How is the LGPS pension worked out?

Since 1 April 2014 each year adds 1/49th of that year's pensionable pay to your pension account (1/98th in the 50/50 section). The account is revalued each year in line with prices, so in today's money it holds its value. A member on £30,000 adds about £612 a year of pension for each year worked.

When can I take my LGPS pension?

In full at your normal pension age, which is your State Pension age. From the minimum pension age (55; 57 from April 2028 unless you have a protected pension age) you can take it early, reduced for each year early.

LGPS pension calculator: the Local Government Pension Scheme in today's money

Q: How much tax-free cash can I take from the LGPS?

The career average scheme has no automatic lump sum. You can give up £1 a year of pension for £12 of tax-free cash, up to about 4.3 times the pension, which leaves about 64% of it as income.

What your Local Government Pension Scheme pension could be at your normal pension age, or earlier, in today's money: from the pension on your annual benefit statement, your pay and the years you still have to work, with the tax-free cash it could buy. Then add it to your plan in one step. Your figures never leave your browser.

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Worked example

Computed when this page was built by the same engine that runs the calculator above, so the figures below and the live tool can never disagree. Change any input above to see your own.

Inputs
Age	40
Pension built up so far	£6,000 a year
Pensionable pay	£38,000
Pay rises	2.5% a year (inflation 2.5%)

Results
Pension at 68, today's money	£27,714 a year
Of which still to be earned	£21,714
Revaluation above inflation	£0
Tax-free cash, at most	£118,776, leaving £17,816 a year

The next question

When does taking it early break even? →Defined benefit early retirement calculator

Or answer it with everything else: the full Hundred Summers plan connects your pay, pensions, savings, property, tax and spending year by year, and stress-tests them across 500 simulated market histories.

Read the guide

What a defined benefit pension is actually worth →
NHS, teachers, civil service, old company schemes: why £10,000/yr of final-salary pension is worth more than most people's entire pension pot, how to compare added-pension offers, and why transferring out is almost always wrong.

How it builds up

Since 1 April 2014 each year adds 1/49th of your pensionable pay to your pension account (in the 50/50 section, where you pay half the contributions, 1/98th). Everything built up is revalued each year in line with prices, while you are in the scheme and after you leave, so in today's money it keeps its value. Because it is career average, years part-time or on lower pay add less without reducing what is already built up. This is the scheme for England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own local government schemes.

Your normal pension age

Your normal pension age is your State Pension age, and it moves if that changes: 67 for most people working today and 68 for younger people, under the law as it stands. The calculator works it out from your age.

Taking it early, and tax-free cash

The minimum pension age is 55, rising to 57 on 6 April 2028 except for members with a protected pension age: those who, before 4 November 2021, had the right to take their pension at 55. From then you can take it early, reduced for each year before your normal pension age by the scheme's early retirement factors, for life. The calculator uses one rate a year as an estimate; the scheme's own factors are the authority. There is no automatic lump sum: you can give up £1 a year of pension for £12 of tax-free cash, up to the most the tax rules allow, about 4.3 times the pension, which leaves about 64% of it as income.

If you were in the scheme before 2012

If you were in the scheme before 1 April 2012, the McCloud remedy's underpin compares the pension you built up between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2022 with what the final salary scheme would have given, and pays the higher. Your annual benefit statement shows it; this calculator covers career-average benefits only.

Into your plan

One pension is only part of the picture. Add this pension to my plan opens Hundred Summers with it ready to add, in today's money from the age you choose, to be projected with your State Pension, savings, spending and tax year by year. The defined benefit early retirement calculator shows when taking it early breaks even, and the tax-free lump sum calculator what the cash costs in income.

Education, not advice. An estimate in today's money from the scheme's published rules, before tax: it leaves out added pension, partial and late retirement, and the scheme's exact early retirement factors. Your annual benefit statement and the scheme's own guidance are the authority. For a personal recommendation speak to an FCA-regulated financial adviser; free guidance is available from MoneyHelper.

Sources

Local Government Association, How your pension is worked out.
HM Treasury, Public service pension reforms (normal pension ages).
GOV.UK, State Pension age; HMRC, Increasing normal minimum pension age; HMRC, PTM063240: the pension commencement lump sum's permitted maximum.