Neil Spencer-Cook, Group MD of The British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc), gives us an update on everything keeping the Institute busy.
2024 is progressing with speed, and we are as busy as ever at BICSc.
Awards season is well and truly upon us – we completed the judging for the Golden Service Awards during January and February, and are looking forward to the awards ceremony in London to celebrate with the finalists and winners.
Next on the list for the judges are the Northern Ireland awards, which they will judge very soon.
Just when they think their job is done, it will be time to start the judging process for our own awards. By the time you read this, we will be heading towards the closing date for applications for the nine awards, which include three new awards which cover innovation, ESG and youth employment.
We hope you’ve found time to enter, and we’re looking forward to the judging, especially the new awards. We held a webinar with the judging panel on how to enter, to make your entry stand out from the crowd, but if you missed it the video replay is still available on the BICSc website so that you can make sure that your application shines.
Tickets to our awards will be released in May – keep an eye on the website and our social media to ensure you don’t miss out. There are also a few sponsorship packages still available if you are interested.
It’s not all about awards: we are almost ready to release the new process for Individual Memberships and you could be eligible for a free year’s membership, so keep an eye on your email inbox for your renewal notifications.
We have recently released two free online courses. One looks at current robotics for the cleaning industry, and the other concentrates on environmental issues for the cleaning industry.
We’re also delighted to announce that we have also released our first CPD verified course – An Auditor’s Guide to the NHS Efficacy and Technical Cleaning Audits.
BICSc’s international coverage continues to grow, and we now have an exclusive training partner covering Asia, Africa and the Middle East. SaveFast were our CPSS training partner in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and due to the success there and requests from other regions, this has now been extended. We are also working with the Ministry of Education and Healthcare in Saudi Arabia, who are close to mandating BICSc training.
In the UK, things are just as busy with some major training in private healthcare. One company has set up four regional centres around the country, and we are seeing quite a successful sign up to the BICSc Cleaning Supervisor’s Certificate – in fact, in the last three months, we have had more sign-ups than ever.
In April we held our first standardisation day of 2024. Our trainers, assessors and verifiers all got together to discuss what’s going on in the industry and worked together to ensure everybody is fully up to date. They also had the opportunity to review the updated CPSS app and go through the new functionality that’s available.
Finally, the Future of Cleaning Initiative, in collaboration with CSSA, got underway. The initial readings have been completed and recorded, and the first supplier has installed their equipment and completed the training with the team at Surrey University who are now using the new equipment. Final readings on this stage will be taken after a six-week period and then it will be onto the next supplier. Our thanks to Numatic, who had the difficult task of being the first.
Thanks for reading and may I wish you all a great couple of months.
