Public-private partnerships for cultural heritage valorization: from Value for Money to Value for Society / I partenariati pubblico-privati per la valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale: dal Value for Money al Value for Society

Considering the limited financial resources available for managing public cultural heritage sites, public-private partnerships (P3s) have emerged in recent years as an innovative tool for funding conservation and valorization activities. In the Italian context, Article 175, Paragraph 2 of Legislative Decree No. 36 of March 31, 2023 (The New Public Contracts Code) states that the use of P3s must be evaluated through a preliminary assessment of its payoffs and feasibility by comparing costs and benefits over the entire partnership timeframe with other procurement contracts. The “Value for Money” (VfM) parameter is the main recognized criterion, and thus widely adopted, when assessing whether the involvement of a private entity is likely to deliver added value. It refers to the optimization of resources to obtain the utmost benefit from a project, considering not only the cost structure but also the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of a given operation. It is typically assessed quantitatively through the application of the Public Sector Comparator (PSC) method, which compares the total cost of a P3 project with that of a traditionally developed project. However, when dealing with heritage assets, it falls short in capturing the complexity of impacts related to a P3 project. Based on these premises and drawing on the literature about the non-financial aspects of P3, the paper critically discusses the opportunity of applying the available evaluation paradigms and methods in the P3 sector and sets the theoretical ground for a broader evaluation framework, aimed at capturing the “Value for Society” (VfS) of partnerships for the valorization of cultural heritage.