Wednesday newspaper round-up: Four day working week, Post Office, Linklaters
Campaigners for a four-day working week are preparing a new pilot project on flexible working in the hope that the Labour government will be more receptive to changes in how people work. The pilot project has opened to companies to sign up for a November start, with findings to be presented to the government in the summer of 2025. – Guardian
The former chair of a Whitehall agency responsible for taxpayers’ interest in the Post Office has blamed the Horizon IT scandal on a mixture of “incomplete curiosity” and “a toxic culture” at the state-owned company. Robert Swannell, a veteran City businessman and former Marks & Spencer chair, was speaking on Tuesday before the judge-led public inquiry investigating why post office operators were wrongly prosecuted for theft and false accounting over financial discrepancies linked to bugs within the Horizon IT system. – Guardian
Top partners at magic circle law firm Linklaters have taken home almost £2m each after a bounce back in deal-making. Average payouts for equity partners increased 8pc to £1.9m in the year to April, as revenues at the firm surpassed £2bn for the first time. Paul Lewis, managing partner at Linklaters, said the firm had benefited from an “exceptional year” as pre-tax profits jumped 10pc to £942m and revenue increased to £2.1bn. – Telegraph
A growing number of FTSE chief executives are being impersonated by fraudsters who are using artificial intelligence to create convincing deepfake clones, The Times can reveal. A number of these sophisticated “CEO scams” have received publicity in recent months but many more are going unreported, according to cybersecurity experts. – The Times
Business confidence climbed to its highest point in two years over the last three months, helped by falling inflation and forecasts for better sales, a survey showed. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales business confidence index jumped to 16.7 in the second quarter of this year, up from 14.4 in the previous three months and the highest reading since the first quarter of 2022. – The Times