The Education Partnership North East - Regular and Periodic Cleaning Services
Bulloughs Cleaning Services has over 55 years of experience providing quality window cleaning solutions, as well as industrial cleaning services across various sectors in the North of England.
The brief
The Education Partnership North East is a multi-site contract encompassing 6 sites and 52 members of staff. The brief required daily cleaning of high-traffic areas and a periodic deep clean timetable developed around the client’s requirements.
The challenges
This contract has included multiple challenges across the lifecycle of the contract. The emergence of COVID restrictions mid-contract required a detailed evaluation of cleaning schedules and procedures to ensure government guidelines were followed, all under the condition that standards remained high, and costs were stable.
The client asked for schedule variations in line with large-scale estate changes and there were budget challenges across various sites. Both of which required fundamental changes to key working arrangements and intense liaison with key stakeholders, including college seniors, unions and staff members.
The job specification
Education Partnership North East (EPNE) is a dynamic partnership of three colleges - Sunderland College, Hartlepool Sixth Form and Northumberland College. Its catchment area spans from the Scottish borders to the Tees Valley. With a student population with over 21,000 students and a 1,100 plus
The contract is required to operate for 51 weeks per year - During the 39 weeks term time regular daily, weekly cleaning tasks take place throughout all the College buildings. For 12 weeks a year, non-term time, the classrooms, workshops, and non-public areas are not to be cleaned. Washrooms, public areas and changing rooms will still require servicing in operational buildings.
The result
Despite the challenges, the service delivered has continued to meet the required standard to meet the client’s needs, while showing extreme flexibility to develop a business model and working arrangements that delivered business efficiencies and confidence for staff and building users.
The client continues to be very happy with all levels of cleaning across the sites while working under the newly agreed specification alongside previously outlined service level agreements. This resulted in Bulloughs Cleaning Services being re-awarded the cleaning contract from 1st June 2023 for a 3-year period.
"we migrated to Bulloughs cleaning services following a rigorous tendering process for our Sunderland and Hartlepool sites a number of years ago. This was followed by the migration of our Northumberland sites at the point of merger at which time Bulloughs stepped in at extremely short notice following the decision by the incumbent to walk off site. As one of many subcontractors we employ to deliver services into the college I would rate them as No 1 – very customer focussed, easy to do business with and just really nice people. – as you may gather I have no hesitation in recommending their services."
Steve Brown Executive Director of Capital Projects & Estates
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