Lee Andrews, CEO of DOC Cleaning, reports.
The APPG report issued in December must rate as the most significant achievement to date of the body set up to provide representation for the cleaning industry in Parliament for the first time in its history. Congratulations are due to Jim Melvin and his team at the BCC for the passion he has shown in bringing the industry to this latest stage of its development.
The report draws on the experience of three critical stakeholder groups: public health professionals; owners of buildings used by the public; and last, but not least, cleaning contractors and industry suppliers. This gives it the requisite credibility and the report itself sets out 11 excellent recommendations. Whilst we all hope there won’t be another pandemic on the scale we experienced, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever be completely free of the threat, so having a contingency plan for our industry to deal with any eventuality sounds like a very sensible way forward. What’s interesting, however, is that whilst there are several recommendations that relate directly to the pandemic, there are three which I would argue need to be implemented, pandemic or not.
The first recommendation that resonates as being essential for the progress of our industry is that 'urgent consideration be given to making cleaning staff eligible for the Skilled Worker Visa scheme'. We’re all acutely aware of the challenge in recruiting both front line and management staff for our industry, which is why the list of eligible occupations for a Skilled Worker Visa on the Government’s website makes for very interesting reading. The emphasis is very much on skilled, rather than essential. So you will qualify if you are a piano tuner, or photographer, but not as a cleaning supervisor or manager, let alone a front-line cleaning operative. Of the industries which are desperately short of front-line staff in the UK, the care industry stands out as the only one where non-managerial staff can apply. Then there is the minimum salary requirement of £25,600. The irony is that if a cleaner worked a 40-hour week at the London Real Living Wage, they would now be only just shy of this figure on an annual basis. So, even if skilled worker status were to be granted, there is still the inbuilt bias in the visa programme against part-time workers.
A recommendation that is perhaps more likely to gain traction is the 'development of a standard qualification for cleaning within the Apprentice Levy to improve the quality and career prospects of people entering the cleaning industry'. It is not for want of trying by members of our industry that there is still no specific cleaning apprenticeship approved by the Institute for Apprenticeships. However, it is beginning to feel as though the prospects of this are diminishing and that we should now concentrate on lobbying to have third party training organisations approved for drawdown of Levy funding. 'Write to your MP', as Jim Melvin encouraged delegates to do at a recent conference.
Lastly, there is the very welcome aspiration that the 'Government should support the cleaning and hygiene industry to promote a realignment in perceptions of the industry'. I honestly believe that we’ve already made a great deal of progress here, partly because of COVID, and partly because of the way cleaning is exploiting new technology and adapting itself to the new post-COVID hybrid working habits of the nation. This feels like an area where the Government probably needs us, as an industry, to provide the material for them to deliver. We should all support the BCC/CSSA in drawing up a plan.
As a final thought, I imagine the question in most people’s minds is whether our current government will see any of this as a priority in what may turn out to be its last 18 months in power. It’s true, cleaning reform of any shape or size will never be a vote winner. That does not detract, however, from the excellent work done by the APPG in getting this report onto the table.
www.doccleaning.com
About the contributor
Lee Andrews
CEO
DOC Cleaning