United States President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka has been appointed “assistant to the President”, the White House announced on Thursday. The position is an unpaid one as critics of the controversial administration alleged unethical practices. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is already serving as a senior adviser to the Republican president.

“I have heard the concerns some have with my advising the President in my personal capacity while voluntarily complying with all ethics rules, and I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House Office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees,” Ivanka Trump said in a statement, CNN reported.

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In a statement, the White House had said it was “pleased that Ivanka Trump has chosen to take this step in her unprecedented role as first daughter”. The move follows her statement last week that she planned on serving Trump as an unofficial adviser with an office in the West Wing.

Her announcement had drawn criticism from several quarters. “This arrangement appears designed to allow Ms Trump to avoid the ethics, conflict-of-interest and other rules that apply to White House employees,” Norman L Eisen and Richard W Painter, White House ethics lawyers for Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush, respectively, had written in a letter to White House counsel Donald F McGahn II.

Her lawyer, Jamie Gorelick said they were working on making the financial disclosures which will bring her under the purview of ethical rules. She has already handed over the management of her fashion label to the firm’s president and established a trust to monitor it, The New York Times reported. While she has quit her role in the Trump Organisatin, she will continue to receive payments from Trump’s real estate firm.

In January, she had dismissed speculation about her role in the White House and said she was busy with relocating her family from New York to Washington.