FORMER Connaught employees will be employed by the firm taking over their Barnet contract and may also get redundancy pay.

Yesterday morning the 39 maintenance staff were told their jobs were being transferred to new firm Lovell, which took over the contract after Connaught went bust.

However, last night workers were sent an email by administrators KPMG telling them under the terms of the sale their contracts could not be transferred in this way and they are still redundant.

A spokesman for Barnet Homes said Lovells still intends to employ all the staff and as a gesture of good will may backdate pay until the beginning of September.

She added: “We are committed to employing the same staff and both Lovells and Barnet Homes are clear on what they want to do.

“We would like to reassure our residents that our repair service will be back to full strength from Monday.

“There is a backlog to repairs as we have only been able to do what is a priority on health and safety grounds since Connaught went into administration.”

One maintenance worker said they had been told they would be returning to work tomorrow and thanked Barnet Homes and Lovell for their work in securing the jobs.

A spokesman for KPMG said staff who had been made redundant on Friday were not eligible to be transferred to Lovell, but could be employed by them on a separate basis and confirmed anyone made redundant would be eligible to statutory redundancy pay.

Last night a group of workers joined a rally of more than 200 union members froma range of services in a protest against job cuts outside the full council meeting in Hendon Town Hall.

Barnet UNISON secretary John Burgess told the Times Series: "I'm very pleased with the turnout, the weather's not great so it's good people are getting behind us.

"The Connaught problems show the danger of trying to outsource these services to the lowest bidder. These are services which should be brought back in house."