The editors very generously say that this book was inspired by the work of the Newcastle Fairness Commission. Reading that took me back in time to early 2011, when the aftershocks of the global financial crisis were still being felt daily, and the first shocks of the austerity policies of the Coalition government were felt at local authority level. It was then that Newcastle City Council invited me to chair a Commission to consider how it could make fair decisions in planning and resource allocation in the face of a shrinking budget and a mood of concern about the delivery of public services.

The Fairness Commission, as it emerged, was a broad-ranging group of people from various areas of civil society: charities, faith groups, activists, academics, teachers, and so on. It was not a pressure group, it was not a group of experts, and in a sense it was not a group at all – just a collection of individuals who shared a concern about the future of the city and a willingness to try and make a contribution.

Early on, we decided to try and get to the heart of the practicalities by isolating some principles of fairness. This was an endeavour before which professional philosophers might quail, but fortunately we completed the task before anyone could point out that it was impossible. I drafted an initial set of ideas, and then we refined and adapted these over the course of various discussions. Eventually we did something even more ambitious: we summarised the entire report in the title: ‘Fair Share, Fair Play, Fair Go, Fair Say’.

‘Fair share’ is about resource allocation. When your budget is shrinking, and you have competing priorities, how do you come to a position where people feel they have received a fair share of whatever there is, matched to their needs? ‘Fair play’ is about due process and even-handedness. It is the realisation that no matter how you allocate resources, people won't feel they have been fairly treated unless they trust the way in which it was done. ‘Fair go’ is about equality of opportunity. Anybody should be enabled to have a go at anything – education in particular – no matter what their starting position, and a chance to fulfil their aspirations.