By Ian Findlay, industrial reporter

JOBCENTRES AND benefits offices in Tayside and Fife were again closed or had the services they normally offer substantially restricted yesterday as hundreds of civil servants in both areas staged strike action for the second day this week.

A pensions call centre in Dundee and a Child Support Agency office in Kirkcaldy were among the premises affected by the action yesterday.

A number of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) offices involved were again picketed by members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), who have held the two-day stoppage as part of their industrial action over pay.

It appeared the strike was again having a more severe effect in Fife, with the majority of DWP offices there closed. In Tayside, however, most offices were open but offering restricted service.

A DWP spokesperson said the department had been able to open JobCentre offices in Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy, but both were offering only limited services.

As on Monday, offices in Cupar and St Andrews were both open and offering near normal services.

There was “less disruption” in Tayside yesterday compared to the first day of the two-day planned stoppage but an extra dimension was added when driving examiners across the UK staged their own one-day strike.

Although technically a separate dispute from the one which has again crippled the DWP network across the UK, the examiners are also PCS members and their grievance is similarly centred on pay.

The scale of the effect of the driving examiners’ action on the various Driving Standards Agency (DSA) test centres in Tayside was unclear.

The DSA has 1303 examiners across the UK, between 130 and 140 of them north of the border.

The agency said up to 5000 tests could be cancelled across Britain because of the one-day strike, including four in Arbroath, six in Blairgowrie, seven in Dundee, and 14 in Perth, including four LGV tests.