Police Negotiating Board for Scotland: circular 2025-09 - pay agreement
Police Negotiating Board for Scotland (PNBS) circular 2025-09 which provides information on the pay agreement for 2025/26 and 2026/27.
Annex A
2025/26 and 2026/27 – Inflation Guarantee
As part of the 2025/26 and 2026/27 pay offer there is a guarantee that the increase in each year of this pay deal will be 1 percentage point higher than average CPI inflation. The pay offer is 4% in 2025/26, and 3.5% in 2026/27. This is a cumulative increase of 7.64%.
Any payment under the inflation guarantee will be referred to for the purposes of this agreement as “the inflation guarantee payment.”
To ensure any uplift to salaries can be made within the relevant pay period, average CPI inflation, as defined by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) will be calculated over the calendar year. For the 2025/26 pay period, average inflation will be calculated from January to December 2025. For the 2026/27 pay period average inflation will be calculated from January 2026 to December 2026.
For 2025/26 the pay offer is 4%; therefore, if CPI inflation in 2025 averages higher than 3% over the period January 2025 – December 2025, then pay will be adjusted by the inflation guarantee payment to ensure the uplift over the period is 1 percentage point above average CPI inflation. For 2026/27 the pay offer is 3.5%; therefore, if CPI inflation in 2026 averages higher than 2.5% over the period January 2026 – December 2026, then pay will be adjusted by the inflation guarantee payment to ensure the uplift over the period is 1 percentage point above average CPI inflation.
The tables below set out what the cumulative pay award will be, relative to different rates of cumulative CPI inflation over the corresponding period.
| % Pay Award 2025/26 | Average CPI Inflation January to December 2025 | Inflation Guarantee Payment applied in March 2026 | Total Pay Award 2025/26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4% | 2.5% | 0.0% | 4.0% |
| 4% | 3.0% | 0.0% | 4.0% |
| 4% | 3.5% | 0.5% | 4.5% |
| 4% | 4.0% | 1.0% | 5.0% |
| 4% | 4.5% | 1.5% | 5.5% |
| 4% | 5.0% | 2.0% | 6.0% |
| 4% | 5.5% | 2.5% | 6.5% |
| 4% | 6.0% | 3.0% | 7.0% |
- CPI inflation is defined and published monthly by ONS to 1 decimal point.
- The above table provides a series of examples for illustrative purposes and does not cover every scenario.
| % Pay Award 2026/27 | Average CPI Inflation January to December 2026 | Inflation Guarantee Payment applied in March 2027 | Total Pay Award 2026/27 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5% | 2.0% | 0.0% | 3.5% |
| 3.5% | 2.5% | 0.0% | 3.5% |
| 3.5% | 3.0% | 0.5% | 4.0% |
| 3.5% | 3.5% | 1.0% | 4.5% |
| 3.5% | 4.0% | 1.5% | 5.0% |
| 3.5% | 4.5% | 2.0% | 5.5% |
| 3.5% | 5.0% | 2.5% | 6.0% |
| 3.5% | 5.5% | 3.0% | 6.5% |
| 3.5% | 6.0% | 3.5% | 7.0% |
- CPI inflation is defined and published monthly by ONS to 1 decimal point.
- The above table provides a series of examples for illustrative purposes and does not cover every scenario.
Contact
Email: pnbs@gov.scot