A Buyer's Scorecard (2026 edition)
A free, structured tool for any B2B buyer in Ireland — practice managers, school business managers, facilities leads, hospitality general managers, property managers, and procurement officers — to evaluate a commercial cleaning provider against twelve verifiable criteria before signing a contract.
Why this scorecard exists
Most quality complaints about commercial cleaning in Ireland are not about effort. They are about workforce design. The sector is structurally dependent on part-time and casual operatives, many of whom also work as healthcare assistants in nursing homes and acute care, and who rotate between cleaning shifts and care shifts depending on which is on offer that week. The Contract Cleaning Employment Regulation Order (ERO) sets a statutory floor of €14.80 per hour for 2026 under the Labour Court's Sectoral Employment Order; providers who pay at the floor compete for staff with adjacent care-sector roles paying €15–€17 per hour, which is why retention is poor across the lower end of the market.
The result, from a buyer's perspective, is the experience most facilities leads describe: a clean that is half-completed when the contracted cleaner is available, missed when they are not, and accompanied by recurring conversations about cover that may or may not arrive. The cause is not the individual cleaner. The cause is the contractual model the provider has chosen.
This scorecard moves the procurement conversation from price-per-month to structural-quality-of-the-model. The twelve criteria below are the ones that determine whether the cleaning will actually happen on the days it is meant to happen. They are all verifiable from a written quote, a draft contract, and a request for evidence before commencement.
How to use it
- Print the scorecard, or download the PDF.
- Send the criteria to every provider you are evaluating, and ask each provider to respond against each level (red flag, caution, green flag) with supporting evidence.
- Score each criterion ❌ / ⚠️ / ✅ based on the evidence supplied.
- Total the green flags. The aggregate score tells you whether the provider is structurally aligned with sector best practice or operating on a casual-staffed model that pushes risk onto the buyer.
The twelve criteria
1. Employment status of operatives
Why it matters. A PAYE-employed cleaner has a contract of employment with the cleaning provider, statutory annual leave, paid sick leave under the Sick Leave Act 2022, employer PRSI, pension auto-enrolment, and a fixed weekly schedule. A self-employed or casual operative has none of those, is responsible for their own tax and PRSI, and can withdraw from any shift without consequence. The risk of a missed clean sits with the buyer in a casual model and with the provider in a PAYE model. This is the single most important criterion on the scorecard because it determines who carries service-continuity risk.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | Operatives are self-employed, sub-contracted, or engaged on zero-hours casual terms. The provider cannot produce employment contracts on request. |
| ⚠️ Caution | Mixed model — some PAYE staff, some sub-contracted. Provider unable to confirm which model applies to your specific site. |
| ✅ Green flag | All operatives assigned to your site are PAYE-employed by the cleaning provider, with written contracts of employment, on guaranteed weekly hours. |
2. Named-cleaner continuity
Why it matters. A rotating workforce is an unfamiliar workforce. Operatives who do not know your site miss the things only a familiar cleaner notices — the room behind the reception bin, the second microwave in the staff kitchen, the consumable that runs out faster on the third week of the month. Continuity also matters for security clearance, IPC competence, and key-holding. A named primary cleaner plus a named relief is the only structure that combines familiarity with cover.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | Provider sends “whoever is available” each visit. No commitment to a specific operative or operatives. |
| ⚠️ Caution | A named primary cleaner is assigned but no named relief — when the primary is unavailable, cover is unspecified. |
| ✅ Green flag | A named primary cleaner is assigned to your site, with a named relief identified at contract signing, both Garda-vetted and inducted on the site before commencement. |
3. Wage benchmark relative to the ERO
Why it matters. The Contract Cleaning ERO sets a statutory minimum of €14.80 per hour for 2026. Providers paying at the floor are competing for staff with adjacent care-sector roles paying €15–€17 per hour. Retention at the floor is poor; retention above the floor is markedly better. A provider paying above the ERO is not being generous — they are buying retention, which is what makes the cleaning happen reliably. A provider paying at the floor is paying lawfully but is structurally unable to retain operatives over a multi-year contract.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | Provider does not confirm a specific hourly rate, or pays at or near the national minimum wage rather than the ERO rate, or relies on self-employed operatives to whom the ERO does not apply. |
