All staff at collapsed recruiter Veritas IT have lost their jobs, Jason Giller, the company’s managing director, has told Recruiter.

Giller said that the 50 or so staff were made redundant on 19 September, when he told them that it was “highly unlikely” that they would be paid for September. Staff had been “genuinely shocked”, he added.

Giller conceded that it had been “a tough time” for staff, and for contractors, some of whom say they haven’t been paid for several months.

He gave contractors few grounds for optimism, admitting that he didn’t know how much they were owed. Accountants BDO Stoy Hayward had only done “a very quick check on the numbers”, he claimed.

Nor would he comment on whether contractors were free to switch to another agency without breaking their contracts. However, he said that potential purchasers of the company had “expressed a desire to keep contractors on board, by working out a schedule which would enable them to recover some of the money”.

Giller defended his own actions and those of his fellow directors against claims of mismanagement.

Giller said that the first time he realised the company was in financial difficulties was when the finance manager walked out at the beginning of September. “That was the point when the lightbulb came on and I knew something was drastically wrong,” he said.

Giller refused to say exactly how much the company owed, saying it would be “unfair” to give any figures — though he added it was “nothing like £10m”, as industry rumours have suggested.

But he denied that the company had been mismanaged and defended remuneration paid to directors totalling £354,032 in 2005, when the company accounts showed the balance sheet was in deficit to the tune of £526,000, and £487,000 in 2006 when the company showed an operating loss of £707,000.

“You have to be careful with figures. You would really have to be an accountant to understand them,” he said. The accounts would not have been signed off by the firm’s auditors, had there been anything improper, he added.

And he denied claims that the company had been trading while insolvent, saying that the board had taken proper advice from insolvency practitioners.

Giller said that his main objective was to ensure that administrators were appointed as soon as possible, to ensure that staff could claim redundancy entitlements from the government. A decision to appoint administrators was imminent — it was “highly likely” this would be BDO Stoy Hayward.

He hoped that that someone would come in to buy the company to provide continuity for clients and contractors. There had been interest from at least two potential buyers, though he admitted that some clients had already gone elsewhere.

However, he ruled himself out from buying the company from the administrators. As to whether he saw his own future in recruitment, he said: “Who knows?”