Cornwall Housing Limited (202345829)

Decision
Case ID	202345829
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Cornwall Housing Limited
Landlord type	Local Authority / ALMO or TMO
Occupancy	Secure Tenancy
Date	6 October 2025

Background

The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The resident has complex lung disease and he requested that staff wear personal protective equipment (PPE) when attending his property.

What the complaint is about

The complaint is about how the landlord responded to the resident’s request for operatives to wear PPE when attending his property.
We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

We have found that:
1. There was service failure regarding the landlord’s response to the resident’s request for operatives to wear PPE when attending his property.
2. There was no maladministration regarding the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

In summary, the Ombudsman found that the landlord:
1. Did not ensure its staff included information about PPE requirements when raising repairs.
2. Did not provide clarity about whether the PPE instruction was automatically passed to the contractor following August 2023.
3. Did not properly communicate with the resident about changes to how it shares information with its repairs contractor.

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Case review order The landlord must complete a review of its handling of the case and consider how it will prevent the same failings happening again. The review should take into account: Any changes it has made to its internal system to ensure contractors are aware of the requirement to wear PPE. Whether it has communicated with the new repairs contractor about operatives wearing PPE. How it will ensure operatives wear PPE when attending the resident’s property in future. The landlord should write to the resident and the Ombudsman with the outcome of its review, along with any actions it intends to take.	No later than 13 November 2025
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident the £400 already offered within its complaint responses, if it has not already done so.	No later than 13 November 2025

Order

What the landlord must do

Due date

Case review order

The landlord must complete a review of its handling of the case and consider how it will prevent the same failings happening again. The review should take into account:

Any changes it has made to its internal system to ensure contractors are aware of the requirement to wear PPE.
Whether it has communicated with the new repairs contractor about operatives wearing PPE.
How it will ensure operatives wear PPE when attending the resident’s property in future.

The landlord should write to the resident and the Ombudsman with

the outcome of its review, along with any actions it intends to take.

No later than

13 November 2025

Compensation order

The landlord must pay the resident the £400 already offered within its complaint responses, if it has not already done so.

No later than

13 November 2025

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
24 July 2023	The Ombudsman previously determined a complaint made by the resident in April 2021 about contractors attending his property without PPE. We found that the landlord took an unreasonable amount of time to update its records with the resident’s vulnerabilities and we ordered the landlord to apologise to the resident and outline actions that had been or would be taken to prevent a recurrence of the failings.
10 August 2023	Following the Ombudsman’s decision, the landlord apologised to the resident and confirmed it had updated its system to ensure PPE instructions were clearly flagged and automatically passed to contractors when a job was raised. It said there was still an element of margin for human error, but it had taken the most robust measures available to it.
24 January 2024	The resident submitted a new complaint stating that a contractor attended his property without a face mask, despite the landlord’s previous assurances. He said the contractor told him there was nothing in the notes about the requirement to wear a mask.
5 February 2024	The landlord discussed the complaint with the resident. The resident said staff had not worn face masks on the last 4 visits.
9 February 2024	The landlord issued its stage 1 response, in which it said: It had added the red-flagged (highest priority) note to its system, requesting face masks to be worn at all times. This information was not automatically transferred to the contractor’s system when repair jobs were raised, and the process for adding additional information into the job notes on the contractor’s system was manual and therefore prone to error. Improvements were underway, including system reviews and external consultancy support. A user group had been formed to identify further improvements. It apologised and offered the resident £100 compensation.
9- 12 February 2024	The resident requested escalation to stage 2, stating that the landlord had a duty of care towards him and that the commitments it made to the Ombudsman had not been fulfilled.
11 March 2024	The landlord issued its stage 2 response, in which it summarised a discussion with the resident about assigning him a single point of contact as a possible temporary solution. The resident declined the proposal. The landlord upheld the complaint and updated its offer of compensation to £300 as an apology for distress and recurrence of issues.
12 March 2024 and 1 July 2024	The resident referred his complaint to the Ombudsman, citing ongoing issues and instances where he had to provide masks to contractors. He raised concerns about his health and safety and stated the landlord had failed to resolve the matter despite previous assurances following the Ombudsman’s earlier decision.
3 January 2025	The resident raised a new complaint after an operative attended on 24 December 2024 to repair a leak, without being instructed to wear a facemask, stating he was exempt for medical reasons. The resident said he had been denied a lung transplant due to being too weak.
16 January 2025	The landlord issued its new stage 1 response, in which it said: It had noted the requirement to wear a facemask in the 24 December 2024 job order; however, the operative overlooked this instruction. The operative was medically exempt from wearing a mask, but the resident should have been offered an appointment with someone who could comply, without feeling at risk of delays in repairing the leak. It had addressed the issue directly with the operative and was working with its scheduling and IT teams to ensure it did not happen again. The resident escalated the complaint to stage 2 on 17 January 2025.
14 February 2025	The landlord issued the stage 2 response, in which it said: The contractor admitted fault for overlooking PPE requirements noted in the works order. The contractor’s system relied on staff to notice the code, read the associated notes and act accordingly, making the process dependent on human behaviour to an extent. It planned to move to a new repairs contractor from March 2025 and that there would be a system upgrade to improve the exchange of information. It offered the resident £100 compensation.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident referred the complaint to the Ombudsman and asked us to consider the landlord’s responses to both complaints. The resident said he wanted the landlord to give proper consideration to his health and ensure operatives wear PPE when attending his property.

