Cleaning

Cleaning metropolitan Melbourne schools

Cleaning service providers are appointed to 10 metropolitan areas for most metropolitan schools. Each area is serviced by a single service provider under a contract administered by the department.

The cleaning model is performance-based. It is based on an agreed standard of cleanliness and an agreed frequency, not on the number of hours spent cleaning. All cleanable areas must be cleaned to meet the required cleaning standards set by the department. Service providers are required to meet the cleaning standards and frequency set out in the Cleaning standards and frequency guide (DOCX), including the expectation that service providers clean more often than the minimum frequency in the guide, if required to maintain the expected standard.

Schools serviced through public private partnerships or where cleaning is organised by other government departments, such as hospital schools and youth justice schools, are not included in this model.

Funding of the additional cleaning services

The routine (base) cleaning services delivered under the model are funded directly by the department. The department pays service providers directly, meaning that schools do not receive their base cleaning budget through their Student Resource Package (SRP).

Additional cleaning services can be procured for specific school cleaning requirements, through an offline SRP payment. Schools must use their nominated service provider for any additional cleaning services. The additional funding is transferred to schools in 2 equal payments. The first payment in Term 1 and the second in Term 3 of each year. The allocation of funds considers each school’s total cleanable area and the minimum shift allowance as per the Cleaning Services Award. Schools can find their specific additional allocation amount through the Cash Grant Report available on the SRP portal under Student Resource Package – Reports.

Each service provider is required to provide schools with a quotation for additional services at the school’s request and have agreed pricing for the life of the contract.

This additional funding can be used for things like additional cleaning before or after school fetes.

Schools are required to fund their own cleaning consumables (except for bin liners). For more information, refer to the personal consumables section in this guidance.

Role of the department

As the department’s contract administrator, the VSBA School Cleaning Unit is responsible for:

• performance monitoring, such as conducting meetings with service providers and assessing overall contract compliance, monitoring logged issues in AIMS to ensure resolution, and compliance with all aspects of the service agreement
• performance management, such as auditing schools to determine cleaning standards are being met and manage any service failures to resolution
• paying for the base services in accordance with the service agreement
• relationship management, such as providing a framework for positive working relationships between schools and service providers.

Role of the school

Schools have an important role in working with cleaning service providers to establish, monitor and review cleaning services. This includes working with the provider and agreeing to a site-specific Cleaning services plan, if needed conducting termly review meetings and monthly on-site cleaning audits, and raising issues through incident reports in AIMS, as well as participating in the mandatory annual review meeting, and allowing for any audit activity arranged by the VSBA.

The Cleaning services plan is the guiding document for delivering specific cleaning services to a school, and an important accountability tool to ensure consistent standards are being provided. The plan gives schools the flexibility to determine their individual cleaning arrangements. It covers access times, security arrangements, cleaning tasks, staff rosters, additional cleaning requirements, periodic (holiday) cleaning arrangements and induction processes. It is important to note this plan is an agreement between the school and service provider that the department can help enforce. More detail is in the Cleaning services plan section of this chapter.

The department has also implemented ongoing third-party quality assurance audits that complement existing performance monitoring.