How to write a winning cleaning tender

Cleaning is one of the things the public sector buys most often. Councils, schools, academy trusts, NHS trusts, universities, police forces and housing associations all tender for it, from a single library to a portfolio of fifty sites. For a cleaning company that has never bid before, that's good news: the work is familiar, the contracts come round regularly, and buyers now have a legal duty to consider the barriers smaller suppliers face.

The hard part is rarely the cleaning. It's the tender pack. This guide walks through how to write a public sector cleaning bid that scores well: what's in the pack, how to answer the method statement questions, how to build a pricing schedule that holds up, what evidence to have ready, and the mistakes that cost good companies the contract.

What's in a cleaning tender pack?

Most cleaning tenders arrive as a bundle of documents on the buyer's e-tendering portal. The names vary, but you'll usually find:

• An invitation to tender (ITT) or tender instructions: the rules, the timetable, the deadline for clarification questions and how the bid will be scored.
• A specification: the sites, floor areas, room types, frequencies and standards the buyer expects. Read it twice. Everything you write should point back to it.
• A selection or qualification questionnaire: your company details, financial standing, insurance, health and safety record and the grounds for exclusion. Under the Procurement Act 2023, much of the basic company information now sits in your Central Digital Platform registration, and buyers may simply ask for your share code.
• Quality questions: the method statement questions, each with a word or page limit and a weighting.
• A pricing schedule: usually a spreadsheet you must complete exactly as laid out.
• Contract terms: the conditions you'll sign if you win.

Before you write a word, build a checklist of every document you must return, every question, its word limit and its weighting. It's dull, but it's what stops a bid being thrown out as non-compliant at the first sift.

How are cleaning bids scored?

Buyers publish their evaluation criteria in the tender documents. A typical cleaning contract splits the score between quality and price, for example 60% quality and 40% price, often with social value carved out of the quality share. Under the Procurement Act the award test is the "most advantageous tender", so the cheapest bid doesn't automatically win, but on cleaning price still carries real weight.

Each quality question is usually marked against a scale, such as 0 to 5, with a description for each score. A 5 might read "a comprehensive response that gives full confidence, supported by evidence". A 2 might read "addresses the question but lacks detail". Write to the top of that scale: specific, evidenced and tied to this buyer's sites.

Writing the cleaning method statement

The method statement is where you explain how you'll actually deliver the contract. In cleaning tenders it's usually split across several questions. These are the ones that come up most.

Mobilisation and TUPE

If an incumbent contractor already cleans the sites, their staff will almost certainly transfer to you under TUPE (the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations). Buyers want to see that you understand this and have a plan. Set out a week-by-week mobilisation timeline: consultation with transferring staff, uniform and ID issue, site inductions, equipment delivery, key handover and the first day of service. Name who leads it. Explain how you'll keep the existing team settled, because a walkout in week one is every buyer's nightmare.

Cleaning methods and frequencies

Show you've read the specification. Break your answer down by area type: offices, toilets, kitchens, classrooms, clinical areas, entrances. For each, say what you'll do, how often, and with what equipment and products. If the buyer uses a recognised standard, use its language. NHS buyers, for example, will usually refer to the National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness 2025 and its functional risk categories, and expect you to know what an FR1 area needs compared with an FR4.

Mention colour-coded equipment, safe storage of chemicals under COSHH (the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations), and how you'll handle periodic work such as deep cleans, carpet cleaning and high-level dusting.

Quality monitoring

This is where many bids are weakest. "We carry out regular inspections" scores badly. Say who inspects, how often, against what checklist, and what happens when a score falls short. If you use a recognised quality measurement approach such as BS EN 13549, or an audit app that records results with photos and timestamps, say so. Explain how the buyer will see the results: a monthly report, a shared dashboard, a contract review meeting.

Staffing, training and supervision

Buyers want to know who will do the work and how they'll be managed. Cover recruitment and vetting (including DBS checks for schools and healthcare sites), induction, ongoing training, supervision ratios, and how you'll cover sickness and holidays without the service slipping. If your team holds recognised training such as BICSc (British Institute of Cleaning Science) qualifications, mention it.

Health and safety

Expect a question on risk assessments, lone working, working at height, slips and trips, and incident reporting. Refer to your health and safety policy and accreditations, then give a short example of how you managed a real risk on a live site. One concrete example beats a page of policy.

Environmental management

Many buyers now ask how you'll reduce the environmental impact of the service: concentrated or eco-labelled products, microfibre systems that use less water and chemical, route planning to cut travel, and waste segregation. Larger central government contracts may also require a Carbon Reduction Plan.

Building the cleaning pricing schedule

Cleaning is a labour-heavy service, and the pricing schedule is often where a bid is won or lost. A few principles hold across almost every tender.

