Switching cleaning supplier is one of the higher-risk facilities decisions you'll make. Get it right and your team barely notices the change. Get it wrong and you'll spend the next year fielding complaints.
Here's how Cathedral Quarter office managers should approach the procurement process.
Accreditations that actually mean something
BICSc membership, SafeContractor, ISO 14001 (environment) and Real Living Wage employer status are the baseline. Anything missing here is a flag worth asking about.
For Cathedral Quarter businesses in regulated sectors — healthcare, finance, legal — also ask about CQC-aware cleaning protocols and DBS vetting policy.
Questions to put on the tender
Staff retention rate (industry average is alarmingly low), wage policy (Real Living Wage or just minimum wage), TUPE handling, KPI reporting cadence, and out-of-hours emergency response. The answers tell you who you're really hiring.
Ask to meet the actual area manager who'd run your contract — not just the salesperson. Most Cathedral Quarter contracts succeed or fail on that one relationship.
Red flags
Quotes well below market rate, vague scope documents, no named site supervisor, no escalation process, and reluctance to share references in the same area. Each of these is a future problem in disguise.
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