The council league table is an interactive dashboard monitoring performance for lodgement and determination of development applications in the Statement of Expectations Order 2024. Data can be viewed by council, geographic region, development type and over different time periods.
State agency performance for concurrence, integrated development and referral timeframes is also monitored.
More information on the data and metrics included in the council league table can be found in the Definitions tab of the dashboard.
Starting from 1 July 2024, council performance is being monitored on a monthly basis following the implementation of the Statement of Expectations Order 2024.
Frequently asked questions
This dashboard monitors council performance against two development assessment timeframe expectations set in the Statement of Expectations Order 2024:
Submission to lodgement
Council should lodge DAs for which it is the consent authority as soon as practical and within an average of:
- 14 days of submission between 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025
- 7 days of submission from 1 July 2025 onwards.
Determination
Council should determine DAs for which it is the consent authority (including DAs determined by a local planning panel) as soon as practical and whichever is the lesser of council's previous financial year average, or within an average of:
- 115 days of lodgement between 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025
- 105 days of lodgement between 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026
- 95 days of lodgement between 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027
- 85 days of lodgement from 1 July 2027 onwards.
The council league table produces data on:
- Number of applications lodged and determined
- Timeframes for lodgement and assessment of DAs
Data can be viewed by timeframe (including the last three financial years to June 2024), council, geographic location, development type including residential development and cost of development.
From 1 August 2024, council performance for the current financial year will be available.
Data is being monitored on state agency performance for concurrence, integrated development and referral timeframes. State agencies play an important role in progressing development assessment and can contribute to timeframe performance.
Other data on state performance for assessing state significant development (SSD) applications for in-fill affordable housing and in the transport oriented development accelerated precincts will be published in late 2024 and 2025.
Data in the council league table is extracted from the NSW Planning Portal.
Council performance for lodging and determining DAs will be monitored each month. Councils will be provided with a grace period of 5 working days at the beginning of every month to upload data from the previous month into the NSW Planning Portal.
Councils can continue to upload data after this date, however it will not be captured in the previous month’s performance.
The council league table provides current and historical data to show how councils are performing over time. It also shows how many applications councils are processing, to provide additional context to timeframe performance, including for residential development.
Data is in different formats (tables, graphs and maps) to make it easily accessible and more interactive.
More information in the data and metrics included the council league table can be found in the Definitions tab of the dashboard.
There are a range of reasons why timeframe performance may vary between councils. These can include the volume, type and complexity of development applications, the proportion of those development applications requiring concurrence integrated development and referral timeframes, and a council’s resourcing capacity for planning assessment.
The department will look more closely at councils that are not meeting the expectations. Additional data and advice from the department's regional teams will form the basis of a second stage of analysis to determine whether the use of any intervention measures is warranted. More information can be found at our Statement of Expectations Order webpage.
Data on council performance for the current financial year will be published from 1 August 2024, in addition to new data on referral timeframes for regionally significant DA assessment reports to planning panels.
Other data on state performance for assessing state significant development (SSD) applications for in-fill affordable housing and in the transport oriented development accelerated precincts will be published in late 2024 and 2025.
The council league table replaces data on the Planning Performance Dashboard for local development applications. The Planning Performance Dashboard is being revised and will be available again soon on the NSW Planning website.
The department recognises that development applications vary greatly in type, scale, planning merit and quality of documentation provided across the state. Setting an average expectation for lodging and assessing DAs takes these variations into account and ensures performance is monitored for all DAs.
The average development assessment days are measured in gross, and do not take into account any 'stop the clock' days when councils are waiting for additional information from applicants. This is because end-to-end timeframes are a more meaningful metric of how long development assessment is taking. As the same expectation applies for all councils across the state, this will not unfairly disadvantage any particular councils.