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

Complaint	The complaint is about how the landlord responded to the resident’s request for operatives to wear PPE when attending his property.
Finding	Service failure

The landlord confirmed that it had updated its system following the Ombudsman’s previous complaint determination. In August 2023, the landlord told the resident it would ensure that the PPE requirement was placed in a category that automatically passed to the repairs contractors when it raised a job. However, on 24 January 2024, the resident reported an operative had again attended and was unaware of the PPE requirement. The landlord identified that this was because the requirement to wear PPE had not been manually entered when it raised the job and had therefore not been passed to the contractor.
It is therefore unclear what changes the landlord had made, if any, following its August 2023 email to the resident. The landlord later stated that the information could not be passed to the contractor automatically, which was not in line with what it had previously told the resident. The landlord ought to have provided further clarity on this point.
On 5 February 2024, the resident reported there had been 4 instances of contractor’s attending without PPE, which indicates that any changes implemented by the landlord were not successful. This indicates a failing by the landlord to ensure its staff recorded this information when raising repairs. It is unclear whether the landlord conducted any training or issued guidance to staff, which would have been reasonable steps in helping to ensure the information was documented when raising repairs to its contractor.
In relation to the 24 December 2024 repairs appointment, the landlord said that the PPE requirement was passed to the contractor however, the operative did not properly check the notes before attending. The landlord said it had spoken to the operative directly, which was an appropriate action. However, there is no evidence that the landlord liaised with the contractor to establish why the repair had been allocated to an operative who could not comply with the requirement to wear a face mask. The landlord ought to have done this so that any necessary steps could be taken to avoid this situation occurring again.
Overall, the landlord took some appropriate action to address the issue including liaising with its repairs contractors who confirmed all operatives carried PPE in their vehicles, offering the resident a single point of contact and undertaking reviews of its internal processes. This indicates that the landlord did wish to resolve the issue. However, there were failings by the landlord to ensure the correct information was passed to the contractor during 2024, and to liaise with the contractor about how the December 2024 repair was allocated. The landlord acknowledged the failure to ensure operatives wore PPE and offered compensation in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused.
The landlord provided some reassurances in its February 2024 stage 1 response that it was working to improve its processes. However, it is clear that no such changes had been made when the resident raised his further complaint almost a year later, in January 2025. In its final complaint response in February 2025, the landlord again explained steps it intended to take to improve its systems. The landlord did not provide any expected timeframes for when the system changes would take place, which it ought to have done.
While it is accepted that alterations to internal systems can take time to complete, we recognise that from the resident’s perspective, the delays suggested a failure by the landlord to resolve the issue. This resulted in the resident feeling that the landlord did not have proper concern for his health.
In October 2025, the landlord told us it had completed the actions outlined in its February 2025 complaint response and the resident told us that operatives had not attended his property since December 2024. He was therefore unsure whether the issue had been resolved. There is no evidence that the landlord contacted the resident to confirm what changes it made to its repairs systems regarding the exchange of information.
The resident has serious health concerns and the issue has caused him distress and inconvenience. He also incurred time and trouble in pursuing this issue with the landlord. The resident’s concerns are ongoing as he is unsure whether the landlord has taken sufficient steps to ensure operatives wear face masks when attending his property.
As outlined above, we have therefore ordered the landlord to complete a case review, in which it should consider what actions have been taken to ensure operatives are aware of the requirement to wear PPE. The landlord’s overall offer of £400 compensation was reasonable and we have therefore not ordered an additional amount.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	No maladministration

The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) 1 April 2022 required landlords to acknowledge a complaint within 5 days and respond to stage 1 and 2 complaints within 10 and 20 working days, respectively.
There were minor delays of 2 and 3 days by the landlord in issuing its responses to the 24 January 2024 complaint. The short delays would not have negatively impacted the resident and no failing has been identified.
The landlord responded to the resident’s 3 January 2025 complaint within the correct timeframes at both stages of the complaint.

Learning

The landlord should ensure that it properly implements learning identified through the complaints process and that it ensures appropriate service level agreements are in place between it and all of its contracted-out services.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

The case highlighted a failure by the landlord to pass important information to the contractor, as well as a failure by the contractor to take the PPE requirement into account when allocating a repairs appointment.

Communication

The landlord should have communicated with the resident about the changes it said it would make in its complaint responses.