How does the CAP Inspection Team assess an organisation and maintain consistency in its evaluations? It’s a complex and stringent process designed to scrutinise every aspect of an establishment’s housekeeping or catering provision. Here’s an overview. It takes you through the carefully controlled steps we follow during our assessments.

1. From the outset, our assessments are based on legal (Food Act), regulatory (Ofsted) and industry recognised operational ‘Best Practices’, either as experienced or as published, for both Housekeeping and Catering services.

2. A key function in the overall assessment is the measurement of the quality of service being delivered to the end-user. For instance, the cleanliness of the environments or the actual food experience at the point of service for housekeeping and catering respectively. These qualitative aspects contribute more than 50% to the overall assessment scoring, meaning the end-user experience is a vital ingredient.

3. Housekeeping aspects are measured on a scale of 1 to 9. With cleaning, for example, the observation of ‘no dust’ warrants 9 points, while witnessing heavy dust in more than five locations in the given room or area at low, medium or high level earns just one point.

4. The overall Housekeeping assessment comprises no less than 231 criteria or questions, as well as cleanliness audits of housekeeping staff welfare and training, through to due diligence and quality feedback. The 231 criteria are broken down into 10 specific sections. The score within each section is quantified in order to determine a performance and achievement below benchmark level, at CAP Bronze level (below benchmark), or at CAP Silver or CAP Gold level.

5. In Catering assessments, the food experience is measured by joining the end-users in the dining experience, with each aspect being scored. For instance, the service at the servery, cleanliness of the cutlery, food temperature, texture and taste across the offer, the range of foods on offer (e.g. fresh fruits), the content of the menu across the week, and the food knowledge of the catering staff at the point of service. Scoring here is between 1 and 10 points across 86 aspects relating to the individual service.

6. In total, the overall catering assessment comprises 378 criteria and questions! This is in addition to the food experience obtained from analysing staff welfare and training, food management, finance, the management of the service point, make-up of the menu, and quality feedback from the end-users. The 378 criteria are broken down to 12 specific sections. Again, the score within each section is quantified in order to show performance and achievement at below benchmark level, at CAP Bronze level (below benchmark), or at CAP Silver or CAP Gold level.

7. With all criteria within the assessment scoring set against a standard based on legal, regulatory and/or best practices, that performance and evidence behind all the criteria is then scored at 1 for non-compliant, 2 for partially compliant with evidence of work in progress, or 3 for fully compliant.

8. Finally, we determine the award status by evaluating the scoring across all the sections with the ultimate outcome being at below benchmark levels, at CAP Bronze level (below benchmark), or at CAP Silver or CAP Gold level.

We have now introduced a new top level of CAP Award to recognise consistent high achievers – the CAP Platinum Award. To be assessed at the Platinum level, organisations must first qualify by achieving three successive years of CAP Gold Awards in their chosen discipline.