| ⚠️ Caution | Provider confirms operatives are paid at the ERO floor of €14.80 per hour. |
| ✅ Green flag | Provider pays operatives above the ERO floor and is willing to confirm the rate band in writing as part of the contract. |
4. Garda vetting
Why it matters. Garda vetting is required by law for any role involving regular contact with children or vulnerable adults under the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012–2016. For healthcare-adjacent, education, and care-sector cleaning, vetting is non-negotiable. Even where it is not strictly required by statute, most procurement-led buyers expect it as table stakes for a provider entering an unsupervised workspace. A provider who cannot produce vetting evidence before commencement is asking the buyer to take it on trust.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | No vetting in place, or the provider is unable to confirm vetting status of the operatives assigned to your site. |
| ⚠️ Caution | Verbal claim that “all our staff are Garda-vetted” without supporting documentation on request. |
| ✅ Green flag | Vetting disclosure letters available on request, before commencement, for the specific operatives (primary + relief) assigned to your site. Vetting renewed within the validity period. |
5. Documented IPC training (healthcare-adjacent and food-handling sites)
Why it matters. Cleaning in healthcare, dental, allied health, food-handling, and education environments has infection-prevention-and-control (IPC) implications that go beyond surface cleaning. The HSE National Cleaning Standards Manual, the HIQA National Standards for Infection Prevention and Control in Community Services, HPSC guidance, and FSAI requirements (in food settings) all set out cleaning expectations that staff need to be trained against. Generic “cleaning experience” is not the same as documented IPC competence. For HIQA-inspected services, documented training is a regulatory expectation, not an option.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | No IPC training in place. Operatives are trained on the job by another cleaner. |
| ⚠️ Caution | Generic infection-awareness or COSHH-level induction only, not aligned to HIQA / HSE / HPSC standards. |
| ✅ Green flag | Documented IPC training programme aligned to the HSE National Cleaning Standards Manual, HIQA National Standards for IPC in Community Services, and HPSC guidance. Training records available on request. Refresher cycle defined. |
6. Insurance cover
Why it matters. Public Liability cover protects the buyer if a cleaner causes property damage or third-party injury at your site. Employer's Liability cover protects the cleaner — and by extension protects the buyer from being drawn into a personal-injury claim against an inadequately insured provider. The Irish norm for commercial cleaning is Public Liability of €6.5 million minimum and Employer's Liability of €13 million minimum. Anything less is sub-standard. Certificates of insurance must be valid at the time of commencement and at every renewal. A provider who cannot produce certificates before the contract starts has not yet bought the cover.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | Provider declines to share certificates, or holds Public Liability cover below €2.6 million, or has no Employer's Liability cover (which is also a Health and Safety Authority compliance issue). |
| ⚠️ Caution | Public Liability of €2.6–6.5 million only; Employer's Liability at the statutory minimum but not the industry norm. |
| ✅ Green flag | Public Liability ≥ €6.5 million and Employer's Liability ≥ €13 million, with current certificates available on request before commencement and at every renewal. |
7. Substitution model when the named cleaner is unavailable
Why it matters. Sickness, annual leave, and personal emergencies are facts of life. The question is what happens next. A casual-staffed provider responds with “we'll send someone” — meaning whoever is on the bench, often someone who has never been to your site. A structured provider responds with the named relief who was identified at contract signing, who has been site-inducted, and who will arrive within the contracted window. The difference is the difference between an interrupted clean and an uninterrupted clean.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | No documented substitution protocol. Provider commits only to “best efforts” cover. |
| ⚠️ Caution | Named relief identified on request but not site-inducted before contract start. Cover times not specified. |
| ✅ Green flag | Named relief assigned at contract signing, site-inducted before commencement, deployed within a documented response window (typically by 06:30 the same day for morning contracts), with same-day notification to the buyer. |
8. Pricing structure
