Most facilities managers in Berkshire and Surrey will have a significant proportion of their budget in contracted out services such as commercial window cleaning, as much as 90% in some industries, so a good understanding of contracting principles and effective organisation of service contracts and commercial cleaning contracts is essential for all facilities managers in Berkshire and Surrey.

Out sourcing has almost grown into an industry in its own right. Cleaning companies illustrate this.

This has been driven by focusing more on their core business to create sharper commercial awareness and to reduce overheads.

each business in Surrey and Berkshire will have will have its own criteria of what defines core and non core business determining which elements will be kept in house or subcontracted out to third parties.

delegating work to a third party via commercial contract can generate a sense of risk or uncertainty and the work will not be directly under staff control.

However a well managed contract will be just as effective  as an in house managed function as long as good selection, specification setting and performance monitoring is carried out.

An interesting Video on project risk and contract management.