The earliest PPPs were developed behind closed doors. More recently, the public sector in many countries has recognised that efforts to create sustainable partnership arrangements fundamentally rely on widespread support. In municipal partnerships, evidence suggests that leaders must have the skills and capacity to plan and facilitate a process of stakeholder consultation that leads to transparent, inclusive decision-making. Diverse skills sets are required to carry out consultations with communities, NGOs, trade unions and the business community. A coherent council, committed to the partnership process, will facilitate this, but in those cases in which there is split in the council between those for and against partnership approaches, the process of broader consultation will be more difficult. To ensure that consultation is effective, the process needs to be planned and its implementation monitored.