The Procurement Act: what changed in public cleaning tenders

Public sector cleaning work is let under the Procurement Act 2023, which replaced the previous patchwork of regulations with a single regime. Most of the commentary is aimed at buyers. The parts that change a cleaning contractor's day are narrower and mostly good news, with one exception worth taking seriously.

What is different from a bidder's seat

• –Notices are published centrally, so pipeline visibility no longer depends on which portals you happen to watch.
• –Buyers publish more about what they intend to buy and when, earlier, which makes it possible to prepare rather than react.
• –Assessment is against published criteria with a requirement to explain outcomes, so a loss should come with reasons you can use.
• –Performance against a public contract can be published, and it follows the supplier.

That last one is the exception. Under the old regime a difficult contract was a private matter between you and that client. Under this one, performance information can become part of what the next buyer sees.

Why that matters more in cleaning than in most sectors

Cleaning contracts are measured continuously, by audit, against a specification. That produces exactly the kind of running performance data a regime like this can attach to a supplier — and it produces it monthly rather than at milestones.

A contractor whose audit scores dip during a staffing shortage has always had a commercial problem. The change is in how long that problem lasts and who else sees it.

• –Dispute a score when it is wrong, at the time, in writing. A score accepted in silence is a score agreed.
• –Close remedial actions and record the closure, because an unclosed action is the most visible kind of underperformance.
• –Use the quarterly review to agree the record rather than to discuss the relationship.
• –Keep the evidence behind a good month as carefully as the explanation for a bad one.

Social value stopped being a tie-breaker

Public buyers have to consider wider benefit alongside price, and in cleaning that lands on the thing the sector finds hardest to talk about: pay, hours and turnover.

A bid priced on the lowest practicable labour model and a bid that commits to something better are not usually distinguishable in a specification response, because both describe the same cleaning. They are distinguishable in a social value answer, which is where a contractor that actually does something gets credit for it.

• –Commit to what you will do, with a number and a date, rather than to what you believe in.
• –Expect commitments to be monitored through the contract. A social value promise is a contractual one, and underdelivery on it is underperformance like any other.
• –Know your own turnover and absence figures before you are asked. They are the evidence behind every claim in that section.
• –Do not offer what the labour model cannot carry. A commitment priced out of the bid is a commitment that will fail in year two.

The honest version of this is that social value rewards contractors who were already doing the thing and penalises ones who write well. That is roughly the intention.

What to change in how you bid

The shift towards published criteria and explained outcomes rewards a specific kind of bid: one that answers the criteria as written, with evidence, rather than one that describes the company well.

• –Answer the published criteria in their own order and their own words.
• –Bring evidence rather than assertion — the case for that is stronger under a regime that requires the buyer to explain its assessment.
• –Ask for the assessment summary when you lose. It is the cheapest improvement available to a bid team.
• –Watch the pipeline notices rather than waiting for the tender, and align them to your own contract renewal dates.

The regime is detailed and this is an orientation. Check the current guidance below, and read the specific notices for a procurement rather than assuming a general rule applies to it.