Statutory guidance

Planning Committees and the National Scheme of Delegation of Planning Functions: Guidance for local planning authorities in England

Published 1 June 2026

Applies to England

Introduction

1. This guidance supports local planning authorities in England in implementing the provisions in sections 319ZZC to 319ZZF of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (introduced through section 54 of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025) and the Town and Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) (England) Regulations 2026 (the Regulations). These sections relate to the national scheme of delegation of planning functions and the size of planning committees.

2. Sections 319ZZC to 319ZZE of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 apply to all local planning authorities except development corporations, Homes and Communities Agency, National Park Authorities and the Broads Authority. They also apply to mineral planning authorities where they exist (excluding those which are National Park Authorities).

3. As required by section 319ZZE(4) and (5) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, local planning authorities must have regard to this guidance in operating or making arrangements required under the Regulations.

4. For the avoidance of doubt, where local planning authorities do not comply with the Regulations from the date they come into force (31 October 2026) and their planning committees make decisions on applications which must be delegated officers, those decisions may be subject to judicial review by anyone aggrieved by the decision. This may lead to the quashing of the decision.

National Scheme of Delegation of Planning Functions

5. The government’s aim behind the national scheme of delegation is to ensure that there is greater clarity and consistency about the role of planning committees in planning decision making. Committees should focus on the key proposals that matter to an area, enabling other, often more minor and technical, decisions to be made by planning officers.

6. Section 319ZZC of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 gives the Secretary of State the power to set out which functions of a local planning authority should be delegated to planning officers for a decision and which should instead go to a planning committee or sub-committee.

7. The Secretary of State has exercised this power through the Regulations. These Regulations set out the following general approach to decision making:

• where applications fall under Schedule 1 decisions must be delegated to officers under regulation 4

• where applications fall under Schedule 2, there is a presumption under regulation 5 that decisions are delegated to officers unless the nominated officer and nominated member agree the application should be referred to a planning committee or sub-committee for determination and that it meets at least one of the criteria in regulation 5(3)

8. There is further specific provision under regulation 6 for own-interest applications i.e. an application made (whether or not jointly with any other person) by the authority or an officer or member of the authority or an application where the authority or any of its members or officers has an interest, to support transparency and propriety. These applications can be referred to a planning committee or sub-committee for determination if the nominated officer and nominated member of the planning committee agree. Where a planning function is not listed in either Schedule 1 or 2, it is for the local planning authority to decide whether it should be delegated to an officer or referred to a committee or sub-committee for a decision (as part of its local constitution).

9. Under the national scheme of delegation, current practices set out in local authority constitutions, such as the power for ward councillors to require cases to be called in for committee consideration or having trigger points for referral to committee if a certain number of objections is reached, will not be possible. Local authorities will need to amend their constitutions to align with the national scheme of delegation. Failure to do so may make decisions on whether to delegate applications to officers or refer them to committees for determination liable to judicial review.

Consideration for referral to committee

10. For the purposes of considering referral of applications to committee:

a. the nominated officer should be the Chief Planning Officer or equivalent officer who has extensive professional planning experience. However, local planning authorities will also need to ensure they have other senior planning officers who can provide cover if needed to avoid any unnecessary delays in the referral process (or where there is an own interest application and the Chief Planning Officer or equivalent officer has an interest it).

b. the nominated member should be the chair of the planning committee or, where such a role does not exist, the vice chair or equivalent member. As in the case of nominated officers, the authority will need to ensure there are arrangements in place for other members to cover should the nominated member not be available (or where there is an own interest application and the nominated member has an interest in it).

11. Where local planning authorities have more than one planning committee, they may nominate different officers or members for each committee.

12. It is for individual local planning authorities to put in place their own arrangements for how the consideration of cases for referral to committee will operate in practice.

13. It is not a requirement of the national scheme of delegation that nominated officers and nominated members consider all Schedule 2 applications or all own-interest applications for potential referral to committee. Local planning authorities may, through their constitutions, decide which Schedule 2 or own-interest applications need to be considered for referral. The regulations provide for the option for Schedule 2 applications to be considered for committee against the gateway test but do not require all schedule 2 applications to be considered – they will otherwise be delegated to officer.

14. Where local planning authorities anticipate that there may be a significant number of Schedule 2 or own-interest applications which may need to be considered for referral to committee they may wish to put in place a triage system to ensure that the nominated officer and nominated member of the committee are not overwhelmed and to avoid any unnecessary delays in planning decision making.

15. Nominated officers and nominated members should make every effort to reach agreement on which cases should be referred to committee. However, where agreement is not possible, the case must be determined by officers in accordance with regulation 5(2) or regulation 6(3).

