The Scottish Government funded a programme to develop 10 pilot Public Social Partnerships in Scotland between 2009 and 2011, in a range of areas including social care, youth services and recycling. As a result, a new guidance document on Public Social Partnerships was launched on 8 July.These partnerships take place in three stages. Third Sector organisations work with public sector purchasers to design a service. A consortia of third sector organisations deliver the service as a short-term pilot, helping to refine the service as this proceeds to maximise community benefit. The service, which has therefore been designed using service users and which has been developed to maximise community benefit is then tendered for longer term delivery.The Scottish Government will continue to support the roll-out of the PSP models through a subsequent programme.