Working groups

(1) The Working Group for Cancer Control of the providers of statutory health and pension insurance in the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Rhineland Working Group for the Rehabilitation of Addicts, the Westphalian Working Group for the Rehabilitation of Addicts, the Working Group for the Rehabilitation of Addicts in the Land of Hesse, and the Working Group for Home Dialysis in the Land of Hesse, are entitled to issue administrative acts to perform the functions that were assigned to them as at 1 July 1981.
(1a) Providers of social insurance, associations of providers of social insurance, and the Federal Employment Agency, including the other providers of benefits named in section 19a(2) of the First Book, may form working groups, in particular for mutual information, coordination and the promotion of close cooperation within the framework of the functions statutorily assigned to them. A working group formed under the first sentence may form a further working group, or join a further working group, which may in turn participate in a further working group. Further tiers of participation are impermissible. The supervisory authority must be informed, before working groups are formed and joined, and before their dissolution and a withdrawal, so timely and comprehensively that it retains sufficient time to examine this. The supervisory authority may dispense with being informed.
(2) Where working groups may be formed under this Code, they are subject to state supervision, which extends to compliance with the statute and other law applicable to the working groups, the providers of benefits and their associations; sections 85, 88 to 90a of the Fourth Book apply correspondingly. Where the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds or the Federal Employment Agency is a member of a working group, the competent Federal Ministry conducts supervision in consultation with the supervisory authorities competent for the other members. Where a supervisory authority intends to make use of the supervisory means under section 89 of the Fourth Book, it informs the supervisory authorities that supervise the members of the working group concerned, and sets a reasonable period for comment.
(2a) A spatial area of competence within the meaning of section 90 of the Fourth Book exists where a working group directly renders social-law benefits to insured persons, or performs other functions under the Social Code in external relations. Where there is no area of competence within the meaning of section 90 of the Fourth Book, supervision is conducted by the supreme administrative authorities competent for social insurance, or by the authorities of the Land determined by the Land government by statutory instrument, in which the working groups have their seat; the Land governments may transfer this authorisation, by statutory instrument, to the supreme Land authorities. In derogation from the second sentence, the Federal Office for Social Security conducts supervision where the absolute majority of the shares or votes in the working group vests in providers subject to federal supervision.
(3) Insofar as required, a working group draws up a budget by correspondent application of section 67 of the Fourth Book.
(4) Section 88(1), first sentence and (2) apply correspondingly.