he has to entertain clients
at fuctions in hotels up and down the UK

Looks like another Freudian typo there, jimlad9 :-)

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fB, I'm not sure what happens if you take voluntary reduncancy. I do know that when I was made redundant a few years ago (along with 900 others) we were offered the choice of 'converting' our compulsory redundancy to 'voluntary' redundancy (obviously, it wasn't really voluntary at all, because we were all being kicked out regardless, it was just a dodge by the company bending the rules to get rid of people more quickly).

They advised us that the advantage to us of taking VR instead of CR was that we were free to go instantly, and get a full month's pay (the notice period was a month), but the downside was we wouldn't be able to sign on if we did this. Taking CR meant we had to serve out the rest of our month's notice, and then we could sign on afterwards. The advantage to them of VR was they got shot of the staff quicker and could vacate the office space, etc.

The lads that were confident of walking straight into another job obviously opted for VR, as they were quids in, what with the redundancy pay they collected (depending on length of service). The rest of us, perhaps those over a certain age like me, decided it was safer to go for CR, even though we spent the rest of our time twiddling our thumbs with our feet up on the desk getting bored as hell (obviously looking for work, etc. as well).

So I hope you sort out your problem with those b*****ds. Good luck!