Cleaning

Types of cleaning services

This section provides an overview of the cleaning services, including additional service requests and the process for completing a work order agreement for additional requested cleaning services.

Routine (base) cleaning services

Routine (base) services are the department’s minimum requirements for cleaning services in schools. The base cleaning services are designed to be easily understood by school staff and cleaning service provider staff.

Cleaning standards and frequencies for routine (base) services

The Cleaning standards and frequency guide (DOCX) outlines the standard required for a facility to be considered clean. It outlines common requirements applicable across rooms and cleanable elements, with clear identifications of areas that require different level of cleaning. The department has simplified the frequency, with most areas now requiring daily cleaning and daily checks.

Periodic (holiday) cleaning services

The service provider must complete periodic (holiday) cleaning services during the term break in accordance with the approved cleaning services plan. There are recommended frequencies and agreed standards for all periodic cleaning services.

Before school holidays, schools may meet with the service provider before the commencement of each term break. In these meetings, schools are recommended to discuss:

• the periodic cleaning to be completed
• any elements not up to standard that have been captured during the termly checks
• any maintenance and building works or other activities such as school holiday programs scheduled over the term break which could impact the periodic cleaning
• site access, security and safety
• scheduled cleaning days with service providers, as per the end of term checklist.

No routine (base) cleaning services are provided during the term breaks – if the school would like base cleaning at this time, they must procure additional cleaning services with their nominated cleaning service provider.

After school holidays, the periodic clean must be delivered as per the cleaning services plan to ensure the cleaning standards are met before students return for the first day of term. If this has not occurred, a school representative is recommended to report this to the department via AIMS or the service providers’ contact centre. This will escalate the issue so rectification can begin.

Emergency cleaning requests

Under the agreement, each school is entitled to emergency cleans paid for by the department. An emergency situation is when a functional area of the school such as a classroom, bathroom, hallway, or any space used for teaching and learning becomes unusable due to an unexpected significant incident that cannot wait until the next scheduled clean.

Cleaning is classified as ‘emergency cleaning’ if it meets the below criteria:

1. the cleaning requirement is unexpected and has an immediate impact on the school’s operations, such as creating a hazard to staff or student health and safety or risk damage to the school/environment
2. school staff cannot readily resolve or make the site safe until the next scheduled clean
3. the service provider needs to respond to the incident outside scheduled cleaning times
4. results in major financial or reputational consequences for the school.

All cleaning requests that do not meet this definition fall into the category of non-emergency additional cleaning services, for which the school is responsible to pay for.

Emergency cleaning requests for spaces that are not entitled on the school’s Cleanable Area Report (CAR) are considered an additional cleaning service request and are the school’s responsibility to pay.

Entitled spaces are defined in the Capacity and Area Allocation policy and reflected in each school’s CAR.

Examples of situations that would classify under as an emergency clean include:

• vomit, urine or faeces in a classroom that renders a functional learning area unable to be used
• urine/faeces in a toilet block rendering the entire area unusable
• offensive graffiti.

Examples of situations when an emergency cleaning request may be declined include:

• calling for an emergency clean within the last 2 hours of the school day, understanding the regular cleaner will be onsite soon
• if a cleaner must return during school hours to fix poor cleaning from the night before. This needs to be raised as a cleaning incident in AIMS (this is not an emergency or additional clean).

Requesting an emergency clean

Schools can log emergency cleaning service requests via AIMS and with their service providers’ contact centre at any time. The cleaning services plan will detail the process. Where additional cleaning is required unexpectedly and urgently, schools are recommended to follow up with a phone call to their service provider after submitting the AIMS incident report.

Emergency cleaning must be addressed by the service provider within 2 hours of the request during the hours of 6 am and 7 pm. For emergency calls after 7 pm there is a 4-hour timeframe, with the expectation that the school representative will be kept reasonably informed of the progress.

If the service provider cannot complete the service request within the allocated timelines as above, they can request additional time from the school representative, provided they have a legitimate and unforeseeable reason.

Additional cleaning services

Additional cleaning services may be procured at the school’s discretion when required, such as for external hirer, fetes, sports events, and before/after school cleaning requirements. Additional funding is allocated to each school per year to procure such services. The school is responsible for the cost of any additional cleaning services undertaken.

The requirement to complete additional cleaning on a regular basis must be reflected in the school’s cleaning services plan as well as documented as an additional cleaning services request, and be procured via a work order agreement. For example, a weekly requirement to clean the gym after an external weekly hire.

One off, ad hoc additional clean requests do not need to be captured in the cleaning services plan.

Schools must use their nominated service provider for any additional cleaning service requests, and apply the following steps:

1. The school must log an ad hoc or routine additional service request via their service provider’s contact centre.
2. The service provider must provide a quotation within 5 business days (with the option to request an extension of up to 2 business days).
3. If the school accepts the quotation, the school must enter into a work order agreement. This work order agreement is created and logged in AIMS.
4. The service provider invoices the school directly, and the school is responsible for payment.

A work order agreement is a direct contractual arrangement between the service provider and the school. A work order agreement can be used either as a standing order for regular additional cleaning services or as an individual agreement for ad hoc additional cleaning services.

For detailed instructions, refer to the External contractor work orders (PDF) (staff login required) and the Routine maintenance tasks schedule (PDF) (staff login required) available in the AIMS Knowledge Centre (staff login required).