Why it matters. Per-hour pricing creates variable invoicing, which creates variable monthly costs and a structural incentive for the provider to under-staff the visit. Fixed monthly fee pricing aligned to a defined scope creates cost certainty for the buyer and a structural incentive for the provider to staff the contract correctly, because the fee is the same whether the cleaner takes ninety minutes or two hours. Procurement teams managing multiple sites also find fixed fees materially easier to budget, audit, and benchmark across the portfolio.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | Per-hour billing with hours invoiced based on operative timesheet. Monthly cost varies by operative behaviour. |
| ⚠️ Caution | Monthly fee with hour-based variability, or “starts at X hours per visit” language that allows the provider to reduce time silently. |
| ✅ Green flag | Fixed monthly fee, scope-defined, with the deliverables specified by frequency and outcome rather than by operative-hours. |
9. Annual price review mechanism
Why it matters. A provider who quotes a flat price for a multi-year contract has either (a) priced in expected ERO and inflation increases up front, which means the buyer is paying for them in years one and two, or (b) is going to ask for an out-of-cycle price increase later. Neither is satisfactory. The professional approach is to index the contract to a published inflation measure — the CSO's Services Producer Price Index (SPPI), specifically the Cleaning, Industrial and Domestic Services component, is the natural anchor for Irish commercial cleaning — and to cap the annual review at the index movement. This protects both parties: the buyer is not exposed to opportunistic increases, and the provider is not eroded by ERO and wage inflation.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | No price review mechanism specified. Provider reserves the right to review prices “as required”. |
| ⚠️ Caution | Annual review at provider's discretion, with no published index reference and no cap. |
| ✅ Green flag | Annual price review indexed to a named published measure (e.g. CSO SPPI Cleaning component, or the ERO movement), with the increase capped at index movement, applied on a fixed anniversary date. |
10. Substitution communication protocol
Why it matters. Even with a named relief and a structured substitution protocol, the buyer still needs to know what happened. A provider who sends a substitute without telling the buyer creates a security and continuity issue: the practice manager arrives to find an unfamiliar person on site, may not be able to verify their identity, and has no record of the substitution for audit. The professional standard is same-day written notification — typically by email or SMS — naming the substitute, confirming their vetting status, and recording the reason for substitution.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | No commitment to communicate substitutions. Buyer discovers the change by seeing an unfamiliar person on site. |
| ⚠️ Caution | “We'll let you know” language, with no defined channel, format, or timeframe. |
| ✅ Green flag | Documented same-day notification protocol — email or SMS — naming the substitute, confirming vetting status, recording the reason, sent before the substitute arrives where possible. |
11. Method statements and risk assessments
Why it matters. Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and the General Application Regulations 2007, every workplace activity carrying a foreseeable risk requires a written risk assessment, and every cleaning activity in a shared workspace carries one. Method statements describe how a task will be performed; risk assessments identify the hazards and the control measures. Both should be site-specific — a generic “office cleaning” risk assessment is of limited use to a dental practice with sharps, or to a food-prep area with allergen-control requirements. The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) treats absence of site-specific documentation as a compliance issue for the cleaning provider; a buyer-side audit treats it as a quality signal.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | No method statements or risk assessments provided. |
| ⚠️ Caution | Generic templates supplied that are not site-specific. |
| ✅ Green flag | Site-specific method statements and risk assessments, dated, signed, and available before commencement. Refresh cycle defined. |
12. Single point of contact for the contract
Why it matters. Multi-site, multi-stakeholder procurement falls apart when the buyer has to retell the same story every time someone on the provider's side leaves. A named contract manager — one person, named on the contract, with email, direct line, and mobile — is the difference between a relationship that compounds and one that resets. Rotating account managers and shared inboxes (“info@…” or “operations@…”) signal that the provider does not staff their own continuity, which is the precursor to staffing-continuity issues on the cleaning side too.
