I will try to keep this as brief as possible but it will probably still be long, sorry.
I have been at my organisation for 20 years (public sector) I reached my dream middle management role about 8 years and loved it and did well. I then started wanting a more senior role and finally got that around 2 years ago. However, funding issues meant I had to keep my middle management role as well, which was extremely tough. I did my best but often felt I was doing neither role justice. Also, as is normal in my sector, no real training is given when you go into management and you have to sort of navigate it yourself. My boss is also not great at delegating and no clear targets/responsibilities were identified but, as I said, I did my best and did get good feedback and was told I would be promoted fully into the senior team 'soon' as I was doing so well.
Then earlier this year everything went to total shit in the team I manage as a middle leader. A few new staff members came and the dynamic changed and it just fractured. It probably wasn't helped by the fact that I was trying to do two jobs and wasn't around as much to get on top of it all, but I kept my boss fully informed at all times and told her outright that I was struggling and needed support to deal with the issues. I wasn't happy with how it was being dealt with and it culminated in 2 members of staff making several malicious grievances against me and others in the team. It was so stressful I've ended up on anti-depressants. None of the grievances have been upheld and my boss says she believes I could have handled some things better but I have not done the things I was accused of, and same for the other people. I feel she and HR didn’t deal with it well and if they had supported me when I first raised it then it wouldn’t have gone this far. She also kept saying the best thing for me would be when I was removed from the team and fully promoted.
In the middle of all this I told my boss I was struggling with the two roles and it wasn't really working out. She started saying that for financial reasons and HR reasons she couldn't promote me while the above issue was being dealt with as it wouldn't look right. I said I understood but asked if some of the responsibilities associated with my middle leadership role could be assigned to someone else (normal practice anyway) and she agreed so that was done. It was contradictory really - one day she would say we need to get you out of that team, but the next she'd say not yet.
Anyway, now it's all over and they have employed someone else for my middle leadership role but my boss is being more vague than ever about my promoted role. It now just feels that I have been shuffled sideways. My boss keeps making minor digs about the responsibilities I had removed and I feel like she thinks I’m lazy, which considering 60 hour weeks are my normal, is bloody annoying. I do have a remit for my senior role and I am trying to push things forward for it but I’m getting radio silence from my boss for things I need her to approve. She's bad at delegating and tries to run everything herself (badly, to be honest, because no one can do everything) and when I'm trying to step up she's not really engaging. I feel like I've lost my team and am just being shuffled off. The people who made the grievances are not happy but I don't feel like they've been dealt with properly and now they just barely speak to me, which isn't right.
What do I do? I'm looking for other jobs but there's nothing suitable at the moment and I love the place I work in and don't really want to leave anyway, but I can't go on like this. Thanks for reading this far - any advice would be great.