ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

The courts in Spain have ruled that both the Board of Education of the Community of Madrid and the Court of Auditors rerun the public tender competitions for the award of the cleaning services in their respective buildings because they were put out to tender at less than cost.

The Professional Association of Cleaning Companies (Aspel) brought appeals before the Central Administrative Contract Appeal Tribunal and the Administrative Contracts Tribunal of the Community of Madrid on becoming aware the base tendering price was insufficient in both cases to fully cover labour costs if that provided in the collective buildings and premises cleaning agreement of the Community of Madrid was applied.

In the case of the Court of Auditors, the initial tendering price of €230,000 was insufficient to pay the labour costs for the 20 workers which were necessary for provision of the service.

According to Aspel's calculations, the maximum amount per hour for the provision of the service was less than the cost of personnel substitution, without including other costs deriving from personnel replacement due to holidays or possible replacement through absenteeism, matters also laid down as a requirement in the sets of technical conditions.

Voiding of these two tender competitions comes on top of that of last July, when the Community of Madrid invalidated the centralised cleaning tender competition for nine hospitals in the region. On that occasion Aspel demonstrated to the tribunal that the €80.7 million budgeted was insufficient to pay the workers' wages, and nor were other aspects taken into account, such as holidays or the labour absenteeism rate, currently approximately 12 per cent.In October last year the Administrative Contracts Tribunal of the Community of Madrid also voided the cleaning tender competitions for Pozuelo de Alarcón and Torrelodones municipalities' buildings.

Subsequent to the employers' association examining the sets of conditions, and similarly warning that the base tendering price was insufficient to cover labour costs fully, both councils will have to call new tender competitions for the service of cleaning their municipal offices.