250 cleaners seconded to TfL for pilot covering 15 locations including Victoria line stations, Finsbury Park and Euston bus stations, and Victoria Coach Station
Transport for London has launched a 12-month pilot to test whether cleaning services across its station network can be brought in-house, with the programme beginning on 28 September 2026 across 15 locations on the Victoria line and bus station network.
The pilot involves approximately 250 cleaners being seconded from Mitie — TfL’s existing cleaning contractor — to TfL directly for the duration of the programme. At the end of the 12 months, TfL will review the outcomes and determine next steps, including whether to proceed with wider insourcing of cleaning services.
Locations Covered by the Pilot
The pilot has been designed to cover a representative cross-section of TfL’s estate, spanning Underground stations, bus stations, a coach terminal, a train depot, and British Transport Police facilities:
Victoria line Underground stations (excluding King’s Cross, Oxford Circus, and Warren Street):
The Victoria line corridor provides a continuous set of stations for the pilot to cover, giving TfL a meaningful operational sample of Underground station cleaning without the complexity of managing isolated individual stations across multiple lines.
Bus stations:
- Finsbury Park
- Euston
- Tottenham Hale
- Vauxhall
- Walthamstow
Additional locations:
- Victoria Coach Station
- British Transport Police premises at Buckingham Palace Road and Finsbury Park
- Northumberland Park Depot, which maintains and prepares the Victoria line train fleet
The selection reflects the diversity of environments TfL would need to manage cleaning operations across — from busy interchange stations to specialist depot and police facilities — giving the pilot data across different operational contexts rather than a single environment type.
How the Pilot Has Been Structured
TfL currently contracts out its cleaning, facilities management, and associated services entirely to private providers. The organisation does not have internal specialist cleaning capability, management systems, or procurement infrastructure for these services — meaning any permanent insourcing would require significant capability building before it could operate effectively.
The pilot has been developed in partnership with both Mitie and the RMT union, a process that began following the Mayor’s initial announcement in January 2026. The secondment model — in which cleaners remain employed by Mitie but work under TfL management during the pilot — allows TfL to assess the operational and management challenges of in-house delivery without the legal and employment complexity of immediate direct employment.
This approach also means the 250 cleaners participating in the pilot have employment continuity and protections throughout, rather than facing uncertainty about their employment status during the assessment period.
What Success Looks Like
TfL has set out specific criteria against which the pilot will be assessed at the end of the 12 months:
- People safety — cleanliness standards that contribute to safe environments for passengers and staff
- Security — the contribution of cleaning teams to safe and secure station environments
- Environmental performance — waste management, sustainability standards, and environmental compliance
- Customer experience — passenger satisfaction with cleanliness across pilot locations
- Operational indicators — reliability, responsiveness, and management of cleaning schedules
- Quality and cost — whether in-house delivery produces equivalent or better quality at comparable or lower cost than contracted provision
- Staff experience — TfL will conduct regular surveys with cleaners working on the pilot throughout the 12 months
The inclusion of staff surveys as a formal success criterion is notable. It means worker experience under the TfL management model — including conditions, management quality, and satisfaction — will be a measured outcome rather than a secondary consideration.
Why TfL Is Exploring Insourcing
The shift toward exploring in-house service delivery reflects both a mayoral policy direction and a broader national policy context.
Mayor Sadiq Khan has consistently supported insourcing of public services where the evidence supports it, framing direct employment as a tool for improving worker conditions, increasing accountability, and retaining value within public sector organisations rather than generating profit for private contractors.
The cleaning sector specifically has been a focus of trade union campaigns for improved terms and conditions at TfL for several years, with the RMT representing a significant proportion of cleaning workers on the TfL network. The pilot has RMT support and involvement throughout, which the union has described as part of delivering the government’s stated ambition for the largest wave of insourcing in a generation.
RMT General Secretary Eddie Dempsey welcomed the launch, saying the union would be fully involved with TfL throughout the pilot to help ensure it succeeds, describing the Mayor’s approach as helping lead the way on the government’s insourcing vision.
The Broader Insourcing Context at TfL
The cleaning pilot is the latest in a series of insourcing initiatives under Mayor Khan’s tenure. TfL previously brought station operations, revenue collection, and other functions in-house in earlier phases of what the Mayor has described as a commitment to direct employment where it delivers better outcomes for workers and passengers.
The Buses for London initiative — announced this month — follows the same principle in a different area, creating a publicly owned bus operating company that will run selected routes directly rather than through private contractors. Together, the two announcements signal an acceleration of the insourcing approach across TfL’s operations as the Mayor approaches the end of his time in office.
What Happens After the Pilot
The 12-month assessment period will run until September 2027, with outcomes reviewed and next steps determined at that point. Possible outcomes range from full insourcing across the Victoria line and bus station network, to partial insourcing of specific functions, to a decision that the contracted model remains more appropriate for TfL’s circumstances.
TfL has been explicit that the pilot’s purpose is to generate evidence rather than to implement a predetermined outcome. The structured success criteria and regular staff surveys are designed to produce a data-based assessment rather than a decision made on ideological grounds alone.
For the 250 cleaners participating in the pilot, the 12 months will provide direct experience of working under TfL management — which may itself influence how they and their union assess the insourcing question at the end of the assessment period.
