The cleaning schedule is one of the two cleaning safe methods, alongside cleaning effectively. It is a setup document: you write it once, keep it current, and follow it. It is not somewhere you record each wipe of a surface.
That distinction matters because a lot of people arrive expecting a daily form and conclude they are behind on one. The daily part lives in the diary, as an opening and closing check confirming the schedule was followed.
A schedule, not a record
An inspector reading your cleaning schedule is checking whether the kitchen has a plan that would survive its author leaving. The test is whether a new starter could clean the extraction canopy correctly from what is written, or whether they would have to ask someone.
That is why "clean as required" is the phrase to avoid. It describes an intention rather than a method, and it is not something anyone can follow or check.
What each item needs to say
For every item in the kitchen that needs cleaning, the schedule answers five questions.
- What is being cleaned: the specific item, not "surfaces".
- How often: after each use, daily, weekly, monthly, or to a named interval you can justify.
- Who does it: a role, so it is clear on a day when the usual person is not in.
- What with: the product, the dilution, and the contact time the label asks for.
- How you know it worked: visibly clean, disinfected, or checked by someone.
Where the daily record actually lives
Cleaning has been carried out according to the cleaning schedule is one of the standard SFBB opening checks. That single line is the daily record, and it only means anything because the schedule behind it is specific.
The deep-clean items are the ones that get missed, because they are the ones nobody does often enough to have a habit for. A monthly item on a written schedule is noticed when it slips. The same item as a shared assumption is not.
Keeping it in the app
The cleaning schedule sits with the rest of the pack, so it is on the same phone as the diary rather than on a laminated sheet by the door. You add items with their frequency, product and method, and edit them as the kitchen changes.
It prints onto the FSA form and goes into the EHO pack with everything else, so the schedule and the daily checks confirming it was followed arrive together.
Common questions
Do I tick the cleaning schedule every day?
No. The schedule describes what gets cleaned and how. The daily confirmation that you followed it is an opening check in the diary.
How detailed does it have to be?
Detailed enough that someone new could follow it without asking. Name the item, the product, the dilution and the frequency.
Does it have to include contact time?
If you use a disinfectant or a sanitiser, yes. A product that needs five minutes of contact and gets wiped off after ten seconds has not disinfected anything.
What about areas we clean rarely?
Those are the important ones to write down. Extraction, high level surfaces and behind equipment are the items an inspector asks about precisely because they are easy to forget.
Keep reading
Write it once, follow it daily
Free on iOS and Android, printed onto the FSA form.
