New planning executive functions take effect in England on Monday 2 November 2026. The Local Authorities (Functions and Responsibilities) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 revise which planning responsibilities must sit outside a council’s executive and which may instead be allocated to it. The change matters particularly to local development orders and certain statutory powers of entry.
The instrument, SI 2026/1076, was made on 12 October and laid before Parliament on 13 October. It replaces an outdated list of planning functions in the Local Authorities (Functions and Responsibilities) (England) Regulations 2000, and adds three entries to Schedule 2. These provisions are now operative, rather than proposals awaiting consultation or another commencement order.
It is important not to confuse this with England’s National Scheme of Delegation for planning applications, which started on 31 October. That separate system controls which applications are determined by planning officers and which may reach committees. Today’s legislation deals instead with the allocation of functions between an English council’s executive and its other lawful arrangements for exercising authority.
What planning executive functions have changed?
Regulation 3 substitutes a new paragraph A into Schedule 1 of the 2000 functions and responsibilities regulations. It specifies 15 groups of planning responsibilities that cannot be the responsibility of an authority’s executive. They include ordinary development control, enforcement, advertisement control, land maintenance, listed buildings, hazardous substances consent and particular minerals-related functions.
The updated paragraph also identifies legislation used in modern development management, including the 2015 Development Management Procedure Order, the General Permitted Development Order 2015, the Permission in Principle Order 2017 and the Brownfield Land Register Regulations 2017. In practical terms, planning executive functions now sit within an updated statutory list rather than older wording that predates those regimes.
The original statutory instrument explains the purpose precisely. Its explanatory note says regulation 3 updates and consolidates the existing paragraph A
. That wording matters: most planning powers have not suddenly become cabinet decisions. The schedule identifies functions which must remain outside executive responsibility, leaving the authority to implement lawful arrangements for their discharge.
Local development orders and executive responsibility
Regulation 4 makes the more distinctive substantive adjustment. It adds a local planning authority’s power to make or revoke a local development order to Schedule 2 of the 2000 regulations. Local development orders can authorise specified categories of development within a designated area without individual applications for each qualifying proposal, subject to the statutory process in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
Under the revised framework, an English local authority operating executive arrangements may decide whether these planning executive functions relating to local development orders should belong to its executive. This is a choice under Schedule 2, not a mandatory transfer of responsibility to the council leader or cabinet and certainly not permission to make an order without the relevant statutory procedure.
Local development orders still involve the separate requirements for preparation, consultation and proper planning assessment. The governance amendment changes where the authority can lawfully locate responsibility. It does not expand the development authorised by any existing order, replace the GPDO or provide a route to avoid consideration of affected communities and environmental issues.
Powers of entry remain subject to safeguards
Two other functions newly listed in discretionary Schedule 2 relate to powers of entry. The first concerns section 324 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The second is section 88 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. Both are expressly identified as local planning authority powers, rather than a general change to the law on entry.
That distinction is important. Part 7 planning enforcement functions remain in the new non-executive Schedule 1 list. The planning executive functions provisions do not place every enforcement notice or investigation in the hands of cabinet, nor do they remove the substantive notice requirements and statutory safeguards governing the exercise of particular entry powers.
Authorities should therefore check the exact statutory section and their current constitutions before deciding which body may authorise an action. A Schedule 2 classification does not by itself establish that any portfolio holder has been given authority. The ordinary distinction between an authority, its executive, its committees and officers acting under delegation still needs to be respected.
Separate from the 31 October delegation rules
The two changes arriving on 31 October and 2 November sit alongside each other but do different jobs. Planning Geek’s National Scheme of Delegation guide explains which planning applications must go to officers and which can reach committee through the statutory gateway. That is about determining applications, not the allocation of all council functions to or away from the executive.
The government’s statutory guidance confirms that the national delegation regime began on 31 October 2026. SI 2026/1076 is made under section 9D of the Local Government Act 2000. Different enabling powers and different subject matter mean it would be wrong to describe today’s instrument as the legal commencement of the officer and committee scheme.
For planning professionals, the practical risk lies in assuming that all decisions described as ‘delegated’ fall within one set of rules. The planning executive functions framework does not confer permission to determine an application contrary to national committee-delegation requirements. A council must satisfy both sets of legislation when deciding how its constitution allocates responsibility.
Territorial application and council action
The instrument provides that it extends to England and Wales, but the explanatory note says that it applies in relation to English local authorities. Territorial extent is not the same as practical application. It would therefore be inaccurate to suggest that SI 2026/1076 changes the governance of Welsh planning authorities or the separate devolved systems in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
English councils should review their constitution and scheme of delegation in the light of the substituted Schedule 1 paragraph and the new Schedule 2 items. For local development orders and the specified powers of entry, the authority should establish whether it has elected executive responsibility and make sure any supporting decision-making powers are expressly and lawfully documented.
Applicants, landowners and their advisers should be alert to the governance question when relying on an adopted local development order or challenging a procedural decision. A sound planning assessment is not a substitute for lawful authority. The right checks include the power relied upon, the version of the council’s constitution then in force and any actual delegation or resolution.
The regulations also correct a title reference to the Town and Country Planning (Trees) Regulations 1999. That correction does not make new tree preservation policy or alter the threshold for obtaining planning permission. It illustrates the consolidating character of the instrument, alongside the more significant choices about local development orders and entry powers.
What happens now?
Planning executive functions are not the most visible part of the planning system, but they determine which part of an English council can lawfully act. The legal change on 2 November is narrower than the headlines about committee reform, yet it deserves attention from governance officers and planning lawyers who prepare or challenge formal decisions.
The immediate conclusion is straightforward. SI 2026/1076 updates the legal division between executive and non-executive planning responsibilities. The legislation does not itself grant development consent, change the rules for permitted development or displace the separate National Scheme of Delegation that started two days earlier.
0 Comments