We apply up to two different types of revaluation.
The first type of revaluation is a Treasury order, which is applied to the career average (CARE) pension you’ve built up after 31 March 2014. We’ll only apply a Treasury order if you were a contributing member during a scheme year. The Treasury order is applied on 6 April each year.
The second type of revaluation is a Pensions Increase (PI) order, which is applied to all of your pension in payment on the first Monday following 5 April each year.
Both Treasury orders and PI orders are currently in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is a Government indicator of price inflation.
The revaluation is based on the increase in the CPI over a 12-month period to the September before the April revaluation (meaning the increase in the CPI between October 2024 and September 2025 will decide the revaluation we apply in April 2026). However, unlike Treasury orders, PI orders cannot be negative.
So, if there is a fall in price inflation, HM Treasury can issue a Treasury order that means we must apply negative revaluation to the pension accounts for contributing members; however, as PI orders can’t be negative, a pensioner member’s pension won’t increase or decrease for that year.
The increase in the CPI between October 2024 and September 2025 was recorded as a 3.8% increase; this means that your pension benefits have increased by up to 3.8% on 6 April 2026 (See ‘How is my pension increase calculated').
If you retired from contributing service during the scheme year, the career average element of your pension will receive the full CPI revaluation.
However, the way in which full CPI revaluation is applied to your pension depends on the date your contributing membership ended; this is because:
The career average element of your pension is revalued by both a partial Treasury order and a partial PI order (reverting to simply PI orders for every April thereafter)
The final salary element of your pension (including any automatic lump sum you’ve built up) is revalued by a partial PI order in the April following the date your contributing membership ended (reverting to full PI orders for every April thereafter).
You’ll receive an increase if:
HM Treasury have issued an order to apply an increase to your pension
You’re aged 55 years or over
You’re receiving a widow’s, widower’s or child’s pension
You’re receiving a pension awarded as a result of a divorce (a ‘pension credit’)
You’ve retired (at any age) from contributing membership on ill health grounds
You’re under age 55, but have been granted early payment of your deferred pension on ill health grounds, and you were certified as permanently unable to undertake any regular full-time employment.
However, if you’re under age 55 and don’t meet any of the conditions above, the cumulative PI revaluation will only be applied from your 55th birthday, with no backdating.
Your main Scheme pension will be increased from the first Monday after 5 April each year, so it will always fall between 6 April and 12 April.
Therefore, if you stop contributing and take your pension during the same scheme year, only part of your pension will increase in April, and you’ll see the full month’s increase on your May payslip.
Any increases that are applied to your GMP will be applied from 6 April each year.
More information on GMP and how GMP increases work is explained later.
Since April 2011, the rate of revaluation used by HM Treasury for Pension Increase orders has been CPI. Prior to this, it was RPI (Retail Prices Index).
We’ll use the increase in the CPI in the 12-month period to September (usually confirmed mid-October, though verified by HM Treasury the following February) to determine if the amount of pension we pay you should be increased in the following April.
For example, if CPI increased by 1.2% in the 12 months to September, this will be the increase we’ll add to your pension from the following April.
Please note that LGPS funds, like the EAPF, have absolutely no powers or discretion to vary the increase that can be applied.
The rate at which LGPS pensions have been revalued by PI orders since 2016 is as follows:
Year
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
Increase (%)
0
1.0
3.0
2.4
1.7
0.5
3.1
10.1
6.7
3.8
The first Pensions Increase we apply to your pension will normally only be a proportion of the year’s Increase, depending on how many months your pension has been in payment.
The number of months used in the calculation is rounded up or down to the nearest number of full months.
However, if we calculated your pension using a pensionable pay figure that was earlier than your final year (i.e. higher of the last 3 years or best 3-year average from the last 13 years if you hold a valid BR10 letter), we’ll apply a full year’s increase.
Subsequent increases will always be the full percentage amount. In the example, we’ve shown you how we apply the pensions increase payable each year.
Your pension is paid from 1 January; in the following April, the full pension increase is 3.8%
As your pension started to be paid part-way through the tax year, we’ll apply a proportion of the increase
The increase will be 0.95% (3/12 x 3.87%), to reflect that your pension has only been in payment for 3 months of the previous year
In following years, the full increase for the year will be paid