ABSTRACT Central government is transferring increasing discretionary powers for social security to local authorities (LAs) in England. The responsibility for the design, implementation, and oversight of a series of ad hoc, cash-limited, and discretionary schemes marks the latest evolution of LAs role in the welfare system. Yet there has been little empirical analysis of how LAs design one of the latest schemes in the localisation process – local welfare assistance. This article draws on a content analysis of 165 LA webpages and 10 interviews with LA and third sector members to explore the design of local welfare assistance schemes and the factors that play into these ‘design decisions’. It is argued that LAs play a significant role in shaping the social security environment. This level of governance represents a site of analysis that can tell us about the environment that street-level bureaucrats work in and the schemes that citizens will experience. However, because of exhaustive demand and ever reducing resources LAs are unable to design in a way that promotes administrative justice. Instead, practices that limit, ration or delegating demand and resources leave claimants with inaccessible, unavailable, and discriminating local welfare.