Introduction: a just city?

The above are the words of Nick Forbes, Leader of Newcastle City Council, when he launched the Newcastle Fairness Commission in July 2011. His statement indicates both an acknowledgment of the growing inequalities in the city and a call for ways of reducing the unfairness of the city. The launch made Newcastle upon Tyne one of a small number of UK cities that have officially recognised the importance of thinking about how to promote fairness and social justice by setting up a Fairness Commission. A key trigger was the substantial cuts to the City Council's budget under the austerity policies of the Coalition government. This has since been considered by Newcastle City Council, and a number of other northern and mainly Labour-led councils, as unfair to the city. The 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review cut the local governments’ budget by an average of 4.4%. However, some of the most deprived local authorities received cuts of 8.9% compared to cuts of only 1% or less in the most affluent ones (Davoudi and Madanipour, 2015: 94). An example of the latter is Guildford in Surrey where the 2010–13 cuts were about £16 per resident, while in Newcastle (an example of the former) it was £162 (Harris, 2014: 9). In 2013–14 Newcastle City Council cut £37 million from its spending and is cutting another £38 million in 2015–16 (at the time of writing), with more cuts to follow in the following years (Harris, 2014: 9).

The Fairness Commission was established in the context of this diminishing public expenditure with the aim of:

• • Setting out a strong set of principles of how the concept of fairness could be given practical effect in Newcastle, in a way that would secure broad endorsement from across the city.