Despite the uphill battle in extending Freedom of Information to companies doing public work, the open data movement is already beginning to hold many of them to account

Despite initial opposition, Freedom of Information is one of the more successful government policies of the last decade. Now, many believe that it is time for the Act to be extended to private companies doing work for public bodies. Ben Worthy argues that while this is not proving to be easy, many Open Data initiatives are already allowing the public greater ability to hold contractors to account.