Guidance

Facilities Management Advice

Use this page for guidance and advice when procuring FM contracts

• From: Cabinet Office
• Published: 25 April 2019
• Last updated: 30 March 2026
  Show all updates

  1. 30 March 2026

     Updated the main page text as Facilities Management Control will cease effective April 1st.

  2. 5 March 2026

     Added Annex 1: FM Services Definition and FM Self-Certification checklist

  3. 3 February 2023

     Text change 1- Current text: 'Over £500,000 and under £10 Million - approval should be sought by completion of the FMC1 Submission form, emailed to fmcontrols@cabinetoffice.gov.uk Over £10 Million - the Cabinet Office Commercial Spend Controls Process should be followed, submitting via the Commercial Assurance Management System indicating the case is FM specific. For cases over £10m which will not be submitted for commercial control approval (e.g. cases that are classified with the Commercial ‘assure’ status) please submit your Outline Business Case or Full Business case along with confirmation of the Commercial ‘Assure’ status to fmcontrols@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.' To be replaced with: 'Over £500,000 and under £20 Million - approval should be sought by completion of the FMC1 Submission form, emailed to fmcontrols@cabinetoffice.gov.uk Over £20* Million - the Cabinet Office Commercial Spend Controls Process should be followed, submitting via the Commercial Assurance Management System indicating the case is FM specific. For cases over £20m which will not be submitted for commercial control approval (e.g. cases that are classified with the Commercial ‘assure’ status) please submit your Outline Business Case or Full Business case along with confirmation of the Commercial ‘Assure’ status to fmcontrols@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. *Please note that the £20m threshold may be reduced for procurements identified as contentious or outright contentious.' Text change 2- Current text: 'The FM Controls approval process will operate within two Service Level Agreement (SLA) timescales. For cases above £500,000 and under £10 million the SLA time is 10 working days. For cases above £10 million the SLA time is 28 calendar days (excluding any pause time whilst queries are answered).' To be replaced with: 'The FM Controls approval process will operate within two Service Level Agreement (SLA) timescales. For cases above £500,000 and under £20 million the SLA time is 10 working days. For cases above £20 million the SLA time is 28 calendar days (excluding any pause time whilst queries are answered).' Text change 3- Current text: 'All cases above £500,000 and under £10 million the FMC1 form should be completed along with any supporting documentation (including OBC/FBC) and submitted to fmcontrols@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.' To be replaced with: 'All cases above £500,000 and under £20 million the FMC1 form should be completed along with any supporting documentation (including OBC/FBC) and submitted to fmcontrols@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.' Replaced Annex 1,2 and 3 with updated versions.

  4. 2 September 2021

     The FM Control is now jointly administered by the Office of Government Property, Crown Commercial services and Government Commercial Function. Changes have been made to the policy and guidance to reflect this change along with new thresholds and a new submission form.

  5. 25 April 2019

     First published.

Facilities Management Advice

Use this page for guidance and advice when procuring FM contracts.

Facilities Management (FM) Control approvals are no longer required – here’s what it means for you

Alongside Budget 2025, the government announced significant reforms to the public spending control and accountability framework, therefore the Office of Government Property no longer assures FM business cases

New model as of the 1st of April?

The new model brings some important changes to spending approvals:

• below your Delegated Authority Limits: Approve through your own departmental processes
• above your limits, or novel/contentious/repercussive spending: You’ll need HM Treasury approval through the Treasury Approvals Process

Any conditions attached to previously approved cases remain the department’s responsibility. Functional teams will no longer track these.

Below are resources to assist in departmental assurance processes.

For further advice, please contact fmadvice@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

FM control documents

Annex 1: FM Services Definition (ODT)

ODT, 494 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

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Annex 1: FM Services Definition (PDF)

PDF, 528 KB, 17 pages

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Self-Certification checklist

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 74.2 KB