| Level | Evidence to expect |
|---|---|
| ❌ Red flag | Rotating account managers, or no named contact at all. Communication routed through a generic inbox. |
| ⚠️ Caution | Shared inbox plus a named manager who handles many accounts, with no commitment to continuity over the contract term. |
| ✅ Green flag | A named primary contact for the entire contract term, with direct line, mobile, and email, plus a named deputy. Quarterly contract review meeting in the diary at signing. |
What the result tells you
Add up the green flags out of twelve.
10–12 green flags — Structurally sound
The provider is structurally aligned with sector best practice. Their contractual model places service-continuity risk on the provider side, not the buyer side. This is what a sustainable cleaning contract looks like over a three- to five-year term.
5–9 green flags — Serious questions
The provider has done some things properly and not others. There are serious questions to follow up before signing — particularly around the criteria scoring ❌. A red flag on employment status, Garda vetting, or insurance is contract-stopping by itself.
0–4 green flags — Casual-staffed model
The provider is operating on a casual-staffed model. The headline price will look attractive. The buyer is carrying the risk of every missed clean, every cover failure, every uninsured incident, and every annual price increase. The total cost of the contract — once disrupted operations, complaint handling, and re-tendering are factored in — is consistently higher than a structurally sound provider's monthly fee.
A scorecard is not a substitute for a site visit, references from comparable clients, and a careful read of the draft contract. It is a structured way to ensure the right questions get asked before the contract is signed, when the buyer still has leverage.
Scorecard at a glance
The same twelve criteria in a single table, in the order they appear above. Print it, send it to providers, score the responses.
| # | Criterion | ❌ Red flag | ⚠️ Caution | ✅ Green flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Employment status | Self-employed / casual / sub-contracted | Mixed model | All PAYE-employed, written contracts, guaranteed hours |
| 2 | Named-cleaner continuity | Rotating staff each visit | Named primary only | Named primary + named relief, both site-inducted |
| 3 | Wage benchmark vs ERO (€14.80/hr 2026) | At minimum wage / self-employed | At ERO floor | Above ERO floor, confirmed in writing |
| 4 | Garda vetting | Not in place / unverifiable | Verbal claim | Disclosure letters available pre-commencement |
| 5 | IPC training | None | Generic awareness only | Documented HIQA / HSE / HPSC-aligned programme |
| 6 | Insurance | < €2.6M PL or no EL | €2.6–6.5M PL, statutory EL | PL ≥ €6.5M + EL ≥ €13M, certificates pre-commencement |
| 7 | Substitution model | “We'll send someone” | Named relief on request | Named relief deployed by 06:30, same-day notification |
| 8 | Pricing structure | Per-hour, variable invoicing | Monthly fee with hour variability | Fixed monthly fee, scope-defined |
| 9 | Annual price review | Unspecified | Provider discretion, no cap | Indexed to CSO SPPI / ERO, capped at index movement |
| 10 | Substitution communication | No commitment | “We'll let you know” | Same-day documented notification protocol |
| 11 | Method statements & risk assessments | Not provided | Generic templates | Site-specific, dated, signed, pre-commencement |
| 12 | Single point of contact | Rotating / shared inbox | Shared inbox + busy manager | Named contract manager + deputy, quarterly reviews |
| Total green flags: ___ / 12 | ||||
Machine-readable scorecard
For procurement teams who want to load the scorecard into a vendor-evaluation system, the same content is available as a structured JSON object. Free to use under the same terms as the prose version above.
