TUPE when you change facilities management supplier: what actually happens

Changing contractor rarely means changing the people. Here is how the transfer works and where it typically stalls.

If you are moving a cleaning or security contract from one supplier to another, the staff on your site will usually transfer with it. The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations — TUPE — treat a change of service provider as a transfer, and the incoming contractor inherits the existing team on their existing terms.

This surprises people who expected a change of supplier to mean a change of faces. In our experience it is usually the right outcome anyway: the incumbent team knows the building, and continuity is most of what separates a good clean from a poor one.

What has to happen, and who does it

• The outgoing supplier provides employee liability information — names, terms, length of service, disciplinary and grievance history, any collective agreements.
• Both suppliers inform and, where measures are proposed, consult with affected staff or their representatives.
• The incoming supplier takes on those employees on their existing terms and with continuity of service preserved.
• The client normally has no direct legal duty, but in practice sets the timetable and is the one who suffers if it slips.

Where it usually goes wrong

Three failures account for most of the trouble we see.

• Late or incomplete information, which forces the incoming supplier to mobilise on guesswork.
• Nobody talking to the staff. People find out their employer is changing through rumour, and the good ones start looking elsewhere before the transfer date.
• Pricing that assumed a cheaper workforce than the one that actually transfers, which produces either a loss-making contract or a quiet reduction in hours a few months in.

That third one is worth watching for in a tender. If a bid is materially cheaper than the incumbent and the same people are transferring on the same terms, ask where the saving comes from. Sometimes it is genuine — better routing, fewer supervisory layers. Often it is hours.

What good looks like

A transfer that works is boring. The information arrives on time, the staff are told properly and early, the incoming supervisor meets the team before the transfer date rather than on it, and the standard on day one is the same as the standard on the day before. Nobody in the building notices anything has happened, which is the point.