TUPE and Changing Your Cleaning Contractor: A Plain Guide
Changing cleaning contractor is normally a service provision change under TUPE 2006. Cleaners assigned to your site transfer to the incoming contractor on their existing terms with continuity of service preserved. The outgoing employer must supply employee liability information at least 28 days before the transfer, and both employers must inform and consult employee representatives.
Most office managers meet TUPE for the first time when they decide to replace a cleaning contractor and someone asks whether the cleaners come with the contract. The short answer is usually yes. The longer answer decides your timetable, your tender wording and how calm the first week of the new contract feels.
Nothing here is legal advice. Acas and gov.uk publish the authoritative plain English guidance and both are linked at the bottom of this page. If the transfer is complex, take proper advice.
Why does TUPE apply to a cleaning contract at all?
The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 cover two situations. The first is a business transfer, where a business or part of one changes owner. The second is a service provision change, and that is the one that catches cleaning.
A service provision change happens when a client moves activities from one provider to another, brings them in house, or outsources them for the first time. Moving your cleaning from Contractor A to Contractor B is the classic example. For the regulations to bite there has to be an organised grouping of employees whose principal purpose is carrying out those activities for you, and the activities after the change have to be fundamentally the same.
That last test matters. If you replace five nights of evening cleaning with two mornings a week and a different scope entirely, the position may be arguable. If you are buying broadly the same clean from a different supplier, assume TUPE applies and plan for it.
What transfers with the cleaners?
Employees assigned to the organised grouping transfer automatically on the date the contract changes hands. They move to the incoming contractor on their existing terms and conditions, and their continuity of employment is preserved.
| What moves | Detail |
|---|---|
| Contract of employment | Transfers as it stands to the new employer |
| Pay and hours | Existing rates and contracted hours carry over |
| Continuity of service | Start date with the original employer is preserved |
| Holiday entitlement and accrued leave | Transfers with the employee |
| Liabilities and most claims | Pass to the incoming employer |
| Collective agreements | Generally transfer, with limits |
| Occupational pension rights | Special rules apply, take advice |
Dismissing someone because of the transfer itself is automatically unfair, subject to the exceptions in the regulations. Changing terms because of the transfer is also restricted. Buyers sometimes assume a new contractor can simply reset wages on day one. That assumption creates a claim.
What is the timetable?
Work backwards from your intended start date. A comfortable mobilisation for an office or a managed block looks like this.
- Twelve weeks out. Decide whether you are going to market. Put a TUPE clause in the tender pack and ask bidders to price on the transferring staff.
- Ten weeks out. Request anonymised TUPE information from the outgoing contractor: number of staff, hours, pay rates, job titles, length of service, any outstanding claims or disciplinary matters.
- Eight weeks out. Issue the information to bidders so they can price the same labour cost. Without it you are comparing guesses.
- Six weeks out. Award the contract and confirm the transfer date in writing to both suppliers.
- At least four weeks out. The outgoing employer must provide employee liability information to the incoming employer. Acas states this is due at least 28 days before the transfer.
- Four to two weeks out. Both employers inform and consult appropriate representatives about the transfer and any measures envisaged. Meetings with the affected staff usually happen here.
- Two weeks out. Agree access, keys, fobs, store cupboard handover, COSHH files, machinery ownership and the first cleaning schedule.
- Transfer date. Staff start with the incoming contractor. The specification takes effect.
Late TUPE information is the single most common cause of a messy mobilisation. Acas notes that where the outgoing employer fails to supply it, the incoming employer can bring a tribunal claim and compensation can be awarded per affected employee.
What is employee liability information?
It is the set of facts the incoming employer needs to employ the transferring staff properly from day one. In broad terms it covers identity and age, the written statement of employment particulars, disciplinary and grievance records from the previous two years, claims brought in the previous two years or likely to be brought, and any collective agreements. Acas publishes the detail and the timing.
You are not the employer, so the duty sits between the two contractors. Your job as the client is to make sure it actually happens, because a delay on their side lands in your building.
What should you put in the tender documents?
- A statement that you believe TUPE applies and that bidders must price accordingly.
- The anonymised staff data you have obtained from the outgoing contractor.
- A requirement that the incoming contractor manages the transfer process and reports progress to you weekly.
- Your own policy positions, such as whether you require the Real Living Wage or DBS checking on this site. Ask for both to be confirmed in writing in the contract rather than assumed.
- The notice period you need on the outgoing contract, checked before you go to market.
- A mobilisation plan requirement covering training, uniform, equipment and the first audit date.
Does TUPE mean you are stuck with the same cleaners?
No. It means you keep the same people on the same terms, under better management. That is often the outcome you want. The cleaners already know your building, your alarm codes, your quirks about the third floor kitchen. What changes is supervision, the written cleaning specification, the equipment and whether anyone audits the work.
Where a genuine performance problem sits with an individual, that is a normal employment matter for the new employer to handle on its own merits after the transfer, with proper process.
Planning a change of contractor
We handle the TUPE process during mobilisation and keep you updated in writing at each stage. If you manage a block or an estate, our communal area and block cleaning page sets out how contracts start, and you can see the buildings we cover around Spinningfields.