Abstract Little is known about how the tools and guidelines, which are central to current social work practice, are designed. The purpose of this article is to improve understanding of the conditions for social workers' discretion by analysing how the municipal responsibility to meet individual needs is circumscribed in local guidelines for needs assessment in Swedish elder care. The paper applies framing theory to the analysis of guidelines in 51 municipalities and maps the prevalence of guidelines. Framing theory highlights how different designs of local guidelines can create varying premises for the discretion of social workers. By illustrating how the guidelines provide social workers with the necessary guidance on how to interpret the law by circumscribing their discretion in standardised, and varying, ways, the findings point to the importance of further research on how the quest for standardisation in adult social work through local guidelines influences social workers' assessments in practice.