Build from hours, not from a target price. Work out the productive hours each site needs from the specification: floor areas, room types and frequencies. Then add travel, supervision, cover for holidays and sickness, training time and management.

Cost labour properly. Use the wage rates you'll actually pay, plus employer's National Insurance, pension contributions and holiday pay. If the buyer requires the real Living Wage or London Living Wage, price it in from the start. If staff transfer under TUPE, use the incumbent's pay and terms from the TUPE information the buyer provides, not your own standard rates.

Add everything else. Consumables, equipment and its replacement, uniforms, PPE, insurance, vehicles, overheads and a margin you can live with.

Complete the schedule exactly as asked. If the buyer wants a price per site, per month, per hour or per square metre, give it in that format, in every cell. Don't add your own columns, caveats or assumptions unless the instructions allow it.

Sense-check it. Buyers can investigate prices that look abnormally low and can reject a bid that can't be justified. A price that only works if supervision vanishes will be spotted. Equally, if you're far above the current contract value, ask yourself what you've included that others haven't.

The evidence buyers ask for

Have these ready before the tender lands, because pulling them together against a deadline is where the time disappears:

• Insurance: employer's liability, public liability and sometimes professional indemnity, at the levels the buyer sets. Under the Procurement Act a buyer can't require it to be in place before contract award, though you may be asked for evidence that you can get cover, such as a letter from an insurer.
• Health and safety accreditation: many buyers accept membership of an SSIP scheme such as CHAS or SafeContractor.
• Certifications: ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environmental) and ISO 45001 (health and safety) are common asks on larger contracts. If you don't hold them, describe the equivalent systems you run.
• Policies: health and safety, environmental, equality and diversity, modern slavery, safeguarding and data protection.
• Accounts: usually two or three years, sometimes with a credit check.
• References and case studies: two or three contracts of similar size and type, with a named contact who will answer the phone.

Social value in cleaning tenders

Social value is worth at least 10% of the total score (or an equivalent measure) on in-scope central government contracts, and councils often weight it similarly. For cleaning companies the strongest commitments tend to be about people: local recruitment, paying the real Living Wage, apprenticeships and training qualifications, jobs for people who face barriers to work, and spending with local suppliers. Make each commitment specific and measurable, and say how you'll report on it. Our guide to writing a social value response goes into this in detail.

Common mistakes in cleaning bids

Copying last year's answers. Evaluators can tell when a response was written for a different contract. Reuse your good material, but rewrite it for these sites, these hours and this buyer.

Not answering the question asked. Evaluators score what's asked. If a question has three parts, answer all three, in order, using the buyer's wording as your headings, and stay inside the word limit.

Under-pricing TUPE. Pricing transferred staff at your own rates rather than their protected terms is one of the fastest ways to win a contract you can't afford to run.

Vague quality answers. "We pride ourselves on high standards" is not evidence. Numbers, names, frequencies and examples are.

Missing the clarification deadline. If the specification is unclear, ask. A sharp clarification question shows the buyer you've read more carefully than anyone else.

Leaving submission to the last hour. Portals slow down near the deadline, uploads fail, and late bids are almost never accepted.

Where Jonty fits

Finding cleaning tenders is the easy part. Writing them is what stops most cleaning companies from competing. Jonty is an AI bid manager built to take that paperwork off your desk.

Jonty Scout finds the cleaning contracts that fit your business across sources such as Find a Tender, Contracts Finder and Public Contracts Scotland, and emails you the ones worth a look, with a note on why. It comes with a 21-day free trial.

With Jonty Bid Manager, Jonty reads the tender pack, builds the compliance checklist, drafts the method statement and social value answers from your own evidence, helps you work through the pricing schedule and handles the portal submission. Nothing goes to a buyer until you've approved it. Jonty does the paperwork. You do the work.

Cleaning tender FAQs

Can a cleaning company with no public sector experience win a contract?

Yes. Many cleaning contracts are split into lots by site or area so local firms can compete, and buyers must consider barriers to smaller suppliers. Start with contracts close in size to the work you already do, and use your private sector contracts as case studies.

Where are cleaning tenders advertised?

Most are published on Find a Tender in England, Public Contracts Scotland in Scotland, and buyers' own e-tendering portals. Contracts Finder now only carries procurements started before 24 February 2025. Searching by CPV code helps: 90910000 covers cleaning services and 90911200 building-cleaning services.

Do I need ISO certifications to bid?

Not always. Under the Procurement Act buyers should keep requirements proportionate to the contract. If a tender asks for a certification you don't hold, explain the equivalent system you run, or ask in a clarification question whether equivalents are accepted.

More bid guides

• How to write a winning construction tender
• How to write a winning IT services tender
• How to write a winning social value response