Admin cut corners in student room cleaning
THE BUSINESS SERVICES Consultation Committee (BSCC) has proposed to “drastically cut room cleaning” from once a week to once a term for non-en-suite rooms, while en-suite pods would be cleaned just once a month. Despite the proposed cuts, rents are set to rise next year by nine per cent for en-suite and five per cent for standard rooms.
While kitchens would continue to be cleaned as normal, the reductions would mean that non-en-suite bedrooms would not even be seen by cleaners for ten weeks at a time.
The proposal, which has been pushed through to College Councils for discussion, has been met with fierce criticism from students and officials.
Micky Armstrong, the President of the Students’ Union, said: “I think it’s an absolute disgrace to make students clean their own rooms”, while Fran Tarrant, the JCR Chair of Alcuin, said the proposal was “ludicrous” and had “come out of desperation with the cleaning problem”. She added: “As far as I’m concerned, you can’t increase rent and give less service provision”.
Micky Armstrong felt the cuts were unlikely to be accepted, vowing to “disagree with this at every consultative process it arises”, while Colin Hindson, the Chair of Goodricke JCR, said the proposal had been “laughed out by any representative of any kind who heard of it”.
The Director of Commercial Services, Jon Greenwood, said the BSCC “just wants to find out what the students want from their cleaners” and emphasised that there “has been no reduction in the cleaning budget at all”, but one unofficial source revealed that the cuts and rent increases were aimed at recouping money following an overspend in college budgets.
David Garner, the University Press Officer, said that the rent increases of up to £248 a year were intended to bring “rent levels into line with comparable institutions”, insisting that prices would remain competitive. However, James Flinders, the current Chair of the Halifax College Students Association, said “This proposal is a cost-cutting measure and will not improve the accommodation of our students”.
When students were asked for their opinions on the proposal, their responses were overwhelmingly negative. While a few said they would rather have their rooms cleaned less, a significant majority were opposed to the cuts and several said they would actually like their rooms cleaned more often.
When asked how he would cope with the cuts in cleaning, Mathew Lacey from Alcuin College said he would need to be provided with a bigger room “just to store all the rubbish”, while Heidi Johnson, also from Alcuin, said “crap would pile up on my bed and I wouldn’t be able to get in it”, adding “I’d be a dirty scrubber”.
One University cleaner, who did not wish to be named, said that the proposal was “not fair for students” and expressed concerns that it might lead to redundancies.
She said: “I wouldn’t have a job if I didn’t do this”. She also suggested that the cuts might be the result of understaffing due to poor rates of pay.
Greenwood was keen to reassure cleaners that there were no plans to make redundancies, adding that there are currently 80 vacancies on the cleaning team.
The proposal is currently being discussed by College Councils and, if accepted, they would come into effect at the beginning of the next academic year.