16. Further best practice advice is available from the Planning Advisory Service on the referral of applications to committee.

Schedule 1 functions

17. Schedule 1 of the Regulations sets out all the functions which must be delegated to officers for a decision (unless it is an own-interest application). These include a number of categories of applications for planning permission for:

• householder development (as defined in the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015)

• minor commercial development (as defined in the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015)

• minor residential development which is defined in the Regulations as:

  • development that includes only dwellings and development for the purposes incidental to the enjoyment of dwellings, comprises at least one but not more than nine dwellings, and is to be carried out on a site having an area smaller than 0.5 hectares

  • development of a building containing flats, or development within the curtilage of such a building, for any purpose incidental to the enjoyment of the flats or any of them but excludes development in respect of a building containing flats, or development within the curtilage of such a building, that involves either or both of a change of use or change to the number of flats

  • an application for any consent, agreement or approval required by or under a planning permission, development order or local development order for development within paragraph (a) or (b)

18. It also contains a range of other planning consents:

• to develop land without compliance with conditions previously attached) in respect of which the previous planning permission was a Schedule 1 planning permission (applications under section 73(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• reserved matters approval in respect of an outline planning permission other than a large outline phase permission (i.e. one which grants permission for development involving the provision of at least 500 dwellings or a building or buildings where the floorspace to be created by the development is 50,000 square metres or more) (applications under Article 6 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015)

• discharge of conditions (applications under Article 27(1) of Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015)

• prior approval for permitted development rights (applications under Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015)

• permission in principle (as referred to in section 58A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• where a local planning authority considers a planning obligation is connected to a Schedule 1 application, requests to agree to modify or discharge a planning obligation (under section 106A(1)(a) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• where local planning authority considers a planning obligation is connected to a Schedule 1 application, modification or discharge of a planning obligation (applications under section 106A(3) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• non-material changes to planning permission or permission in principle (applications under section 96A(4) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• certificates of lawfulness of existing use or development (under section 191(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• certificates of lawfulness of proposed used or development (under section 192(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• certificates of lawfulness for proposed works to listed buildings (under section 26H of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990)

• biodiversity gain plan (duty to approve under paragraph 14 of Schedule 7A to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• certificates of appropriate alternative development (applications under section 17 of the Land Compensation Act 1961)

19. However, applications which would otherwise fall under Schedule 1, will fall within Schedule 2 where:

• a local authority considers that the application for planning permission is connected to a Schedule 2 application for listed building consent or for the variation or discharge of a condition on a listed building consent

• the application is made under section 73A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990

Schedule 2 functions

20. The functions which fall within Schedule 2 of the Regulations are:

• applications for planning permission which are not householder, minor commercial or minor residential applications

• applications for planning permission which would otherwise fall into Schedule 1 but are connected to a Schedule 2 application for listed building consent or for the variation or discharge of a condition on a listed building consent

• applications to develop land without compliance with conditions previously attached in respect of which the previous planning permission was a Schedule 2 planning permission (under section 73(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• applications for development which has already been carried out (under section 73A(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• where it is related to a large outline planning permission, applications for reserved matters approvals (under Article 6 of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015)

• where a local planning authority considers a planning obligation is connected to a Schedule 2 application, requests to agree to modify or discharge a planning obligation (under section 106A(1)(a) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• where a local planning authority considers a planning obligation is connected to a Schedule 2 application, application for modification or discharge of a planning obligation (under section 106A(3) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990)

• applications for listed building consent (under section 10 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990)

• applications for the variation or discharge of conditions of listed building consent (under section 19 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990)

• applications for advertisement consent (under regulation 9 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007)

• applications for consent under tree preservation orders (under regulation 16 of the Town and Country Planning (Tree Preservation) (England) Regulations 2012)

• applications to which paragraph 19 above apply

21. The overriding presumption is that the applications listed in Schedule 2 will be delegated to officers. An application can be referred to a committee or sub-committee only where:

a. at least one of the criteria in regulation 5(3) is met or it is an own-interest application (regulation 6); and

b. the nominated officer and nominated member of the planning committee agree to the referral

Criteria which must be met before a case can be considered for referral under regulation 5

22. In determining whether a referral under regulation 5 is made, the presumption should be that decisions are delegated to officers and only exceptionally be referred to committee. At a minimum, at least one of the following statutory criteria must be met for a referral to committee to be considered to meet that threshold:

A. where the application raises an economic, social or environmental issue of significance to the local area

B. where the application raises a significant planning matter having regard to the development plan and any other material considerations

23. Applications for development which do not raise a significant planning matter can only be referred to the committee under criterion A if they raise a significant economic, social or environmental issue for the local area. It is for the nominated officer and member to assess whether the development proposal raises any such issue, providing an opportunity for local democratic oversight where necessary. What constitutes ‘significant’ will vary depending on the local area but examples could include:

