I disagree. The SoS will have been provided with the Planning officers summary and access to all document pertaining to the submission. It is up to the SoS team to make a decision as to whether the planning officers asessment is a fair reflection of the facts presented. If not, it will be called in and they will prepare their own assumptions, effectively re-doing the work of the Planning officer. If it is a fair reflection, it wont be.
The focus of the planning is upon the locally decided developments, where corruption at a local level is possible. Much of the reason the SoS has a view of large, nationally important applications is to prevent the opportunity of corruption/poor decisions.