Research report 96 - Coming clean: contractual and procurement practices

In September 2013 the Commission launched a project to examine employment practices in the cleaning sector in England, Scotland and Wales. We wanted to understand how employers comply with their equality obligations in the work place and respect human rights. We focused on standardised, non-domestic cleaning in the office, health, retail, transport and leisure sectors as these are the four largest users of cleaning services.We published our findings in August 2014. To support the sector to respect all workplace rights our report contains recommendations for the key bodies in the sector.

Our recommendations focus on the most significant findings, and address the need to improve working conditions for cleaning operatives, raise awareness of employment rights and establish more responsible procurement practices.