Cleaning specification: what it should say, and how to show it is met

01

What a cleaning specification is

A cleaning specification sets out the cleaning service a building needs, area by area: the tasks, how often each is done, the standard the result must meet, and how performance will be checked. It is the part of a cleaning contract that turns "keep the building clean" into cleaning requirements a cleaning provider can price and a client can hold them to.

Behind it sit legal duties that apply whoever does the cleaning. The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require a workplace, its furniture, furnishings and fittings to be kept sufficiently clean, and washrooms to be kept in a clean and orderly condition. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH) govern how the work is done safely, including the chemicals used.

Some sectors have their own standards. In England, NHS organisations work to NHS England's National standards of healthcare cleanliness 2025, which set cleaning frequencies and audit targets by the functional risk of each area, because a clean environment is part of reducing healthcare associated infections; the standards say that compliance with them and their auditing processes should be written into contracts with cleaning service providers. Care homes and other services registered with the Care Quality Commission must keep their premises and equipment clean under Regulation 15 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. NHSScotland publishes a National Cleaning Services Specification. Outside healthcare, most specifications follow the same logic on a smaller scale: the riskier or busier the area, the more often and the more carefully it is cleaned.

What are the cleaning standards?

In Great Britain, the legal cleaning standard for a workplace is that it and its furniture, furnishings and fittings must be kept sufficiently clean, under regulation 9 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. Sector standards add detail: NHS England's National standards of healthcare cleanliness 2025 set audit target scores from 98% and above, audited weekly, in the highest-risk FR1 areas to 75% and above, audited every 12 months, in FR6 areas. Everywhere else, the working standard is the one written into the specification; the cleaning standards guide sets them out in more detail.

02

What a cleaning specification should include

A specification that a provider can price and a client can check usually covers:

• Scope: the buildings, floors and areas included, and those excluded, ideally as a schedule of rooms by type.
• Tasks by area type: washrooms, kitchens and tea points, entrances and reception, offices, meeting rooms, corridors and stairs, and anything specialist.
• Frequency of cleaning for each task: several times a day, daily, weekly, monthly or periodic.
• The standard: what "clean" means for each area, in words a supervisor could check on a walk-round.
• Times and access: when cleaning happens, when rooms are free, and who holds keys and alarm codes.
• Periodic work: carpet and hard floor care, high-level dusting, windows, deep cleans of washrooms and kitchens.
• Supplies and equipment: who provides consumables such as soap, toilet paper and paper towels, which cleaning products may be used, and the colour-coded equipment to prevent cross-contamination and protect hygiene in washrooms and kitchens.
• The cleaning team and health and safety: hours on site, supervision and training, COSHH assessments, risk assessments and method statements.
• Reactive cleaning: spillages and one-off requests, how they are raised and how quickly they are dealt with.
• Quality assurance: how cleaning performance is audited, the key performance indicators, and how failures are put right.
• Reporting and review: what the provider reports, how often, and how the specification is changed when the building's use changes.

Leave out anything nobody will check. A specification that lists two hundred tasks but is audited on ten is really a specification of ten tasks.

03

Setting frequencies area by area

Frequencies should follow risk and footfall, not habit. Start by grouping every area into a few types and asking two questions of each: how many people use it, and what happens if it is dirty.

• Washrooms: a full clean at least daily and checks through the day, more often in public or heavily used buildings.
• Kitchens and tea points: daily, with surfaces, sinks and appliances cleaned after peak use.
• Entrances and reception: daily, with extra attention in wet weather, because dirt tracked in here spreads through the building.
• Offices and meeting rooms: often daily for bins and touch points, with vacuuming and dusting on a set cycle.
• Corridors and stairs: daily or on a cycle, with handrails and door plates treated as touch points.
• Plant rooms, stores and low-use areas: weekly or monthly.

The result is a cleaning schedule for each area type, which the provider turns into rotas and routes. Then add the periodic tasks on their own calendar. Horizontal surfaces at high level, skirting boards, vents and the backs of fittings are where specifications quietly fail, because they are never urgent on any given day.

04

Input, output, or both

There are two ways to write the standard, and most good specifications use a mix.

• An input specification says what the provider must do and how often: "vacuum carpets daily", "clean washbasins twice a day". It is easy to price and easy to check, but it rewards doing the task rather than achieving the result.
• An output specification says what the result must be: "carpets free of visible dirt and debris", "washbasins clean, with no residue or smears, at all times the building is open". It lets the provider decide how, which suits an experienced contractor, but it needs regular inspection to mean anything.
• A hybrid sets the outcome and a minimum frequency. It is the most common shape in commercial cleaning, because it protects the client against a provider who cuts visits and protects the provider against a standard nobody can measure.

Whichever you choose, each standard should be written so that two people inspecting the same room would reach the same answer.

05

How performance is checked

A specification is only as good as the way it is checked. The usual tools are:

1. Cleaning audits: a supervisor or client representative inspects a sample of rooms against the cleaning standards in the specification and scores them. Joint audits, with the client and the provider walking together, settle disagreements before they become disputes.
2. Key performance indicators: audit scores, the time taken to put a failure right, complaints, and scheduled cleans or checks completed against those planned.
3. Records of work done: check sheets, sign-off sheets and logs that show each scheduled task was carried out, by whom and when.
4. Rectification times: how quickly a reported problem must be fixed, by type. A spillage in a corridor needs minutes; a stained carpet can wait for the next periodic clean.

Audits measure quality; records measure delivery. Clients often have plenty of the first and very little of the second, which is why a missed clean usually comes to light through a complaint rather than a report.

06

Turning the specification into evidence, with SiteClara

Most specifications promise more checks than anyone can show happened. "Washrooms checked hourly" becomes a sheet on a door, and "reception cleaned before 8am" becomes an assurance. When a client asks whether the specification is being met, the provider can describe it but cannot show it.

SiteClara turns each specified check into a scheduled check at a location. A tag at each place, a printed QR code with an optional NFC tag behind it, lets the team confirm the check with a scan or a tap on their own phone, with no app to install. The time and the person are recorded as it happens, with a photo when one helps. Anything found wrong can be reported there and goes onto the team's list of jobs.

Staff see what is due, and the supervisor sees what was done and what was missed, with a reason where one was recorded. Each morning the approved report goes to management or the client, showing checks completed against checks scheduled and what is still open. That is the delivery half of the specification, recorded as it happens rather than reconstructed at the monthly meeting.

07

Who writes it, and a list to take away

The client, or the facilities manager acting for them, owns the specification: it describes the service they are buying. The best ones are written with a provider's input, because an experienced contractor knows which standards can be measured and what each frequency costs. Review it when the building's use changes, at contract renewal, and whenever the same complaint keeps coming back.

For reference, NHS England publishes the National standards of healthcare cleanliness, NHS National Services Scotland publishes the National Cleaning Services Specification, the Health and Safety Executive publishes guidance on COSHH and on workplace cleanliness, and the British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc) publishes standards and training for cleaning operatives.

Before a specification goes into a tender or a renewal, check that it:

• lists every area, grouped by type, with anything excluded named;
• gives each task a frequency and each area a standard someone could inspect;
• separates daily tasks, checks through the day, and periodic work;
• says who supplies consumables and equipment;
• sets rectification times for reported problems;
• defines how quality is audited and which KPIs are reported;
• says how completed work will be evidenced, not only how it will be scored;
• has a date for its next review.