Syndicated cleaning services
Syndicated cleaning contracts may be suitable for medium to large schools with extensive cleaning needs.
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- Benefits of joining a syndicated cleaning contract
- How to join a syndicated contract
- General buying advice about cleaning services
- More information
Benefits of joining a syndicated cleaning contract
Joining a syndicated contract is likely to save a school both time and money, while also reducing risk.
What is a syndicated contract?
There are 2 suppliers of syndicated cleaning contracts:
- OCS (with NZ Police as the lead agency)
- Spotless (with Ministry of Justice as the lead agency).
A syndicated contract has benefits for schools that are specific to facility cleaning.
- You will be offered the best price available by cleaning suppliers.
- You can easily add or remove contract cleaning requirements/commitments through a simple variation process.
- You are not locked into the contract:
- you can terminate your participation in the OCS contract with 60 business days of notice
- you can terminate your participating in the Spotless contract with 90 calendar days' notice.
- The contract’s lead agency and the supplier carry out an annual price review to consider factors including living/minimum wage changes, CPI index changes and more. This is a transparent process and participating schools will be notified of any changes.
We recommend that schools contact both OCS and Spotless to see what each business can offer within their syndicated contract.
How to join a syndicated contract
The process for joining these syndicated contracts is similar to that for other collaborative contracts.
- Complete a non-disclosure agreement (NDA)
- Confirm details of your current cleaning services
- Organise a site visit from suppliers
- Define your cleaning requirements for suppliers
- Assess offer(s)
- Join a syndicated cleaning services contract
1. Complete a non-disclosure agreement (NDA)
What is a non-disclosure agreement?
OCS
To enquire about the OCS contract, sign the NDA available on the New Zealand Government Procurement (NZGP) website and email it to the contact at NZ Police (lead agency in the contract) stated on the right of the page.
Non-disclosure agreement form – NZGP(external link)
Scheduled cleaning services – NZGP(external link)
Spotless
To enquire about the Spotless contract, email the contact at the Ministry of Justice (lead agency in the contract) stated on the right of the NZGP webpage. They will send an NDA for you to sign and return.
When your school has submitted a signed NDA, the contract’s lead agency will send you more information about their syndicated contract and inform you of supplier contact details.
Tailored cleaning services – NZGP(external link)
2. Confirm details of your current cleaning services
- Gather information on your school's current cleaning contract, including the service level and contract value.
- This can later be compared to an offer made by the syndicated contract supplier(s).
- Also confirm the expiry date of your current contract. If you are considering terminating the contract early, note any termination clauses and the required notice period.
3. Organise a site visit from suppliers
- Contact the syndicated cleaning supplier(s) and organise for them to come to your school for an initial site visit.
- This will provide them with a good understanding of the school’s facilities and cleaning requirements.
- This may be done before or after gathering your requirements (step 4).
4. Define your cleaning requirements for suppliers
See advice on specifying your requirements on the pages below.
Writing a specification of requirements
- The supplier(s) can provide you with sample specifications if required to help you through the process.
- Provide the supplier(s) with your specification of requirements.
- Request that they make your school a proposal with pricing as per the pricing mechanism in their syndicated contract.
Neither syndicated contract specifies that the living wage is paid to cleaning staff. Therefore, we recommend that you specify in your requirements that their contracted supplier pays their staff the minimum hourly wage stated in the collective agreement which is intended for cleaners employed-in house, for the their time spent providing services to the school. This can be incorporated into the supplier's pricing.
Caretakers, cleaners, canteen and ground staff
5. Assess offer(s)
Evaluate the offers made by supplier(s), including their pricing and other factors which may be important to your school.
See 'other considerations' on:
Cleaning suppliers are given the same set of requirements and are likely to pay their staff the same/similar rate, which will often result in quoted prices being comparable. Often, any difference in price is a result of the supplier’s productivity estimation (prediction of how long it will take for cleaning staff to meet your requirements).
6. Join a syndicated cleaning services contract
Once you have reviewed the offer(s) and confirmed your preferred syndicated cleaning supplier, ask the supplier to complete the syndicated contract supplements 1-6.
You will then sign the agency joining form letter. The contract’s cleaning company and lead agency (NZ Police for scheduled/OCS or Ministry of Justice for tailored/Spotless) will also sign the letter.
Your new cleaning service will begin on the date stated in your contract.
General buying advice about cleaning services
The information below is useful if your school is buying cleaning services either under or outside of a syndicated contract.
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