I'm not sure how you can compare this internationally since the contract systems are different. Is fixed term comparable to tenure, and open to adjuncts?
No, open is effectively tenured; fixed (meaning 'fixed term, i.e. usually a 1-3 year contract) also includes all the research post docs which are pretty common in the uk as well as the teaching-focused jobs. A high ratio of fixed term to tenured staff is still an unhealthy sign in terms of job security for academics, but it doesn't map on to the us adjunct system as the uk post-docs are (usually!) better, less exploitative jobs to have.
I don't think we ever had anything comparable to what North American academics called tenure, which as I understand it makes academics uniquely un-fire-able. A permanent/open-ended academic job here is the same as any other permanent public sector or private sector role: if they want to get rid of you for something you've done, you'd have to go through the usual disciplinary/performance-management procedures first and have the same rights, and if they wanted to make the position redundant, there's a different eat of procedures, but in terms of what you're entitled to and how difficult it is, there wouldn't be hugely significant differences between academia and anywhere else.
There are differences between sectors and employers about how likely redundancy is (and it used to be extraordinarily unusual in the public sector), and some private sector roles are more likely to have more clearly defined outputs, which would make it easier to performance-manage someone out of a job, but they'd all be governed by the same legislation.
As far as I remember, back in the 1970s you could only be fired for breach of professional ethics or a complete failure to publish, but this might have been up to individual institutions. I have vague recollections of a case where a Marxist prof got the boot for not publishing (the university didn't count his one publication, which was a translation) - caused quite a furore back in the day.
Personally I find the idea of tenure rather anachronistic. I realise that the idea is to protect academics from being fired for having unpopular opinions, but surely you shouldn't be able to fire anyone for having unpopular opinions, whether they are professors, adjuncts or cleaning staff.
But I thought that would have been true across the public sector too, rather than unique to universities? Not that I was working then, but the impression I've got is that it's more about changes across the broader labour market rather than snything specific to higher education.
And did we ever had anything comparable to the formal tenure review process that North America has?
The wording of "staff" rather than "academic" may be revealing. It's not particularly surprising that universities with very large medical schools (or that are institutions entirely composed around clinical fields) have higher rates of contract "staff": research fellows and the like are usually contractual and often in medical fields there is a high proportion of academics who are clinicians first.
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Dunno where op got the table though.
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A high ratio of fixed term to tenured staff is still an unhealthy sign in terms of job security for academics, but it doesn't map on to the us adjunct system as the uk post-docs are (usually!) better, less exploitative jobs to have.
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My interpretation of HESA is that the data refers to academic staff.
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There are differences between sectors and employers about how likely redundancy is (and it used to be extraordinarily unusual in the public sector), and some private sector roles are more likely to have more clearly defined outputs, which would make it easier to performance-manage someone out of a job, but they'd all be governed by the same legislation.
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Personally I find the idea of tenure rather anachronistic. I realise that the idea is to protect academics from being fired for having unpopular opinions, but surely you shouldn't be able to fire anyone for having unpopular opinions, whether they are professors, adjuncts or cleaning staff.
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And did we ever had anything comparable to the formal tenure review process that North America has?
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