FOI requests applying to development agencies?

Gordon Brown recently harped on about liberty as a traditional British trait in a rather blatant and awkward attempt to divert attention from the fact he is a supporter of anti-libertarian terrorist laws and that he is Scottish in an age of rising English nationalism.

One of his ideas was to extend Freedom of Information legislation, which is widely agreed to have been a success since it was passed in 2000. The law gives journalists and members of the public the power to demand information from public bodies, providing that the cost of retrieving it is not too high.

Now Brown wants to extend Freedom of Information so that it covers:

• Organisations which appear to the Secretary of State to exercise functions of a public nature.
• Organisations which are providing, under a contract made with a public authority, any service whose provision is a function of that authority.

The consultation document doesn't give any more detail about the type of organisations which would be covered by this second point. But presumably development agencies funded by DfID, especially those under the given cash under the Partnership Programme Agreements funding stream, would be covered.