This article aims to make an approach to the definition and meaning of social policies through the theory of contracts, a distinction between these and public policy. For this, the contributions of some officials of the Municipality of Medellín and other municipal organizations in a focus group and depth interview about their perceptions of social policies through contract retake. The results of the focus group and in-depth interviews revealed that the invited organizations have several confusions in time to recognize the conceptualization associated with the proposal defined in institutional design, the position they hold and dynamic performance but have clear responsibility towards social programs that coordinate, but there is no explicit interest prioritize and separate public and social policy.