• an application for outline planning permission for a large multi-phase residential development allocated in the local plan

• an application for planning permission for change of use of a community shop in a rural area

• an application for planning permission or listed building consent for changes to a notable listed building in a town centre

24. For the purpose of criterion B, the following circumstances are unlikely to raise a significant planning matter:

• where the application for development broadly complies with a detailed site allocation and other relevant policies set out in a local or neighbourhood plan and national decision making policies set out in the National Planning Policy Framework. Significant planning matters may arise if new material considerations are raised by the application

• where a specific planning matter (e.g. highways or flood risk) was initially raised by a statutory consultee as a concern, but the development proposal has been modified to make it acceptable in the view of the statutory consultee (unless the nominated officer has compelling reasons to consider otherwise)

Own-interest applications

25. Applications which are made (whether or not jointly with any other person) by the authority or an officer or member of the authority or it is an application where, in the view of the nominated officer and nominated member, the authority or any of its members or officers has an interest, are own-interest applications dealt with under regulation 6. We recognise that there may be cases where, in the interests of transparency and public accountability, it may be appropriate for some such applications whether they are in Schedule 1 or Schedule 2 to be referred to a planning committee or sub-committee. Where the nominated officer and nominated member agree, they can be referred to the committee without the need for consideration of the criteria set out in regulation 5(3). Where no such referral has been made, they must be determined by an officer.

26. Under regulation 10 of the Town and Country Planning General Regulations 1992, where a local planning authority is determining its own application for planning permission, it must not be determined by a committee, sub-committee or officer responsible for the management of the building or land to which the application relates. In addition to this restriction, where a planning application is made by a nominated officer or nominated member of the authority or they have an interest in it , in the interests of propriety, they should not be involved in the decision on whether to refer it to committee or not.

Treatment of reserved matters applications

27. We recognise that outline planning permission can be granted for largescale multi-phase development which can take place over many years. As such each related reserved matters application can represent substantial development in its own right and cover more issues of substance, for example, the provision of on site community infrastructure , which may, in exceptional circumstances, merit committee scrutiny. For this reason, we have distinguished between those reserved matters approval applications which relate to large outline planning permissions and those which do not, with the former being placed in Schedule 2 and the latter in Schedule 1.

28. A large outline planning permission for the purpose of these regulations is an outline planning permission which grants permission for development involving the provision of at least 500 dwellings or a building or buildings where the floorspace to be created by the development is 50,000 square metres or more. A reserved matters application for such development must meet the criteria set out under regulation 5(3) for a committee to consider it.

29. When considering reserved matters approval applications which fall into Schedule 2 against the criteria in regulation 5(3), nominated officers and nominated members should only have regard to matters which are directly relevant to the reserved matters application before them.

Treatment of section 106 decisions

30. Specific provision has not been made for section 106 agreements themselves in the regulations. This is because, most of the time, appropriate section 106 planning obligations will be considered as part of the application process. In other cases, they can be entered into unilaterally by the landowner so there is no real ‘function’ for the local planning authority. We recognise that there may occasionally be section 106 planning obligations which are agreed outside of the context of a planning application but we consider that, in these cases, the decision on whether it should be delegated to officers or referred to committee should be left to the discretion of the local authority.

31. Where a local planning authority considers a section 106 agreement is connected to an application falling into either Schedule 1 or Schedule 2, and agreement is being sought to amend or discharge the planning obligation (under section 106A(1)(a) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990), the function of agreeing to amend or discharge the obligation should fall into the same schedule as the related application. This same approach applies to applications to modify or discharge an obligation under section 106A(3).

Treatment of special control applications

32. Applications for listed building consent, advertisement consent and consent under tree preservation orders are included in Schedule 2. In most cases, these types of application will not raise issues which would merit committee scrutiny. The presumption, therefore, is that decisions should be delegated to officers and only exceptionally referred to committee.

33. Whether such an application meets the criteria in regulation 5(3) will depend on the particular circumstances but an example could include where there are proposals for a change of use and works to a prominent listed building which makes an important contribution to a town centre.

Transparency and reporting

34. As a minimum, the local planning authority should keep a record of the cases the nominated officer and nominated member have considered for referral to committee, the outcome of their consideration and the reasons for their decision. They should report this to the planning committee on a regular basis and make it available on their website.

Size of committees

35. Regulation 7 provides for the number of members on a planning committee or sub-committee to be no more than 13. This is a maximum figure to accommodate local planning authorities where members are from multiple political parties. Local planning authorities should consider whether a smaller number of members would be more appropriate in their area to support effective decision making.