The Scottish Government has published The Opportunities and Challenges of the Changing Public Services Landscape for the Third Sector in Scotland, baseline findings from the first year of a three year qualitative longitudinal study on the third sector (Summary).

The report highlights the third sector’s ability to provide person-centred holistic approaches designed according to people’s needs. It recognises the ethos in the sector of creating quality, value-based services that improve life for clients. It also stresses the specialist knowledge and expertise of the third sector in working with vulnerable, disadvantaged and hard-to-reach clients. However short-term funding and concerns that public funders are too focused on cost over quality were highlighted as challenges.