What quotations can actually be compared on — and why a square-metre price says nothing about the service.
Choosing a building cleaning company comes down to four points: a written schedule of services with frequency and quality standard, verifiable evidence of wage payment and insurance, an arrangement for cover and monitoring, and a price whose components you understand. Square-metre prices on their own say nothing about the service you actually receive.
Cleaning services are personnel services. Most of the price is wages, and most disputes arise not over quality but over scope. Anyone who separates the following terms can compare quotations; anyone who mixes them compares numbers.
The risks of awarding a cleaning contract rarely lie where they are assumed to be. The problem is not the cleaning performance itself, but the staffing and contractual structure behind it.
When a cleaning contract is awarded, contract law, occupational safety law and sector-specific evidence duties meet. The following separation shows what you can check and what you should have checked.
Important for your expectations: no regulation requires you to follow a particular procedure when selecting a provider. What you can require follows from what you agree — and from the evidence duties that can fall on the client in this sector.
The most common mistake is the order of events: obtaining quotations first and only then thinking about what should actually be delivered. The other way round produces a comparable result.
Frequency determines the effort more than floor area does. It cannot be derived from a table, but from how the property is used.
Anyone who sets the frequency too tightly gets complaints; anyone who sets it too generously pays for a service nobody needs. The robust route is a starting frequency based on the walkthrough and a joint review after a few months.
These points can be answered without specialist knowledge and included in the enquiry. The more complete the enquiry, the more comparable the result.
A price results from the quantity of service, frequency, accessibility and the contractual framework — not from floor area alone. That is why a square-metre price without reference to the schedule of services is not a comparable measure.
If one quotation is markedly below the others, the question is not whether it is too cheap, but what is missing from it.
These terms decide whether two quotations are comparable. The explanations are deliberately in plain language.
Five things are regularly treated as the same when a cleaning contract is awarded, and they are not. The distinction determines what you can require and what you can only hope for.
This distinction follows the project's editorial standard. It sets out which statement carries which weight — and where a company cannot issue a certification.
Answered briefly, so the guide prepares a decision rather than merely informing.
Three quotations are usually enough for a solid comparison, provided all three received the same schedule of services. Compare item by item, not the final total. A fourth quotation on a different service basis does not make the comparison better, only more confusing.
Do not rule it out immediately and do not take it immediately. Ask: which frequencies are priced, how many working hours per week, which materials are included, which additional services cost extra, how is wage payment evidenced? The difference almost always comes down to the quantity of service — and the missing service only becomes apparent when you need it.
In principle the service provider, within the scope of its public liability insurance; the details are governed by the contract and the policy. Check sums insured, exclusions and the arrangement for lost keys before a contract is concluded. This information belongs in your contract, not in a promotional brochure, and it is independent of how convincingly a provider presents itself.
On a change, staff may transfer to the new provider under the rules on transfer of undertakings. Whether that applies in your case depends on how the arrangement is structured and has to be clarified with legal advice. Raise the subject before giving notice — it is not an argument against the change, but a reason to prepare it.
Short enough that you can change provider if dissatisfaction persists, and long enough that the provider can plan staff. Check whether a trial period and a notice period can be agreed that suit your property. A long term without a trial period takes away exactly the steering instrument this is about.
Only if it is regulated by contract. Agree that subcontractors require consent, that they are insured and that the evidence duties apply to them as well. An unnamed subcontractor is the point at which the evidence you checked loses its value.
With two instruments: an agreed walkthrough at a fixed frequency with a written log, and an objective basis — the schedule of services. If clean is not defined, every discussion remains a matter of taste. That is why quality control is not an act of distrust, but the precondition for a conversation about rectification to take place at all.
Anyone looking for the right scope of service for their property will find it on the following pages. The selection process stays the same.
We go through the property and describe scope, frequency and evidence — as a basis for your comparison of quotations.
Service, property and contact details – that is all we need.
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