Howard Glennerster has been an active participant in the social policy process and a commentator on it since the early 1960s, when he joined the Labour Party Research Department. He taught social policy at the London School of Economics for over thirty years and is now Professor Emeritus of Social Policy and Co-Director of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion there. He is the author of many books and journal articles on social policy including Understanding the Finance of Welfare (2003). He became a Fellow of the British Academy in 2002.