So, following my email last night I received a reply from the Joint Director of Education and Children's Services for Kingston and Richmond.

The email was addressed to me, but copied into the lady from Richmond's Human Resources who has been "The Mouthpiece" for Richmond throughout all this, my boss and my boss' boss. I won't mention names I'm afraid. My boss has been very good to me throughout all this, and has been very supportive, and her boss is someone I've worked for in the past. Both of whom I have respect for, and neither are involved with the shenanigans that Richmond are playing in this. And "The Mouthpiece" is exactly that. It's not her fault that she has to say what she does, it's just her job, and I do know that she sympathises with my situation.

The Director's email simply said : "Can anyone brief me ?"

Now, I was obviously very tempted to brief him with chapter and bloody verse, but decided not to. He is after all my boss' boss' boss, and I didn't want to piss him off and jeopardise my chances of success.

But the question I ask now is, why does he need to be briefed ?
Did he not read the attachment that was my original 3 page statement ? Can he not come to a conclusion from that using his own reason ?

He was contacted some time ago (when I first raised a fuss over this), by Vincent Cable, and was asked about what was going on. He basically passed the query to HR who told him their side of the story of course (as The Mouthpiece would), which he duly passed back to Vincent. I'm still not sure that he really knows what is going on, or what the impact of it is to my family and I.
I find that slightly worrying. I understand he's a busy man, working on the merger of Children's Services between Kingston and Richmond, but those who work for him must surely still be important to him, and be taken into account.

Or am I just being naïve, thinking that people at the top care about people at the bottom ?

I may be being unkind to him, after all I've never met him, but I think this is a rather unusual situation to be in and it must at least pique his interest. Why then has he not spoken to me direct about it ? Surely my opinion counts for something to him.

I intend emailing him back, suggesting that we meet.