Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent estimate he has made of the proportion of planning applications which are determined under delegated authority by planning officers in (a) England and (b) each of the district authorities in Gloucestershire.

The proportions of planning decisions delegated to planning officers in England in July to September 2014 are recorded in the Planning Applications Statistics Live Table P133. This is available at www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-planning-application-statistics.

The exercise of the power to delegate planning functions is a matter for the local planning authority to decide, as set out in the council’s constitution. Unlike the last Administration, we have not imposed Whitehall targets on councils requiring the delegation of a specific percentage of planning decisions.

Councils will want to consider the best way of promptly processing uncontroversial planning applications, whilst ensuring elected councillors have the ability to scrutinise and debate contentious applications and applications with a significant impact.