Fairness Foundation

We are an independent and politically non-aligned charity. Our vision is a fairer Britain in which everyone has the same chance to live their best and fullest life. Our mission is to change the terms of the public debate about fairness, to promote the benefits of a fair society, and to inspire citizens, organisations and decision-makers to create a fairer society.

How do we build a shared vision of what fairness looks like? Our definition of fairness is based on five ‘fair necessities’: fair essentials, fair opportunities, fair rewards, fair exchange and fair treatment. Our polling suggests that these components of fairness have the potential to unite a majority of the British public around a shared vision of a better society.

The Fairness Index is an online tool, published in October 2022, that examines and explains the nature, causes and consequences of key inequalities in the UK. It looks at 15 indicators, three for each of the five ‘fair necessities’, to explore whether we live in a fair society, how and why inequalities are unfair, and how to make society fairer.

Fair Comment is our weekly email and blog, hosted on Substack. Every Monday we prod Britain with a fairness stick, writing about a topical issue (or two) from a fairness perspective. We’ve covered everything from partygate and the infamous mini-budget to the role of luck in life and how to make Monopoly more realistic.

We commissioned a nationally representative poll in January 2023, which found that two in three Britons agree with the key fairness arguments in favour of the strikes (such as that pay gaps are too large and that key workers are unable to get by), amid widespread concern about an absence of fairness in society.

Our latest report, based on a nationally representative poll carried out in March 2023, finds that eight in ten people in Britain think that workers in the early years sector are paid too little. This view unites parents, grandparents and non-parents, men and women, and voters across party lines, including parents struggling with childcare costs.