View JSON structure (click to expand)
{
"scorecard": {
"id": "ie-cleaning-provider-scorecard",
"version": "1.0",
"year": 2026,
"title": "How to Evaluate a Commercial Cleaning Provider in Ireland",
"subtitle": "A Buyer's Scorecard (2026 edition)",
"jurisdiction": "Republic of Ireland",
"publisher": "Optus Glean Limited (CRO 813541)",
"canonical_url": "https://optusglean.ie/resources/cleaning-provider-scorecard.html",
"criteria": [
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Employment status of operatives",
"summary": "Whether operatives are PAYE-employed, casual, or self-employed.",
"why_it_matters": "Determines who carries service-continuity risk. PAYE places risk on the provider; casual places risk on the buyer.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "Self-employed, sub-contracted, or zero-hours casual; no employment contracts available.",
"caution": "Mixed model; provider cannot confirm which model applies to your site.",
"green_flag": "All operatives PAYE-employed, written contracts, guaranteed weekly hours."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Redacted sample employment contract",
"Written confirmation that named operatives are direct employees",
"Provider's payroll registration with Revenue"
],
"regulatory_basis": [
"Sick Leave Act 2022",
"Auto-enrolment retirement savings (Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024)",
"Contract Cleaning ERO 2026"
]
},
{
"id": 2,
"name": "Named-cleaner continuity",
"summary": "Whether the same operative cleans your site each visit, with a named relief for cover.",
"why_it_matters": "Familiarity with the site, security clearance continuity, and IPC competence are all undermined by rotating staff.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "Whoever is available each visit; no commitment to specific operatives.",
"caution": "Named primary only; relief unspecified.",
"green_flag": "Named primary + named relief at contract signing, both Garda-vetted and site-inducted before commencement."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Names of the assigned primary cleaner and named relief in writing",
"Confirmation that both have completed site induction"
],
"regulatory_basis": []
},
{
"id": 3,
"name": "Wage benchmark relative to the ERO",
"summary": "Whether operatives are paid above, at, or below the Contract Cleaning ERO floor of €14.80/hr (2026).",
"why_it_matters": "Retention at the ERO floor is poor because adjacent care-sector roles pay €15-€17/hr. Pay above the floor is what buys retention.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "No specific rate confirmed, paid at NMW, or self-employed (ERO does not apply).",
"caution": "Operatives paid at the ERO floor of €14.80/hr.",
"green_flag": "Operatives paid above the ERO floor, rate band confirmed in writing in the contract."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Written confirmation of the wage band paid to operatives assigned to your site",
"Confirmation that the ERO is being applied"
],
"regulatory_basis": [
"Contract Cleaning Employment Regulation Order 2026 (Labour Court / Workplace Relations Commission)"
]
},
{
"id": 4,
"name": "Garda vetting",
"summary": "Whether operatives assigned to your site hold current Garda vetting disclosures.",
"why_it_matters": "Required by law in healthcare-adjacent, education, and care environments; expected as table stakes by procurement-led buyers in any unsupervised workspace.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "No vetting in place or vetting status of assigned operatives unconfirmable.",
"caution": "Verbal claim with no supporting documentation on request.",
"green_flag": "Disclosure letters available on request, before commencement, for the named primary and relief; renewed within the validity period."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Garda vetting disclosure letters for named operatives",
"Provider's vetting policy and renewal cycle"
],
"regulatory_basis": [
"National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Persons) Acts 2012-2016"
]
},
{
"id": 5,
"name": "Documented IPC training",
"summary": "Whether operatives have documented infection-prevention-and-control training aligned to Irish healthcare and food-safety standards.",
"why_it_matters": "Healthcare, dental, allied health, food-handling, and education environments have IPC requirements that go beyond surface cleaning. Generic experience is not the same as documented competence.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "No IPC training; on-the-job learning only.",
"caution": "Generic infection-awareness or COSHH-level induction only.",
"green_flag": "Documented IPC programme aligned to HSE National Cleaning Standards Manual, HIQA National Standards for IPC in Community Services, and HPSC guidance, with training records and refresher cycle."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Copy of the IPC training programme",
