Strategic Cost Reduction & Service Optimisation – University Campus

The University of Lincoln has partnered with ICS Cleaning Services for over two decades, delivering cleaning services across a complex and expanding university estate.

In late 2024, the university faced wider financial pressures and began reviewing operational costs across multiple departments. As part of this process, the Estates and Finance teams asked ICS to work collaboratively with them to identify opportunities to reduce cleaning expenditure by approximately 20% while maintaining the high standards expected across a modern university campus.

The challenge was significant. The cleaning contract covered a wide range of environments including academic buildings, lecture theatres, libraries, student facilities, offices, circulation areas, and other specialist spaces. Any cost reduction programme therefore needed to be carefully designed to ensure standards remained consistent, student experience was protected, and key operational areas were not negatively affected.

Rather than reducing service quality, the objective was to achieve meaningful savings through smarter working practices, improved productivity, and a more data-led approach to service delivery.

ICS worked closely with the University of Lincoln’s Estates and Finance teams to develop a structured cost reduction programme based on operational analysis and value engineering.

Using detailed productivity reviews and site-level operational data, our management team assessed how cleaning resources were currently deployed across the campus. This allowed us to identify opportunities to improve efficiency without compromising the quality of service delivered in key academic and student-facing areas.

The project focused on reviewing cleaning rotas, shift structures, and task allocation across buildings. By carefully analysing how time was spent across the estate, ICS was able to redesign elements of the cleaning schedule to improve productivity and remove inefficiencies.

Importantly, the process was carried out in close partnership with the university’s leadership team, ensuring all proposed changes were transparent, evidence-based, and aligned with the university’s operational priorities.

The optimisation programme was delivered over a six-month period, allowing ICS and the University to implement changes in a controlled and structured manner.

Cleaning rotas were reviewed across multiple buildings to ensure resources were aligned with actual building usage, peak demand periods, and operational priorities. This included adjusting cleaning frequencies in lower-use areas while protecting standards in critical student and teaching environments.

Shift patterns and staffing deployment were also refined to improve efficiency across the campus estate. These adjustments allowed ICS to maintain full coverage of the university’s facilities while operating with a more streamlined and productive service model.

Throughout the project, ICS maintained regular communication with university stakeholders, ensuring the Estates team had full visibility of progress and performance.

Maintaining service quality throughout the cost reduction programme was a key priority for both ICS and the University of Lincoln.

To support this, ICS utilised digital inspection and reporting tools, including iAuditor, which allowed performance data to be captured and shared in real time. This provided clear visibility of cleaning standards across the estate and ensured any issues could be addressed quickly.

The use of digital reporting dashboards allowed both ICS management and university representatives to monitor service performance and verify that standards remained consistent while operational efficiencies were implemented.

In addition, previous independent benchmarking exercises carried out in 2022 had already demonstrated that the cleaning service delivered by ICS was performing at a high level compared to similar university estates. This gave both parties confidence that the optimisation programme could be implemented without compromising quality.

The strategic optimisation programme successfully delivered the university’s target of approximately 20% cost savings within a six-month period.

These savings were achieved through improved productivity, smarter scheduling, and better alignment between cleaning resources and building usage, rather than through reductions in service quality.

Key teaching, learning, and student areas continued to receive full cleaning support, and the university experienced no significant increase in complaints during the transition.

The project demonstrated the value of a long-term partnership approach, with ICS working collaboratively with the University of Lincoln to identify practical solutions that balanced financial efficiency with operational performance.

Today, the relationship continues to evolve as both organisations focus on delivering a clean, safe, and welcoming campus environment for students, staff, and visitors.