This presentation departs from the ongoing debate on the role that documentation plays in the decision making processes of older people’s needs within social work. It is based on a study of documentation within need assessment practice in Swedish elderly care. The aim is to shed light on whether foreign-born background or native-born background, gender and age have any relevance to the ways in which older people’s needs are described  in the case files that are used in this practice.  The data – which has been analyzed using quantitative content analysis and multiple regression analysis - is comprised of case files (n=202) containing investigations (n=488) into requests for welfare services. The results of the analysis show that, women were granted home care (including practical services) more often than men. Foreign-born older people were granted home care grants to a greater extent than Swedish-born older people. Regarding the parts where judgments and decisions are made, there are differences in terms of how decisions are justified and presented in the case files: foreign-born older people’s assistance needs are more often connected to motivations about the additional workload that their relatives perform. The results partially support the critical debate about how clients are constructed through decision making processes in social work documentation. The study also adds new knowledge to this discussion by showing that categories such as gender and having a foreign-born background and to some extent also age makes a difference in relation to which services are being granted and to the way in which needs get documented. As such, the presentation will contribute to the debate on the challenges that a social justice and human rights- informed practice poses for documentation practices in social work and raises questions about the manner in which decision making processes are conducted