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In principle the cleaning arrangements for schools and hospitals should be relatively straightforward. They know what they require, the cleaning company can then tender using those requirements as a basis for the quotation. If the contractor cannot sustain the correct level of cleaning then another is brought in. This is the situation in the commercial world.

You are provided with a brief and using that the cleaning company prepares its quotation. It then either gains the contract or does not. If it then underperforms notice is given and another company is engaged.

Things in the world of Local Government and NHS Trusts do not quite work like that. Both are laden with beaurocrats whose sole function is to draw up the tender requirements, vet firms as suitable and then oversee the contracts. Theirs is a purely paper exercise, everything being documented and filled in on appropriate forms and passed from one person to the next. This layer of individuals is a complete waste of money and it would be better spent on allowing more for the contracts so that in the case of cleaners the contractor could hire more cleaners to carry out the job.

However that is not the end of it because we then have another layer of local government management whose function is to go out and investigate complaints about the cleaning. These fill in endless forms and produce sheets of written reports but the cleaning does not improve.

These layers of civil servants could all be dispensed with thus saving, across the country millions of pounds, which could then be spent on improving the service. So who does the hiring and monitoring? The individuals on the receiving end! In the case of schools it would be the head teacher who could obtain their supplies and services from whomever they wished instead of being told who they can and cannot purchase from. This system, said to be efficient often leads to money being wasted, but the authorities have a vested interest in maintaining it because otherwise they would be out of a job.

Talk to any headteacher in the UK and you will have stories of how they could have got something much cheaper but were not allowed to because the company involved was not an approved supplier.

In the Health Service you have even more layers of managers when it would be better for each unit manager to engage the contractor and oversee in this case the cleaning. Instead we have multi million pound cleaning contracts being awarded to the large multinational cleaning companies because bigger is better and more efficient and cost saving. In some cases and this is one of them big is not better it only enables this tier of middle management to justify their jobs. Sweep them away, clean them out and give the power back to the smaller unit. That way cleaning will improve and money will be saved.

Walk into any hospital now and look around at the number of offices as compared to the treatment facilities. Most NHS Trusts also have quite separate multi-storey office complexes where no treatment occurs only paper shuffling. What and where do our priorities lay?