Edinburgh FM Contract Review
Independent fm contract issues support for Edinburgh businesses with multi-site estates. Tender, review and reduce your spend, without changing what works.
- Healthcare estates
- Industrial portfolios
- Multi-site commercial
- Logistics
- Property developers
- In-house FM teams
Better facilities management contracts for Edinburgh businesses
Edinburgh sits within the Lothians in Scotland, with active commercial property markets around the New Town financial district and Edinburgh Park. Across most Edinburgh businesses, facilities management (FM) spend grows quietly. Contracts auto-renew, scope drifts in the supplier’s favour, and very few finance directors can confidently say whether the price they pay is competitive.
Aligned helps Edinburgh businesses fix that. We are available across Edinburgh and the wider the Lothians in Scotland area, including Leith, Musselburgh, Dalkeith, Penicuik, Livingston and South Queensferry. We are procurement specialists, not an FM provider, which means our advice is genuinely independent. We do not earn margin on supplier contracts.
That matters more than it sounds. A typical Edinburgh portfolio carries cleaning, security, catering, mechanical and electrical maintenance, HVAC, building fabric, grounds, pest, waste, and helpdesk or computer-aided facilities management (CAFM) systems. Each of those is a market in its own right. Most businesses do not have time to test all of them, which is why their FM costs drift and supplier performance slips.
We typically save clients between 10 and 25 percent on FM expenditure through a combination of short term commercial wins and longer term structural changes. The work is not just about cutting cost. It is about making sure the contracts you sign actually deliver the service your estate needs.
What a good FM contract scope actually looks like
The strength of any FM contract is in its scope document. If the scope is vague the contract will be vague. If the scope is specific, every commercial conversation that follows is easier.
A facilities management scope is not a list of services. It is a description of outcomes the buyer expects, paired with the inputs the supplier will provide to achieve them. Most scopes we audit fail at this distinction. They list inputs (12 cleans per week, four security patrols per shift, quarterly building fabric inspections) without ever stating the outcome the buyer actually wants.
1. Outcome statements
Before listing any service, state what the building must look like, feel like, and function as. Reception areas free of visible dust, washrooms stocked at all reasonable times, comfort temperature maintained between specified bounds, lifts available 99 percent of operational hours. These are testable. They survive supplier change. They give the supplier room to innovate on the inputs.
2. Service catalogue
A line-by-line breakdown of every service in scope. For each service: what it includes, what it excludes, frequency or trigger, and who pays for consumables. The exclusions matter as much as the inclusions. “Daily office cleaning” is not a scope. “Daily office cleaning, comprising desk wipe-down, bin emptying, vacuuming of carpeted areas, mopping of hard floors. Excludes deep clean, kitchen deep clean, window cleaning above ground floor, and one-off requests” is a scope.
3. Performance framework
The KPIs by which the supplier will be judged, and the consequences for breach. A KPI without a consequence is a wish. A consequence without measurement criteria is unenforceable. Both halves matter.
4. Commercial terms
Pricing structure, payment terms, change-control mechanism, contract length, break clauses, and exit provisions. The exit provisions are particularly important and most often overlooked. If you cannot exit a contract cleanly, you will renew it whether it is performing or not.
If your current contract scope is more than 20 pages of services list and less than three pages of outcomes and KPIs, it is a supplier-friendly scope. We can help you reverse that ratio.
Have you found yourself in any of these positions?
Every business is different, but the patterns that prompt clients to reach out are familiar. If one of these feels close to home, a Procurement Health Check is usually the right next step.
The renewal is six months out and nobody has done the homework
The current FM contract is up for renewal in two quarters. The supplier has hinted at a price rise. You suspect you are overpaying but you do not have the evidence to push back, and the alternative is a tender process you do not have time to run. You need to know fast whether the current rate is competitive and, if it is not, what your options actually are.
A new finance director has questions you cannot answer
There is a new CFO and they have asked for a clear view of FM spend, value for money, and risk. The reports you have do not really answer those questions. You need help getting to a written, defensible view that the new finance leadership will accept, before the next board meeting.
Service quality has slipped and the supplier is not listening
The contract started well. Three years in, the account manager has changed twice, response times have stretched, and your site teams are increasingly going off-contract to get things fixed. You have raised it. The KPI report still shows green. You need to either reset the relationship from a position of leverage or move to a new supplier without disrupting your business.
An acquisition has left you with four different FM setups
The business has grown by acquisition and you have inherited four different FM models across the new portfolio. Costs are not comparable. Each site has its own supplier with its own renewal date and its own quirks. You need someone to make sense of it, build a target operating model, and put a phased transition plan in place.
What you can expect when working with us
No long discovery decks, no jargon. We move quickly, keep you in control, and only do the work that earns its place.
Procurement Health Check
A no-obligation review of your current facilities management setup. We look at spend, contracts, service levels and supplier performance, and tell you where the savings, performance gaps or contract risks sit.
Analyse and benchmark
We compile and analyse your FM data into useful reporting, and benchmark your current spend and supplier performance against current industry standards.
Tender, review or restructure
Whether the right next step is a contract audit, a compliant tender process, sourcing new suppliers, or bundling and repackaging services, we run it end to end.
Mobilise and ongoing support
We support contract mobilisation and transition planning, then offer ongoing commercial support and supplier performance monitoring once the contract is live.
