NAO urges government to level playing field in negotiations over developer contributions

By Daniel Gayne2025-06-06T06:07:00

Source: Shutterstock

Lack of skill and capacity in councils, and transparency from developers, undermining system

The government should consider enforcing open-book costing for financial viability assessments during the planning process to even the playing field between developers and local planning authorities (LPA), according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

In a major report, published this morning, the independent public spending watchdog set out its review of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s oversight of the developer contributions system in England.

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