Co-CEO of NJC, Reuben Heppelthwaite shares his perspective on the current state of cleaning procurement, drawing on recent instructions across the UK. In this piece, he explores the recurring gaps between intent and delivery, and highlights the commercial, operational and strategic factors shaping contract performance today.
Over the last 12 months, we’ve been instructed on a growing number of cleaning procurements, reviews, and problem contracts across the UK.
Different sectors. Different portfolios. Different pressures.
But the same themes come up time and again.
Not in theory. In live environments. In contracts that are either underperforming, overpaying, or simply not delivering what was intended at the point of award.
And that’s the point.
Because despite how much the market talks about evolution, better specifications, smarter procurement, more focus on quality, the gap between what organisations intend to buy and what they contract for remains significant.
Here’s what we’re seeing.
Let’s be direct.
The industry talks far more confidently about “value over cost” than it actually delivers in practice.
Almost every client we engage with is clear on their ambition: they want a high-quality, resilient, well-managed service.
But when you interrogate evaluation models, pricing still dominates decision-making, just in more subtle ways.
Weightings are adjusted. Quality questions are expanded. But ultimately, marginal cost differences continue to decide outcomes.
And those decisions carry consequences.
Because when contracts fail, and many of the instructions we receive are precisely because they are failing, the root cause is rarely operational. It’s commercial.
Put simply: the service was never viable at the price agreed.
There has been progress here.
We are seeing more outcome-based thinking, more flexibility, and a greater awareness that cleaning shouldn’t be defined purely by frequency.
But too often, specifications are still built on outdated assumptions.
Buildings are no longer used in the way they were five years ago.
Occupancy is fluid. Demand is uneven. Risk is dynamic.
Yet many contracts are still designed as if nothing has changed.
The result is predictable:
The organisations getting this right aren’t necessarily the most sophisticated, they’re the ones asking better questions earlier.
If there is one consistent weakness across the majority of recent instructions, it is mobilisation.
Or more specifically, the lack of it.
We are regularly brought into contracts post-award where:
At that point, the procurement process is already behind you, but the problems are only just beginning.
Mobilisation is not an administrative phase.
It is where contracts either become operationally viable, or don’t.
And yet, it remains one of the least rigorously evaluated elements of most tenders.
There is no shortage of focus on risk in today’s cleaning contracts.
More clauses. More protections. More conditions. But more often than not, this is addressing the symptoms, not the cause. Risk doesn’t start in the contract terms. It starts in the assumptions underpinning the procurement.
If staffing models are unrealistic, if specifications are misaligned, if pricing is unsustainable, no amount of contractual protection will correct that. The most effective clients we work with are not those adding complexity.
They are the ones simplifying and stress-testing the fundamentals.
Encouragingly, clients are becoming more commercially aware.
They want to understand:
This is a positive shift.
But many procurement processes still don’t fully support it.
Bids are submitted. Scores are applied.
But the underlying delivery models are not always interrogated in a way that reflects their real-world implications.
And that’s where disconnect creeps in, between what is promised and what is delivered.
Perhaps the most important change we’ve seen over the past year is this:
Clients are beginning to recognise their role in the outcome.
For a long time, underperformance in cleaning contracts has been attributed primarily to suppliers.
But increasingly, organisations are asking a different question: Did we set this contract up to succeed in the first place?
That shift matters.
Because the reality is, cleaning is not a commodity in the way it is often treated.
Outcomes are not driven solely by the supplier, they are shaped by the quality of the procurement, the clarity of the specification, and the strength of client-side decision-making.
The best outcomes we see are where clients take ownership of that.
The market doesn’t need more complexity.
It needs more clarity. Clearer specifications grounded in how buildings are actually used.
More honest conversations about cost and service viability.
Greater scrutiny of how services will really be delivered, not just how they are described in a bid.
Because the gap we continue to see, the gap between intent and outcome, is not inevitable.
It is a product of decisions made during procurement.
And those decisions are entirely within an organisation’s control.
At NJC, we are increasingly being brought in where that gap has already materialised.
The opportunity, particularly for those about to go to market, is to address it before it does.
Reuben Heppelthwaite,
Co-CEO