Social policy primarily refers to guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare. The Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard University describes it as "public policy and practice in the areas of health care, human services, criminal justice, inequality, education, and labor."

Social policy often deals with wicked problems. Social Policy is defined as actions that affect the well-being of members of a society through shaping the distribution of and access to goods and resources in that society.

The earliest example of direct intervention by government in human welfare dates back to Umar ibn al-Khattāb's rule as the second caliph of Islam in the 6th century. He used zakah collections and also other governmental resources to establish pensions, income support, child benefits, various stipends for people of the non-Muslim community.

In the West, proponents of scientific social planning, such as the sociologist Auguste Comte, and social researchers, such as Charles Booth, contributed to the emergence of social policy in the first industrialised countries. Surveys of poverty that exposed the brutal conditions in the urban slum conurbations of Victorian Britain pressured changes reform of the Poor Law and welfare reforms by the British Liberal Party. Other significant examples in the development of social policy are the Bismarckian welfare state in 19th century Germany; social security policies introduced by the New Deal in the United States between 1933 and 1935, and health reforms the Beveridge Report of 1942.

Ruth Lupton is an English cricketer and former member of the England women's cricket team. She was born in 1964 and played one test, against New Zealand at Scarborough, and two one day internationals [1].

Peter William Whiteford (born 3 August 1980) is a Scottish professional golfer.

Whiteford was born in Kirkcaldy. He turned professional in 2002.

Whiteford won twice on PGA EuroPro Tour from 2002 to 2003 and has played on the Challenge and European Tour's since then. He won twice on the Challenge Tour in 2007 and once in 2009.