very thin line of proxy accountability represented by nominated councillor is practically meaningless.
Without any local democratic mandate for their decisions planning officers will find themselves under intense pressure from communities whose minimal rights to be heard at a planning committee have been effectively removed and whose elected representatives can no longer exercise their fundamental constitutional role of offering democratic oversight. All of this leaves communities and councillors as bystanders in the development of their own neighbourhoods. Rather than seeking to invest in rebuilding public trust government is actively reinforcing a perception that it acts to impose without any attempt to understand legitimate local concerns.
All of this leaves communities and councillors as bystanders in the development of their own neighbourhoods.
The Government has never made available any credible evidence to justify these measures. There are undoubtedly some examples of local councillors behaving badly, just as there are in any democratic system, but there is no systematic evidence that local authorities’ current arrangements for delegating planning applications needed radical reform. Most local authorities had already adopted schemes which meant that the vast majority of uncontroversial applications are successfully delegated to officers. Crucially, local authorities retained the flexibility to respond to those issues that demanded democratic oversight and their scheme of delegation were under their control.
Ironically the national scheme of delegation it is likely to make decision making on the ground more complex and more controversial as the public adjust to their elected representatives being excluded from decision making. And while all this effort is being dedicated to curbing democratic oversight the urgent task of rebuilding the trust and goodwill so important to the future resilience of our communities remains undone. Central government needs to start thinking differently if it wants to avoid the bitter resistance of communities who have no trust in the planning system.
Central government needs to start thinking differently if it wants to avoid the bitter resistance of communities who have no trust in the planning system.
Ending democratic planning would be the final nail in the legacy of the 1947 planning system. At best this is an unintended consequence of planning reform; at worst, and along with the revised draft NPPF, it is an attempt at centralising decisions on planning which sends a message that local communities can’t be trusted to shape their own future; something a new Prime Minister will have to reverse to retain any credibility for ideas of devolution and community empowerment.
This blog was updated on the 1st of July
References
1 The debate is available to view on Hansard here.
3 See Schedule 1 Paragraph 13 of the regulations. Large outline applications are schedule 2 “large outline permission” means an outline planning permission which permits development involving the provision of 500 or more dwellings. Below that level, non-phased outline projects are schedule 1 and must be delegated.
4 Paragraph 13 of the Guidance document
5 See Para 17 of the guidance Planning Committees and the National Scheme of Delegation of Planning Functions: Draft guidance for local planning authorities in England – GOV.UK
