CSSA, Promoting professional cleaning


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Promoting professional cleaning
April 01st 2010

The Cleaning and Support Services Association (CSSA) is the UK trade association for contract cleaning businesses. Founded in 1967, the CSSA provides services to and represents the interests of a wide variety of contract cleaning businesses, from global facility service contractors to local cleaning specialists.

The primary goal of the CSSA is the promotion of a professional cleaning industry.We seek to build on the reputation of the sector and to promote progressive working practices such as daytime cleaning, ethical management and sustainable cleaning. Increasingly, the CSSA also aims to provide direct commercially beneficial services to its members.

The CSSA provides four major groups of services to its members:

• We promote the benefits of professional outsourced cleaning to the widest possible audience;

• We work with the UK Government and public authorities in the EU and globally to ensure that the opinion of the cleaning industry is heard in the development of policy;

• We enable members to participate in benchmarking and quality initiatives that

drive up standards in the sector;

• We provide services of direct commercial benefit to members.

The past year has been challenging for the cleaning sector. As clients sought to cut costs during the recession, cleaning frequencies were reduced. This in turn led to lower contract values.However, on the more positive side, public spending on cleaning remained buoyant and those companies that were able to offer high quality services and bundled services continued to do well.

2010 trend and challenges

For 2010, the picture for cleaning again looks mixed. Speaking optimistically, the emergence of the UK economy from recession should lead the sector to grow again. Public sector outsourcing is also forecast to grow as public authorities seek to maximise the value that they receive from the services they use. However, the significant public spending cuts that are due in 2010 will have a negative impact on cleaning contract values.

Larger private clients may also seize the opportunity to restructure their service providers into a smaller number of larger service organisations.

A further trend for 2010 will be daytime cleaning.Driven by both sustainability considerations and labour supply challenges (as UK immigration becomes more difficult for unskilled workers), 2010 will be the year that both clients and contractors fully embrace the value that daytime cleaning can provide.

The key challenge for UK cleaning contractors in 2010 will be to demonstrate that they offer outstanding value for the price of the service that they are offering.

“2010 will bring significant opportunities for those cleaning contractors that can demonstrate significant value to clients especially in terms of quality of clean and sustainability,” says Andrew Large, chief executive CSSA.