In the universities created by that Act, and in colleges of higher education, the period is generally just a year across the board, for both academic and other staff.
This is not the same role as a mentor, whose task is to provide consultation and advice during the first few months of a staff member's employment.
The working party that formed the agreement stated that the purpose of academic probation was to decide, at the end of the probationary period whether a member of staff should be retained, and that this decision is based upon "the long-term interests of the university itself, of the other members of its staff, and of its students".
[1] However, this stipulation does not cover the shorter, one year, probationary period used by universities that came after the FHA Act 1992.
That shorter period resulted from a 1990/1991 agreement between teaching unions and the then polytechnics and colleges that were later to become universities under the Act.