New College has ended scout cleaning of undergraduate student rooms and will replace the practice with regular cleanliness inspections.
The change was approved by the College’s Governing Body in Trinity. In the same term, the New JCR overwhelmingly rejected a college proposal on the matter, with 16% in favour of removing room cleaning and 84% in opposition. 118 students participated in the vote.
Oxford colleges have employed scouts to regularly clean their students’ rooms for hundreds of years. Today the system varies between colleges; many do not employ cleaning staff at off-site accommodation.
The College referred to the change as an “extension” of a policy already in place at New College’s Weston Buildings Graduate centre.
Despite this, a second-year student at New said there has been a “genuine lack of communication with all those involved” including the scouts themselves, who “as term starts, still don’t know what the expectations are with what they should be doing.”
The Home Bursar at New said there are no planned job losses linked to the change. It was not clear whether cleaning staff’s net working hours or payment would be reduced.
Today only Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham universities still clean students’ rooms. The practice has faced criticism for coddling adult students and subverting their privacy, as well as underpaying and overworking cleaning staff.
