After the 2008 economic crisis, many administrations at different levels, pressed by the need to cut public spending and contain public debt and deficits, tried new forms of social public procurement with the aim of creating direct and indirect social value (Furneaux and Barraket, 2014). The effectiveness of these policies, the ambitiousness of their goals, and their potential diffusion were often limited by the need to monitor and evaluate results and social impacts. This reflection is particularly relevant today, when many external factors make social impact measurement inevitable and extensive. Attempts by public administrations to reengineer their procurement schemes to be outcome-based is consistent with the emergence and acceleration of social impact finance and the outcome-based, OR pay-for-results financing models (Arena et al., 2016).