"Training records for operatives assigned to your site",
"Refresher cycle documentation"
],
"regulatory_basis": [
"HSE National Cleaning Standards Manual",
"HIQA National Standards for Infection Prevention and Control in Community Services",
"HPSC guidance",
"FSAI requirements (food-handling sites)"
]
},
{
"id": 6,
"name": "Insurance cover",
"summary": "Public Liability and Employer's Liability cover at industry-norm levels.",
"why_it_matters": "Public Liability protects the buyer if the cleaner causes property damage or third-party injury. Employer's Liability protects the cleaner and prevents the buyer being drawn into personal-injury claims against an under-insured provider.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "Certificates not shared, PL below €2.6M, or no EL cover (HSA compliance issue).",
"caution": "PL between €2.6-6.5M; EL at statutory minimum but below industry norm.",
"green_flag": "PL ≥ €6.5M and EL ≥ €13M, current certificates available before commencement and at every renewal."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Current Public Liability certificate on insurer's headed paper",
"Current Employer's Liability certificate on insurer's headed paper",
"Validity dates covering the contract term"
],
"regulatory_basis": [
"Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 (HSA, EL requirement)"
]
},
{
"id": 7,
"name": "Substitution model when the named cleaner is unavailable",
"summary": "How the provider handles sickness, leave, and emergencies.",
"why_it_matters": "The difference between a casual model and a structured model is most visible the moment the named cleaner is not available. Casual: 'we'll send someone.' Structured: the named relief, already site-inducted, deployed within a contracted window.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "No documented protocol; 'best efforts' cover only.",
"caution": "Named relief on request but not site-inducted before contract start; cover times not specified.",
"green_flag": "Named relief assigned at contract signing, site-inducted before commencement, deployed within a documented response window (typically by 06:30 same-day for morning contracts), with same-day notification to the buyer."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Written substitution protocol",
"Name of the assigned relief",
"Agreed response time",
"Notification mechanism"
],
"regulatory_basis": []
},
{
"id": 8,
"name": "Pricing structure",
"summary": "Whether the contract is priced as a fixed monthly fee or as variable per-hour billing.",
"why_it_matters": "Per-hour billing creates variable invoicing and a structural incentive to under-staff visits. Fixed monthly fee creates cost certainty for the buyer and a structural incentive for the provider to staff the contract correctly.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "Per-hour billing; monthly cost varies by operative timesheet.",
"caution": "Monthly fee with hour-based variability or 'starts at X hours per visit' language.",
"green_flag": "Fixed monthly fee, scope-defined, with deliverables specified by frequency and outcome rather than operative-hours."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Written quote in the form of a fixed monthly fee",
"Scope definition (rooms, frequencies, outcomes) separately from price",
"Sample invoice"
],
"regulatory_basis": []
},
{
"id": 9,
"name": "Annual price review mechanism",
"summary": "How the contract handles inflation, ERO movement, and wage increases over a multi-year term.",
"why_it_matters": "Flat multi-year prices either over-charge in years one and two or invite out-of-cycle increases later. Indexing to a published measure (CSO SPPI Cleaning component) and capping at index movement is the professional answer.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "No price review mechanism specified; provider reserves right to review 'as required'.",
"caution": "Annual review at provider's discretion, no index reference, no cap.",
"green_flag": "Annual review indexed to a named published measure (CSO SPPI Cleaning, or ERO movement), capped at index movement, applied on a fixed anniversary date."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Price-review clause from the draft contract",
"Named index reference",
"Cap at index movement",
"Fixed anniversary review date"
],
"regulatory_basis": [
"CSO Services Producer Price Index (SPPI), Cleaning, Industrial and Domestic Services component"
]
},
{
"id": 10,
"name": "Substitution communication protocol",
"summary": "How and when the buyer is told that a substitute is on site.",
"why_it_matters": "Even with a named relief, the buyer needs same-day notification for security, audit, and continuity. A substitute who arrives without notice is an issue regardless of how competent they are.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "No commitment to communicate substitutions.",
"caution": "'We'll let you know' language, no defined channel, format, or timeframe.",
