Councils behind on delivering their local plan will be highlighted in public league tables, and local authorities that refuse planning applications against officer advice need to be “called out”, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove warned in a speech announcing the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) this week.

Speaking at the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) also announced he had issued directions to seven councils over the delayed adoption of local plans.

On plans to create a league table of local planning authorities, Gove said: “I will make sure that every local authority is held to account for delivery against its plan – for the speed with which planning applications are processed and also the rationality of their decision making.

“At the Department of Education, I saw that nothing so concentrated the mind of system leaders as sharper accountability, rigorous inspection, robust league tables.”

On calculating housing need and targets, Gove said: “It has always been the case that this number was supposed to be advisory for local authorities but that principle has more often been honoured in the breach than in the observance.”

Gove went on to hit out at councils that delay processing planning applications, specifically those that use so-called ‘extension of time agreements’, which he described as “an insistence on delays to slow down the system”.