34 Trial Monitoring: A Reference Manual for Practitioners Comparative overview of OSCE experience with staff and project-model programmes Organizational issue Overview of OSCE experience Access to courts and case information • Staff model programmes provide better standing to overcome access barriers, as monitors operate as members of an international organization. • Staff models face no particular challenges in sharing information among colleagues, as they are all subject to the same obligation of confidentiality. • Project models may face more obstacles in obtaining access, but can improve this access over time using strategies applicable to both staff and project models.36 • Project models that engage outside partners to any degree may encounter obstacles to sharing classified or other sensitive information. Coverage capacity: geographic spread and number of cases • Both models are capable of staffing and supervising geographically dispersed monitors to provide coverage of regional courts. However, this may pose a difficulty for project models relying on NGOs if these organizations are tied to a specific location or area. • Both models provide an organizational platform that allows monitors to attend and report on three or four hearings a week and to monitor cases as needed.37 Administrative and logistical issues • The staff model enables programmes to benefit from a field operation’s administrative and other support structures, including field offices, transportation and computers; this model allows for longer employment of staff and may also confer certain privileges and status of a diplomatic nature to monitoring personnel. • Project-model programmes place additional administrative responsibilities upon programmes, including the obligation to recruit staff and administer contract payments in the absence of field-operation structures. Management issues • The Staff model has the advantage of using the existing management structure of a field operation to supervise monitors. • Staff in project-model programmes can be effectively managed and held accountable through contractual obligations requiring adherence to a code of conduct, specific guidelines and other obligations38. Management may not take the same form where monitoring is conducted by domestic organizations that are more loosely connected to the OSCE. Moreover, in partnership arrangements the decision-making process may prove to be more complicated. Language and related staffing issues • Staff model programmes are subject to the hiring and reporting requirements of the organization, often requiring fluency in English or other official languages of the organization. This may limit the pool of qualified national candidates. • Project models are usually conducted in the local language(s), given that they utilize and aim to train national lawyers. Supervision of project operations by the organization requires a lawyer fluent in English and the local language(s) to perform reporting and engage in other programme functions. Partnerships with other organizations • Staff model programmes are often self-sufficient. However, they create no barriers to partnership and there have been examples of the hybrid model functioning in partnership, e.g., in Croatia. • Project-model programmes generally partner extensively with other local organizations and experts on operational matters, such as hiring, training, the drafting of manuals and report writing. 38  Ibid. 37 See Chapter 7, “Programme structure and staffing issues”.