Planning performance agreements: what to put in one

A planning performance agreement is a project management document, signed by the applicant and the local planning authority, that sets out who will do what and by when on a complex application. It buys predictability. It does not buy a permission, and any agreement that reads as though it does is worthless, because an authority cannot fetter its discretion to decide the application on its merits.

The useful test for whether a planning performance agreement is worth having is whether your scheme has enough moving parts that a shared programme changes behaviour. On a 300 unit site with a heritage constraint, three statutory consultees and a section 106 agreement to draft, it usually does. On a single building change of use, it rarely does.

What the agreement does and does not do

The agreement records a programme and a resource commitment. Typical content covers the description of the development, the information the authority expects, a dated programme from pre-application to decision, named officers on both sides, a meeting schedule, the engagement planned with consultees and members, and the fee the applicant pays for the officer time involved.

What it cannot do is prejudge the outcome, commit the authority to recommend approval, or bind a planning committee. It also cannot override statutory consultation, publicity or the requirement to determine the application in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise.

The honest framing for a client is that the agreement makes the process legible and gives both sides something to point at when a date slips. The decision remains the authority's.

Milestones worth committing to in writing

Vague agreements fail quietly. Dates attached to deliverables are what make them work, and the milestones worth naming are the ones where one party is waiting on the other.

• The date the applicant issues each technical report in draft, and the date officers comment on it.
• The date the information requirements are fixed, so that validation becomes a formality rather than a negotiation.
• The date of each design review or officer workshop, with the material to be issued beforehand.
• The date consultee engagement begins, separately for each body, because a highway authority and a heritage body work to different rhythms.
• The date the heads of terms for the planning obligation are agreed in principle, and the date instructions go to legal.
• The target committee date, with the report deadline that sits six to eight weeks before it.

The section 106 timetable is the milestone that most often decides whether a permission issues in the quarter the developer promised the board. Drafting instructions issued after a committee resolution, rather than before, routinely add two to three months. Put the heads of terms date well before the committee date and hold both sides to it.

Officer resource, named contacts and escalation

Name the case officer, the team leader who deputises, and the officers responsible for heritage, trees, highways, drainage and ecology input. Name the applicant's equivalents. Then write down what happens when someone leaves.

Officer turnover is the most common cause of a performance agreement quietly dying. A short clause requiring the authority to confirm a replacement within a stated period, and a handover meeting, is worth more than any other procedural provision in the document.

Escalation deserves a line too. If a milestone is missed, who is told, and within how long. A monthly programme review with a written note, rather than a standing meeting that becomes a status update, keeps the agreement alive.

Fees and what they buy

Authorities charge for the officer time a performance agreement commits, usually on a published scale by scheme size or on a calculated basis for larger schemes, and the charge sits alongside the statutory application fee rather than replacing it. Ask for the basis in writing and for a breakdown of what the sum covers.

Three questions are worth asking before signing.

1. What does the fee cover: officer hours, external specialist advice, legal input, or all three.
2. What happens if the programme extends, and is further payment required.
3. Is any element refundable if the authority does not deliver the committed resource.

Where the authority proposes to commission external advice at the applicant's cost, which is common for viability, daylight and heritage work, the agreement should say who instructs the consultant, who they report to and how disputes about their findings are handled. A Viability Assessment will usually be reviewed by an independent appraiser paid for by the applicant, and agreeing the scope of that review in advance saves weeks of argument about inputs. The practical mechanics of getting an appraisal into a form the reviewer can work with are covered in viability appraisal submission format.

Consultee engagement inside the programme

Statutory consultees are not parties to the agreement, and they are not bound by it. That is the limitation most applicants discover late.

What the agreement can do is commit the authority to consult early, to share draft technical work rather than waiting for formal consultation, and to attend joint meetings where a consultee is willing. For bodies that offer a charged pre-application service, the agreement can record that the applicant will use it and when.

Build the consultee programme around the slowest body on your list rather than the average. Where ecology surveys are seasonal, the survey calendar outranks everything else in the agreement, and a programme that assumes a bat emergence survey can happen in February is a programme nobody can deliver.

Community engagement sits in the same section. Where the authority expects a Statement of Community Involvement with the application, agree what consultation is expected and when it happens, so the engagement informs the design rather than reporting it after the fact.

Extension of time and the statutory period

A performance agreement and an extension of time are different instruments that often travel together. The determination periods, and the ability to agree a longer period in writing, come from the Development Management Procedure Order 2015. The performance agreement sets out the programme. The extension of time, where used, changes the date by which the authority must determine the application.

Agree the extension explicitly and in writing, for a stated date, rather than leaving it implied by the programme. Open-ended extensions remove the only pressure in the system.

Two consequences are worth understanding before agreeing one. An extended period affects how the application counts in the authority's published performance figures, and the government's planning guarantee commitment on fee refunds is applied differently where an extension or performance agreement is in place. Check the current guidance on both points, because they have changed more than once.

Reviewing the agreement mid-application

Treat the document as a live programme rather than a signed artefact. Review it at each milestone and reissue it when the scheme changes materially, which on a long application it will.

Three triggers justify a formal review. A change in the development description or unit numbers, because it changes the information requirements and often the consultee list. A new policy position, such as an emerging local plan reaching a later stage or a revised national framework. And the departure of a named officer or the applicant's project lead.

Where the review shows the programme cannot be met, say so and reset the dates. An agreement that everyone knows is out of date does more harm than no agreement, because it trains both sides to ignore the only document that was supposed to hold the programme together.

You can see which reports a major application is likely to need and draft them against the information requirements agreed in the performance agreement.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Performance agreement practice and charging vary between authorities, so check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.