How to tender for a new school cleaner — six steps

Going to tender for cleaning is a smaller job than most schools expect. Six steps, most of them short.

1. Note down what you want fixed

Before anything else, spend ten minutes writing the specifics. Which areas generate comments. Whether the same thing has come up more than once. Whether your facilities manager can get hold of someone when they need to. Whether the standard holds through the back half of term.

That list is the most useful document in the process. It becomes your evaluation criteria, and it is what you hand to contractors so they respond to your situation rather than send a generic submission.

2. Pick timing that suits you, not the contractor

Term 3 is the most common run-up for a January start, and it is a sensible default — it gives a new contractor the summer break to mobilise properly. But it is not the only option. Schools change cleaners mid-year, and a contractor who only wants to start in January is telling you something about how much planning they are prepared to do.

A good contractor works to your calendar. If a mid-year change suits you better, say so early and see how each one responds.

3. Shortlist three or four

More tenderers does not produce a better result. It produces more reading, more campus tours, and less effort from each contractor.

Favour specialists. A contractor whose core business is schools already works around term breaks, exam periods, events, holiday access and child-safety requirements. Ask other Business Managers who they use, and who they have moved on from — one phone call to a peer is worth more than any capability statement.

4. Walk them around the campus

You do not need a room list, a measured schedule, or a written specification to go to market. That is the contractor's job, and preparing it is part of what you are assessing.

Take each one on the same walk, and show them the areas that cause you problems rather than the ones that look good. If you have building maps or fire evacuation plans to hand, share them — it helps, but it is a bonus rather than a requirement.

What they ask on that walk is the most informative part of the whole process. Questions about your term calendar, your event schedule, boarding house access during holidays and who holds keys mean they are thinking about delivering the work. Questions only about floor area mean they are thinking about the price.

5. Ask for a proposal with a scope in it

You want to see, in writing, what will be cleaned and how often — area by area, not a paragraph of reassurance. That document is what you will hold them to, and a contractor who will not put it in writing before the contract starts will not produce it afterwards either.

6. Check the things that predict performance

Price matters and you have a budget, but the cheapest tender is rarely the cheapest contract once variations and your own chasing time are counted.

Worth satisfying yourself on:

• Current Working with Children Checks and National Police Checks for everyone on site, with a system that flags expiries

• How attendance is verified, and what happens when someone does not turn up

• Whether staff are directly employed, and whether any of the work is subcontracted or franchised

• Chemical storage, safe dispensing, and equipment testing and tagging

• Key register and site security

• What you receive in writing during the contract, and how often

• What happens in the weeks before day one

Then ask for a reference from a school that is not on their reference list.

The part that matters most

Whoever wins, the first few weeks set the tone for the rest of the contract. Ask each contractor what happens before day one — how much time they spend on site, what they prepare, and who from their business will actually be there. The answers vary more than anything else in the process.