Council facilities staff thanked for going ‘above and beyond’ in reopening schools

Cllr Ben Thompson, Chair Housing & Property Committee

Members of The Highland Council’s Housing & Property Committee have welcomed the significant effort and support of the Council’s property, catering, cleaning and facilities management teams in preparing the region’s school estate for fully reopening on 18 August.

Committee Chair, Cllr Ben Thompson said: “I welcome the Council’s new first quarterly monitoring report for the property facilities management service – this is a step forward in terms of the Council’s oversight of its property which will enable Councillors to scrutinise the work of this vital service to our communities.

“As a personal observation I would like to commend the property, catering, cleaning and facilities staff, in reopening up our schools, what a fantastic job they have done. It goes without saying, we rely on our cleaning staff and our catering staff all the time, but now it’s become more apparent - more so than ever - that if the schools were not clean, they simply wouldn’t be open. So, I would like to express my thanks to our cleaning, catering and property staff for the fantastic job they have done in going above and beyond in the preparations for reopening Highland’s schools and facilities.”

A report considered today by Councillors detailed property related estimated Covid-19 costs of £2.312m currently consisting of the cleaning, disinfection and remediation of school water systems, installation of Covid-related signage, additional cleaning prior to schools reopening, installation of protective screens to dining room till points, supply of additional cleaning materials, initial bulk purchase of hand sanitiser as well as work to improve mechanical ventilation in the school estate.

It added that: catering, cleaning and facilities management provide a significant level of service delivery to the Council’s education and High Life Highland properties across Highland. The cleaning and facilities management service have also supported keyworker hubs and humanitarian centres and additional enhanced cleaning services (while managing a number of vacancies and shielding compliance) to schools and other Council facilities during the current pandemic.

The property and facilities management teams are also providing phased support to bring the High Life Life Highland estate back into operational use.