Social Policy and Law

Social policy and law together address the frameworks through which societies make collective decisions about welfare, justice, and the distribution of rights and responsibilities. Social policy examines how governments and other institutions organise responses to social needs, covering areas such as health, housing, education, social care, income support, and criminal justice. Law analyses the rules and principles through which societies regulate behaviour and resolve disputes, including public law, human rights, contract, family law, and welfare law.

Studying both disciplines together gives you a uniquely comprehensive understanding of how the state structures its relationship with citizens, and how law shapes and is shaped by social policy choices.

At the University of Edinburgh you will study this four-year full-time programme, which includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to experience how social policy and legal frameworks operate in a different national context and to understand how different welfare state traditions have emerged from distinct historical and political conditions. Edinburgh's location in Scotland also means you will study within a distinctive legal and policy environment, with Scots law having its own civil law tradition that differs from English law in important respects. Across the programme you will engage with welfare state theory, comparative social policy, legal methods and reasoning, human rights, housing law, family law, and the law of social security.

Research methods in both quantitative and qualitative traditions are developed alongside the substantive content. The typical entry tariff is 216 points.

Graduates from this programme are well placed for careers in law, the civil service, social policy research, local government, the NHS, housing organisations, the voluntary sector, and advocacy. Some graduates go on to complete the professional qualifications needed to practise as solicitors or barristers. Others pursue postgraduate study in social policy, law, public administration, or criminology.

The combination of legal and policy expertise is particularly valued in organisations that work at the boundary between legal rights and social need.