Appointees
84.Section 58 allows the Scottish Ministers to appoint a body or individual (who must be over 16 years of age if an individual) to act on behalf of an individual in relation to that individual’s entitlement to assistance under Part 2. The appointee effectively stands in the shoes of the individual that the appointee has been appointed to represent (see subsection (6)).
85.The power to appoint someone can be used in two situations:
where the individual in question is dead and there is not an executor acting for the individual’s estate who could deal with issues around the individual’s social security entitlement (see subsection (3)),
where the individual does not have capacity to deal with issues surrounding social security entitlement and there is no-one else, such as an appointed guardian or someone with a power of attorney, available to act on the individual’s behalf (see subsection (4)).