The union says job-seekers will be left without expert advice under the cuts

Up to 20,000 civil servants in Wales are set to strike on Friday in protest at the UK Government's cuts programme.

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown has said the cuts, at least 6,000 in Wales, will allow for more teachers and police.

The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) said the Welsh economy was heavily reliant on public sector jobs.

The union's Senior National Officer for Wales, Jeff Evans, said he has written to the chair of the Commons Welsh Affairs Committee requesting an investigation into the impact of the proposed cuts on Welsh local services and economies.

The committee's chair, Martyn Jones MP, said members will consider the request when the letter arrives.

The plans will see the decimation of local face-to-face service to be replaced by faceless call centres Jeff Evans, Public and Commercial Services Union

Gordon Brown said 104,000 civil service jobs were to go in the UK when he unveiled his three-year spending plan in July.

Friday's one-day strike is taking place across the UK and will be the biggest action in the civil service since 1993, hitting Jobcentres, benefit agencies, pensions offices, customs and driving tests.

Mr Evans said under the job losses the Department for Work and Pensions(DWP) will axe 2,000 posts in Wales, with five out of six local benefit offices, earmarked for closure .

The union officer said: "Largely as a consequence of our industrial past, there are more people claiming sickness and disability benefits in Wales then any other part of the UK.

"The plans will see the decimation of local face-to-face service to be replaced by faceless call centres."

Civil servants across the UK are to take part in Friday's strike

"The most vulnerable in our society, pensioners, the disabled and the unemployed will all have drastically reduced services if the cuts are implemented'.

In September it was announced that nearly 40 social security offices and jobcentres across the UK would close in the first wave of plans to shed civil service jobs.

Mr Evans said the Welsh economy was heavily reliant on public sector employment which supplied one in three jobs. He said the cuts announced by the Department of Work and Pensions would bite deeper into European Objective One and Welsh-speaking areas.

Mr Jones, the Labour MP for Clwyd South, said the Welsh Affairs Committee had held a similar enquiry into the job losses and the Customs and Excise last year.

He said: "The committee members will certainly consider whether we want to hold an inquiry into these job cuts once the letter arrives".