Removing an appointee
This information applies to England and Wales.
An appointee is someone the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) authorises to manage your benefits for you.
If you are not happy with your appointee, you can ask the DWP to remove or change them. You do not need your appointee’s permission. The DWP decides whether the person should be removed or changed.
Warning Your benefits might be paused
If your appointee is changed, your benefit payments will be paused. You need to find someone else as quickly as possible.
When an appointee can be removed
The DWP decides whether to remove someone. This is not your appointee’s decision.
The DWP will remove an appointee if:
- you can manage your own benefits
- your appointee is not suitable
You can manage your own benefits
You no longer need an appointee if you can manage your own benefits.
Your appointee should let the DWP know. This is the best way to remove an appointee if your appointee is happy to do this.
If your appointee refuses to do this, you can contact the DWP yourself and apply for them to be removed.
Your appointee is not suitable
If you think that your appointee is not acting in your best interests, tell the DWP.
This could be because they:
- find it hard to manage your benefits
- are keeping your money or using it to control you (this could be financial abuse)
Who to contact
To ask to remove your appointee, you need to contact the service at the DWP that manages your benefit.
Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance: Disability Service Centre
State Pension: Pension Service
All other benefits including Universal Credit: Jobcentre Plus
DWP visit
The DWP will probably visit you and your appointee to decide whether to remove them. The DWP will send a letter with the date of their visit, and the name of the Visiting Officer.
Warning Letter goes to your appointee
The DWP will send a letter with details of the visit to your appointee. Your appointee needs to tell you when the DWP is coming.
Your appointee cannot cancel the visit.
After the visit, they will write to you and your appointee. They can decide to remove, keep or change your appointee.
Removing appointeeship
If the DWP agree you can manage your own benefits, they will remove your appointee.
You would become responsible for managing your benefit claims, renewals and assessments. You decide what account the benefit money is paid into.
Keeping your appointee
Your appointee will stay if the DWP decides that:
- you cannot manage your own benefits
- your appointee is managing your benefits properly
Changing your appointee
The DWP might agree that your appointee is not suitable but decide that you still need an appointee. This means you need to find a new appointee as quickly as possible so it is worth thinking about who could replace your appointee.
Last reviewed by Scope on: 10/07/2023
Was this page helpful?
Great!
Tell us how it helpedWe're sorry to hear that.
Tell us how we can improve it