Facilities management control
Follow this guidance to request spend approval when buying or extending facilities management contracts, regardless of their cost.
Facilities management control
The overarching aim and purpose of the Facilities Management (FM) Controls is: “To improve efficiency in Facilities Management through the centralised approval of all new, extended or variations to FM contracts.”
This guidance will assist in complying with the Facilities Management spend controls process within individual organisations and Central Government via Cabinet Office.
The FM Controls are operated by the Office of Government Property, Crown Commercial Services and Government Commercial Function.
Scope of the FM Control
FM Controls apply to ALL new FM contracts, ALL FM contract extensions and major FM contract variations (contract variations in excess of £10 million). The route to approval will depend upon the value of the proposed spend:
- 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.
FM contracts with a total value of less than £500k should be notified via the FM pipeline, these do not require formal approval.
Assurance against standards
The FM Control provides assurance with cases measured against the Government Estate Strategy and other functional standards and best practice including Government Functional Standard For Property GovS004, Greening Government Commitments, FM Standards, The Government Property Profession Career Framework, The Sourcing Playbook, The HM Treasury Green Book, Infrastructure and Projects Authority: Assurance review toolkit.
An explanation of the the standards can be found in the FM Control Guidance.
The FM control process
Engagement with the Office of Government Property should take place as early as possible in the process (approximately 6 months prior to your required approval date, subject to the complexity of the case). This can be achieved by emailing fmcontrols@cabinetoffice.gov.uk with a draft FM control form with as much information as is available at the time, stating ‘early engagement’ in the covering email.
Following this, please ensure subsequent FM controls forms are submitted at both Outline Business Case (OBC) and Full Business Case (FBC) stage prior to the issue of any tender documents, extension agreements, or major variations with sufficient time for scrutiny and decisions to be taken before spend is committed.
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).
Submitting an FM control approval request
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.
For cases under £500,000 where a FM pipeline has not been provided the FMC1 form should be completed and submitted to fmcontrols@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.
On receipt of a control approval request, a case lead will be assigned from within the Office of Government Property FM Control Team. The case lead will carry out a review of the submission and engage with the nominated point of contact to seek further clarification or query specific areas of the case as applicable.
The case lead will complete an assessment of the case against the FM Control assessment criteria and submit advice either for approval at Official level or, for contentious items, to the Cabinet Office Minister of State.
The case lead will notify the organisation point of contact in writing of the FM control decision, which will be either:
Approved; Approved with specified conditions; or Rejected with proposed actions
Managing conditions of approval
Contentious spend control cases are often approved by the Minister with conditions designed to strengthen the commercial case, address non-compliance with standards and policy, or mitigate identified risks.
Any applicable conditions will be communicated in writing in the approval notification from the FM Control Team, including due dates. These conditions will be regularly monitored for completion or compliance, which must be emailed to the fmcontrols@cabinetoffice.gov.uk inbox with updates on meeting or complying with the conditions.
A proactive response to any conditions applied to cases is necessary and the FM Control Team must be notified if applicable conditions cannot be achieved by the due date. A monthly report on conditions compliance by organisation is submitted to the minister and Chief Operating Officer for the Civil Service.
FM control documents
Last updated 3 February 2023 + show all updates
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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.
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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.
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First published.