Cleaning Contract - Decentralised Education Institution

CONTRACT MANAGEMENT & PERFORMANCE

CLIENT CHALLENGE

In 2024 a major Australian education institution, with a large number of sites distributed across a state of Australia, sought to transition their decentralised cleaning contract to a coordinated contract with a single vendor supplying all locations. The purpose of the change was to reduce the administrative overhead at individual sites by centralising the administration associated with delivering the cleaning service, achieve economies of scale and increase the flexibility of cleaning workforce across the state. The contract was put to market and awarded, but when implemented was difficult to transition and did not achieve the outcomes expected

SCRIPTUS SOLUTION

Scriptus was tasked with reviewing both the contract and the transition to make recommendations that would achieve the goals sought by the client. Scriptus reviewed the tender, engaged extensively with the client stakeholders at all levels from corporate to users and also the successful vendor who was seeking to deliver the services.

Through this engagement and review process, numerous friction points were identified:

·      The tender put to market was suitable and the evaluation and award process was valid and appropriate

·      The pricing schedule of the contract had structural issues which made it difficult to execute

·      The mechanics of the invoicing process had not been sufficiently developed to be usable at the appropriate level

·      The detail around the scope of work and the information provided to levels below corporate was not enough to give the client and vendor confidence during implementation

·      The KPI’s identified in the contract required more detail in the metrics and remediation to be used by both the customer and supplier to manage the service delivery standard

To address these issues and provide a way forward that would achieve the coordinated cleaning service the organization sought Scriptus delivered:

·       Suggested Contract Variations for the Pricing Schedule and KPI’s to enable the implementation of the contract at the corporate level

·       Meeting Schedules and Meeting Terms of Reference for the meetings at each level required to govern, oversight and manage the contract

·       Contract Management Plans and User Guides to the six regions delivering the implementation across the state

·       Detailed Site Statements of work for 66 sites where the contract was being implemented

RESULTS

The additional detail, structures and processes provided by Scriptus enabled both the supplier and the customer to implement the contract with a higher level of confidence and more clarity of the expected outcomes on the part of both parties. At the corporate level there was sufficient governance in place that the efficiencies achieved were evident and the there was confidence in the decision to coordinate the service across the state. For the working level there was increased flexibility and better communication with the vendor, which resulted in easier service provision. For the successful vendor there was improved understanding of the requirement, confidence in invoicing and increased opportunities to develop their relationship with the customer.