Led by Tony Houlihan
Aligned is led by Tony Houlihan, a procurement specialist who has worked both client side, buying FM services for major estates, and supplier side. That dual perspective is unusual and it shows up in the advice. We know what FM providers price in, what they leave out, and where the negotiation room sits in any contract.
Tony’s career has covered procurement leadership across complex multi-site portfolios in healthcare, industrial and commercial sectors. The work has consistently been about taking estates with fragmented or under-performing FM setups and turning them into properly governed, properly priced operations.
Where a project requires deeper specialist input, Aligned brings in trusted associate experts in M&E, soft services, project delivery and operational consultancy. You only pay for the depth your scope demands.
A Word From Our Founder
We have worked on FM procurement across healthcare estates, industrial portfolios, and multi-site commercial operations. We understand the pressure of keeping services running while trying to reduce cost and risk. Nothing is guaranteed in property, but better contracts and clearer oversight make a big difference.
Honest feedback from real clients
“Honest, independent advice that paid for itself many times over.”
Aligned were straight with us from the first call. They reviewed our facilities contracts properly, told us what was working, what was not, and what to do about it. The recommendations were practical and the savings genuine.
Four ways we help Edinburgh businesses
Pick the engagement that fits where you are. We move at your pace and never sign you up for more scope than the problem needs.
FM Contract Review
An independent review of an existing FM contract. We benchmark cost and service levels, assess performance, and recommend whether to optimise, renegotiate or re-tender.
Learn MoreProcurement Health Check
A no-obligation review of your current FM setup. We look at spend, contracts, SLAs and supplier performance, then come back with a clear view of where the savings and risks sit.
Book a Health CheckFM Tender & Sourcing
End-to-end tender management. We shape the spec, run a compliant process, evaluate suppliers, and support contract award and mobilisation. Hard or soft services, single or bundled.
Learn MoreCommercial Support
Ongoing supplier performance monitoring, KPI reviews, and commercial advice once a contract is live. We stay close enough to keep things moving without adding overhead.
Learn MoreThe services we cover
From single service line to fully integrated total facilities management. We have worked across the full range and can advise on what fits your estate.
Soft Services
Cleaning, security, catering, reception, mailroom and front of house. Often the largest single line of FM spend and the most common area where scope and value drift.
Hard Services
M&E, mechanical and electrical maintenance, HVAC, building fabric, fire and life safety. Where compliance risk and reactive cost can build up quietly.
Grounds & External
Grounds maintenance, landscaping, pest control, waste management, and external building services. Easy to overlook, frequently overlapping with other contracts.
Helpdesk & CAFM
Helpdesk operation and CAFM software support. The reporting backbone of any decent FM contract, and the first place we look when assessing supplier performance.
Total Facilities Management
Fully integrated TFM under a single supplier. Powerful when scoped well. We help you decide whether TFM is right for your estate, and what the SLA framework should look like.
In-house Team Support
Where you run FM in-house, we support team development, sourcing strategy and supplier governance, without taking the work over.
Not sure if your FM is delivering value?
Book a Procurement Health Check and we will review your current setup and spot savings, performance gaps or contract risks. No obligation, no jargon.
Book Your Health CheckCommon questions from Edinburgh clients
Which areas around Edinburgh do you cover?
Aligned is available across Edinburgh and the wider the Lothians in Scotland area, including Leith, Musselburgh, Dalkeith, Penicuik, Livingston and South Queensferry. We also support multi-site clients with sites elsewhere in the UK.
How is the Procurement Health Check structured?
The Health Check is a short, no-obligation review of your current FM setup. We ask for your existing contracts, recent invoices, service-level reporting and any performance data, then come back with a written view of where the savings or risks sit. Where the opportunity is significant, we set out what a full engagement would look like. Where it is not, we say that too.
How long does an FM tender process usually take?
It depends on the size and complexity of your estate. A single-service tender will typically be quicker than a full bundled or total facilities management (TFM) tender across a multi-site portfolio. The Health Check stage helps us agree the right pace and scope for your situation.
How quickly can you start?
The Health Check can usually be scheduled within a week. If a fuller engagement is needed, we agree mobilisation timing based on your contract dates and internal pace. We do not believe in starting work before there is a clear plan, so a few weeks of preparation is common.
What is the difference between bundled FM and total facilities management?
Bundled FM is two or three service lines combined under one supplier, often cleaning and security or M&E and building fabric. Total facilities management (TFM) is one supplier delivering everything across the estate. TFM usually only makes sense at significant scale. Bundling is a useful middle ground for medium-sized estates.
Do you have experience with healthcare estates?
Yes. Aligned has worked on FM procurement across healthcare estates, alongside industrial portfolios and multi-site commercial operations. Healthcare brings additional compliance, infection control and patient-experience requirements that we factor into any procurement scope.
What if our current contract still has time to run?
That is often the right time to start the conversation. Most meaningful FM contract decisions are made 6 to 12 months before the renewal date. Starting earlier gives us time to benchmark properly, build a market view, and decide whether to renegotiate or retender from a position of strength.
Available across Edinburgh and the Lothians in Scotland
Aligned Property Services
Independent FM procurement consultancy serving Edinburgh and the wider the Lothians in Scotland area, with multi-site clients across the UK.
Phone Email CoverageLeith, Musselburgh, Dalkeith, Penicuik, Livingston, South Queensferry and beyond.
Get a clearer view of your FM spend
One conversation can tell you whether your current contracts are competitive, whether your suppliers are performing, and whether a tender is worth running.
Book Your Procurement Health Check