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The causes and consequences of financial exclusion have become a policy concern in Britain in recent years. This paper analyses policy discourses around financial exclusion and considers the (social and economic) geographical issues surrounding one particular policy response – universal banking services. It examines the policy background which led to the introduction of these services, and the institutional role of the Post Office, before discussing their potential social and spatial consequences.

The discursive rhetoric of responsibility has become associated with a neo-liberal 'responsibilisation' agenda, typified by policy approaches to rough sleeping in England. I draw on feminist ethics of care literature to provide a critical discussion of responsibility. Informed by original ethnographic research I explore how responsibility is practised and negotiated between rough sleepers and local actors through on-site food provisioning activities in the city of Newcastle in northeast England. A distinction and tension was identified between voluntary organisations' 'taking care of' rough sleepers' food needs, and commissioned service providers and rough sleepers who articulated a 'caring with' approach; both practices highlighted a complex interplay between care and responsibilisation framings. The research revealed how these discourses interacted to inform the implementation and responsiveness of local voluntary and policy actors, to the extent that responsibilisation was made possible by the purposeful rendering of collective and situated care practices.

Concerns have been expressed with regard to the use of both single variables and indices in the assessment of disadvantage. In response, a 'bundles' methodology was adopted. Several variables were combined to define particular conditions acknowledged as representing the main elements posing a risk of disadvantage. Numbers of people facing these circumstances within particular locations were then identified. The approach offers a capability to represent the numbers of people facing different aspects of disadvantage separately. The analysis compares the patterns and concentrations of disadvantage within English rural and urban areas: the general incidence of different types of disadvantage, the correlations between them and concentrations of disadvantage amongst different populations. Consideration is then given to the implications of the analysis for current and future policy.