Insourcing of cleaning services in the Armed Forces

The project will monitor the reintegration of cleaning services into the Armed Forces, after these were outsourced to the private sector in 2014. The study is a follow-up to Fafo Report 2018:32, "When the job is put out to tender. Outsourcing of cleaning services in the Armed Forces" (link to English summary).

Cleaning in the defence sector covers approximately one million square metres. In 2016, the Solberg government decided to outsource the cleaning services. A key reason was the need to strengthen the Armed Forces’ operational capabilities.

The anticipated cost savings from outsourcing were expected to be achieved by having external providers carry out the cleaning more cost-effectively than the Armed Forces themselves, assuming the scope and quality of the service remained unchanged.

The outsourced cleaners received new employers, and for many of them, their working conditions changed. In 2017 and 2018, we were told that the pace had increased. The work pressure had risen, and the working environment had deteriorated.

In 2021, it was decided that cleaning services would be brought back under the Armed Forces.

In this brief report, we describe various informants’ experiences with the two processes, as they appeared in 2017 and 2018, and in 2024 and 2025.