Guides / How-to
Janitorial quality control plan example for a federal bid
A quality control plan is how your company will check its own cleaning. The example below is an outline you can adapt. It is not a government form, and it loses to any headings the solicitation already requires.
Three different documents
- Performance work statement (or statement of work): the standard. Tasks, frequencies, and the buildings.
- Quality control plan: your plan for inspecting that work and fixing what you find. Many janitorial solicitations ask for this with the offer. Some do not. If they do not ask, do not invent a volume they will not read.
- Quality assurance surveillance plan: the government's plan for checking you. You do not write it, but your quality control plan should show you know how the agency will look at the work.
The federal acquisition rules, including quality rules solicitations cite, are at acquisition.gov. Those rules are being rewritten under the FAR overhaul, so clause text is not identical from one notice to the next. The solicitation in front of you controls. Where to find the work statement and the instructions is in how to read a solicitation.
What to read before you draft
- Copy every recurring task and frequency out of the performance work statement. The plan should cover that list, not a shorter list of your own.
- Read the surveillance plan or inspection method if one is attached, including any defect categories.
- Note required positions. Some notices want a named quality control manager who is not the only cleaner on the shift.
- Note required forms, sample schedules, or page limits in the instructions. Use those headings first. Use the outline below only to fill gaps.
Example outline
Adapt the headings. Delete any section the solicitation does not want, and add any section it names.
- Purpose and scope. Which buildings and services this plan covers, and that the standard is the performance work statement.
- Organization. Who inspects, who corrects the work, and who speaks with the contracting officer's representative. The person who records a miss should be able to do that when the crew is short-staffed.
- Standards. The task list from the work statement, including frequencies. Do not substitute a private checklist that drops tasks.
- Inspections. A schedule tied to those frequencies. If the solicitation does not set one, state a schedule you will actually staff, and say who completes it on a holiday or when the manager is out.
- Deficiencies. How a miss is logged, who fixes it, the correction time the work statement requires, and how it is re-checked.
- Complaints. How a report from a building occupant becomes a work item, and how you tell the representative it is closed when the contract asks you to.
- Training and supplies. How a new employee learns the tasks, and how you know the supplies the contract makes you provide are on hand.
- Records. What you keep, and for how long the solicitation requires. Do not promise a retention period the contract does not state.
- Government inspections. How you respond to the surveillance plan and to a request for corrective action.
Example wording
This paragraph is an illustration. Replace every bracket, and change the correction time if the work statement sets a different one.
Quality control manager: [name or position] will inspect [areas named in the performance work statement] on the schedule in this plan. The manager will not be the only person assigned to perform the work being inspected. Findings go on the inspection log the same day. The site supervisor corrects a deficiency within [the time the work statement requires, or one business day if it is silent] and the manager re-checks that item. A miss that repeats on the same task is raised with the contracting officer's representative at the next meeting the contract already requires.
Example inspection log
Columns, not sample results. Fill them from real inspections after award. Do not submit a log of invented passes with the proposal unless the solicitation asks for a completed example, and even then mark it as a sample.
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Date and time | When the inspection happened |
| Area | Building and room or zone, using the names in the work statement |
| Task | The task and frequency you were checking |
| Result | Acceptable, or a deficiency described in words |
| Correction | Who fixed it, and when |
| Re-check | Whether the correction held |
| Inspector | Name or position of the person who looked |
Mistakes that get plans rejected
- Repeating the work statement without saying who inspects or what happens after a miss.
- Promising a daily inspection of every room when the staffing plan does not include anyone to do it.
- No record. If it is not written down, you cannot show the representative what you found.
- A different standard than the surveillance plan. If the agency scores restrooms a certain way, your checklist should look at those same items.
- Ignoring security and access. A plan that assumes inspectors can enter every room at any hour fails on a base or a clinic with badges and escort rules.
Open cleaning bids we have checked are on the federal janitorial contracts page. Search steps are in how to find federal janitorial bids on SAM.gov.
General information from the Bid Brief team, not legal or contracting advice. This outline is an example, not an official template. The solicitation and its amendments control. We aren't affiliated with SAM.gov or any government agency. Last reviewed Nov 5, 2026.
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