-
General Questions
- Given your experience if asked for one single piece of advice when entering into a cleaning tender, what would that be?
Straightforward. Take time with all stakeholders to fully understand your own objectives in the tender and decide whether these are realistic and achievable. It’s that old adage – if you don’t know where you’re going the route there is immaterial!
Take the time to create a vision of what future ideal cleaning services would look like.
- What is the best way to advertise my cleaning tender? Is there a procedure that I have to follow?
Procedures are clearly laid down and must conform to:
Public Contracts Regulations 2015
OJEU Tender Process
- I really don't want to change supplier but also know that I need to test the market. How can you help?
We come across this scenario quite often, especially when either financial regulations or simple best practice stipulate that a review is required even if you are 100% satisfied and you know that this will also add costs in terms of fees.
This is why we have specifically developed www.cleaningtender4schools.co.uk to allow you to achieve your goal of carrying out a best value review without at the same time incurring significant costs.
- If I only had time, I could carry out the tender myself using previous documents or documents from colleagues. Where do you add value?
If you simply recycle documentation from either previous or colleague tenders we would highlight some key issues that you run the risk of not delivering:
this will not deliver your personal objectives – see our earlier one piece of advice!
this will not allow you to experience the gains from the cleaning marketplace that have developed since the time that documentation was last used.
- if you could ensure great value for money by maximising the benefits and reducing any duplication in tasks by both yourselves and ourselves, wouldn’t this at the same time allow you to get on with the rest of your workload?
That is why we allow you to personalise the correct level of support for your business.
- I want to move to an in-house cleaning operation, would you still recommend that I go through a tender process?
In-house cleaning, where staff are employed directly and not through a contract cleaning company is obviously something that clients look at under any review. We always advise clients to formalise the process based on the following rationale.
In-house cleaning is not something that should be taken on lightly or viewed through rose-tinted spectacles. There are responsibilities within this change that will impact either on the in-house cleaning team or if not handled effectively at this level then the school’s SMT team will become involved.
By including the in-house cleaning proposal within a competitive tender process, all the associated benefits and indeed risks can be clearly laid out in front of the decision makers. This ensures that the decision makers know all options available in the marketplace and can proceed on this basis.
- I've heard TUPE mentioned. How does this impact on a cleaning tender?
TUPE (transfer of undertakings – protection of employment) is the legislation that must be adhered to for staff currently employed within your cleaning operation.
Essentially this means that at the point of transfer to a new employer all current employment benefits (rate of pay, holiday entitlement, sickness entitlement etc.) are protected.
Whilst pensions are currently outside of this many clients also seek to include this in the transfer process.FAQ
