If you build it, they will come!

While idly perusing my 'recent visitor activity' in Statcounter, I noticed that somebody from 'Action 4 Employment Ltd, Barnsley' had dropped in at 10.51 this morning, a name which screams "FakeCharity"!

Yup. Their website is the typical garish fakecharity mess, and the sub-pages are interminably slo-o-ow to load. I took the liberty of downloading their 2008 accounts. Their turnover was £122,978,495, and their customers...? From page 2:

A4E provides the majority of its services directly to government agencies and departments. A4E's operational and development activity within government departmenrs and agencies includes work with JobCentre Plus; Regional Development Agencies; local Learning & Skills Councils; Local Authorities; the Department for Work and Pensions; the Department for Children Schools and Families; the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills; the Department for Communities and Local Government; the Department for Constitutional Affairs; the Legal Services Commission; the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Overseas, A4E holds contracts with central goverment departments or agencies in Israel, Germany, Poland and France.

The company paid out about half its income as salaries and wages, while the directors shared a pot of just under £2 million and received dividends of £1,675,070(so it's not really a fakecharity, I suppose, but a fakeprivatebusiness, but hey).

Nice work if you can get it.

UPDATE: it gets worse, somebody did some more digging on them here.