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 6 October. The Online Faculty System will be closed on 30 September to allow time for a final export of data to the new portal before it goes live.
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 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.
Training videos, FAQs, and guidance will be made available during rollout. Training videos are already available, and further updates may follow after feedback from parish users has been reviewed.
Click on the links below to view the current training videos which are available.
Building Management Portal – Introduction
Registration and account management
If you have questions about a current or future application, please contact Lucy Burfield, DAC Secretary, at dac@newcastle.anglican.org
Further national information about the Building Management Portal is available on the Church of England website and answers to FAQs can be found here.