More than 200 workers from the Information Commissioner’s Office will go on strike today (Thursday).

Staff at the Water Lane office will take to the picket lines from 7am to 10am, disrupting the service and causing the possible closure of its helpline for the day.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union voted for a day of national strike action in opposition to the coalition government’s cuts to pensions, a two-year public sector pay freeze, and cuts to one in five civil service jobs.

PCS members are striking on the same day as members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and University and College Union (UCU).

Paddy Dillon, a PCS rep and branch secretary at the ICO, said: "The strike action has been really well supported by ICO staff. The majority of our members are low-paid and they recognise the injustice of public sector workers being told to pay the price for a financial crisis they didn’t cause.

"As the local MP, the Chancellor George Osborne should listen to the people in his constituency who are out on strike and are rightly angry at the actions of his government. Our members are already seeing their own living standards fall because of a pay freeze which means a real-terms pay cut. Now they are being told to pay more, work longer, and receive less from their pensions. On top of this, the coalition government’s cuts will do long-term damage to the public services we all rely upon.

"We are prepared to make the sacrifice of going on strike when it is the only option left to force the government to act responsibly and negotiate with the unions."

The PCS union’s campaign also centres on the estimated ‘Tax Gap’ of £120billion in uncollected tax each year as a result of tax evasion and avoidance by large corporations and the wealthy.