"green_flag": "Documented same-day notification protocol (email or SMS) naming the substitute, confirming vetting, recording the reason, sent before the substitute arrives where possible."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Written substitution-communication protocol",
"Sample notification"
],
"regulatory_basis": []
},
{
"id": 11,
"name": "Method statements and risk assessments",
"summary": "Site-specific safety documentation under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.",
"why_it_matters": "Risk assessments are a statutory requirement under the 2005 Act and the General Application Regulations 2007. Site-specific documentation also signals operational quality; generic templates do not.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "No method statements or risk assessments provided.",
"caution": "Generic templates supplied; not site-specific.",
"green_flag": "Site-specific method statements and risk assessments, dated, signed, available before commencement, with a defined refresh cycle."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Site-specific method statement",
"Site-specific risk assessment",
"Both dated and signed by the provider's competent person",
"Refresh cycle"
],
"regulatory_basis": [
"Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005",
"Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007"
]
},
{
"id": 12,
"name": "Single point of contact",
"summary": "Whether the contract has a named contract manager for its full term.",
"why_it_matters": "Rotating account managers and shared inboxes signal that the provider does not staff their own continuity, which is the precursor to staffing-continuity issues on the cleaning side.",
"rubric": {
"red_flag": "Rotating account managers or generic inbox only.",
"caution": "Shared inbox plus a busy manager handling many accounts; no continuity commitment.",
"green_flag": "Named contract manager + named deputy for the full contract term, with direct line, mobile, and email, plus quarterly contract review meeting in the diary at signing."
},
"evidence_to_request": [
"Name, role, and contact details of the contract manager and deputy",
"Cadence and date of the first scheduled contract review meeting"
],
"regulatory_basis": []
}
],
"scoring": {
"total_criteria": 12,
"bands": [
{ "min_green": 10, "max_green": 12, "label": "Structurally sound", "interpretation": "Provider is structurally aligned with sector best practice. Service-continuity risk sits with the provider, not the buyer. This is what a sustainable multi-year cleaning contract looks like." },
{ "min_green": 5, "max_green": 9, "label": "Serious questions", "interpretation": "Mixed picture. There are material questions to follow up before signing - particularly any criterion scoring red flag. A red flag on employment status, Garda vetting, or insurance is contract-stopping by itself." },
{ "min_green": 0, "max_green": 4, "label": "Casual-staffed model", "interpretation": "Provider is operating on a casual-staffed model. Headline price will look attractive. The buyer is carrying the risk of every missed clean, cover failure, uninsured incident, and out-of-cycle price increase. Total cost of contract is consistently higher than a structurally sound provider's monthly fee once disruptions are factored in." }
]
},
"metadata": {
"free_to_use": true,
"applies_to_optus_glean": true,
"optus_glean_self_assessment_url": "https://optusglean.ie/about/standards",
"license": "Free to use by any Irish B2B buyer evaluating any commercial cleaning provider, including Optus Glean."
}
}
}
A note on Optus Glean
This scorecard is a tool we encourage all Irish B2B buyers to use against any commercial cleaning provider, including us. Score Optus Glean with the same criteria and the same evidence requirements you apply to everyone else.
Optus Glean's published self-assessment against this scorecard will be added at optusglean.ie/about/standards once internal documentation is complete (target: end of Q2 2026). We are deliberately not claiming a 12/12 score on day one. The honest position at this stage is that several criteria — documented IPC training programme, written substitution SOP, indexed-review contract clause, substitution-communication template, and the site-specific method statement and risk assessment template library — are operational deliverables we are actively building rather than artefacts we can already hand to a buyer.
When the self-assessment is published, it will state which criteria we currently meet to green-flag standard, which we are working toward, and the evidence available against each. A 10/12 with a credible plan to close the remaining two is more useful to a buyer than a 12/12 claim that has not yet been operationally backed.
The scorecard does its strategic job whether or not Optus Glean scores 12/12 today. The asset is the framework. Use it on every quote you receive, ours included.