The Church of England is introducing the Building Management Portal, a new national digital system for managing applications relating to works on churches, their contents, and churchyards.
The portal will replace the Online Faculty System. It will be used for List A, List B, and faculty applications, and will provide a clearer and more structured way for applicants, parishes, DAC teams, archdeacons, registrars, chancellors, and consultees to work through the application process.
The new portal is set to go live on Tuesday, October 6 2026. The Online Faculty System will be closed on Wednesday, September 30 2026 to allow time for a final export of data to the new portal before it goes live. The final DAC meeting under the old system will take place on Tuesday, September 22 2026 (with a deadline Monday, September 7 2026). The deadline for the next meeting after the portal goes live is Monday, November 9 2026, so there will be ample time to prepare applications in time for the November meeting.
The legal process itself is not changing. The Building Management Portal provides a new digital route for managing the same permission framework, with clearer workflow stages, improved case visibility, and role-based access.
Users will access the system through the CofE Portal. This provides a secure login route and includes two-factor authentication. Some users may need to complete a one-time registration process so that their role, diocese, and church access can be assigned correctly.
Existing and some historic cases from the Online Faculty System will be migrated into the Building Management Portal. As part of onboarding, dioceses will be asked to review imported information and test representative cases so that any data or access issues can be identified before the final transition. You will be notified when your infomation has been imported to the new system so please check your new church profile carefully when you receive notification.
Not all cases will be transferred across to the new portal, particularly those which have been inactive for many years. As good practice, users of the Online Faculty System may wish to check any oustanding historic cases as soon as possible and consider whether any should be re-submitted before the current system closes at the end of September. After Friday, October 30 2026, we will no longer be able to restore cases, but the DAC team may have a historic offline record of case files which we can send you to re-start your application.
The DAC team will do their upmost to support you through this process. Please bear in mind limits on their capacity as they navigate this change and learn the new system alongside you. We welcome constructive feedback and comments to improve the process and feed into our development of new guidance and training resources.
Although existing cases will be migrated, PCCs who do not meet the deadline of Monday, September 7 2026 for the September meeting are encouraged to delay commencing any new faculty applications until Tuesday, October 6 2026.
Training material, FAQs, and guidance will be made available during rollout and there will be training sessions provided by the diocese after the launch on 6 October.
Details of diocesan training will be provided soon. Current video guidance is available, and further updates may follow once feedback from parish users has been reviewed.
If you have questions about a current or future application, please contact dac@leeds.anglican.org and a member of the team will be in touch. Further national information is available on the Church of England website here.