However, this rise has been attributed to the introduction of the Scottish Crime Recording Standard, which means an incident no longer requires corroboration to be recorded as a crime.

Previously, incidents were not logged as crimes until evidence had been acquired to prove a crime had taken place.

In Tayside, the number of recorded crimes rose to 31,845, while in Fife recorded crime rose seven per cent to 34,862.

There was a record total of 438,093 crimes across Scotland over the 12-month period, although this has been attributed to the introduction of SCRS.

There has also been a 20% increase in firearms offences across the country, although most of these involve air guns and, again, the rise is being put down to SCRS.

Tayside Police’s temporary Assistant Chief Constable Iain MacLeod said, “We anticipated there would be an impact from the SCRS but there will be long-term benefits in terms of giving us a more accurate picture of what is taking place in Tayside, and how we can tackle that.

“The six per cent increase has been in the lower league of offences and serious offences continue to be rare in Tayside and we have a significant success rate in solving them.

The Scottish Executive figures only include the first three months of this year and Mr MacLeod said crime in Tayside has been falling every month since then.

Despite the introduction of SCRS, Tayside was the only force to record a drop – of five per cent – in offences such as petty assault, breach of the peace and drunkenness.

“In terms of incidents of disorder, anti-social behaviour and vandalism we are really seeing the benefits of community wardens, community agencies and our partnerships across the three local authority areas,” said Mr MacLeod.

Police officers in Dundee have been given the power to issue on the spot fines for people caught engaging in anti-social behaviour and Mr MacLeod said this was also proving a success.

Meanwhile, the message from Fife Constabulary is that crime across the Kingdom is continuing to decline.

Despite the Executive figures showing a 7% increase last year, the force says that since the start of the new reporting year on April 1, crime has been cut by 13%

Assistant Chief Constable Allan Burnett said the new recording standard and the force’s new contact centre had led to the sharp increase, particularly of more minor crimes, being reported in 2004/5.

Vandalism and fire-raising rose by 25.8% on the previous year and petty assaults, breach of the peace and drunkenness by 33.2%.

However, house-breaking had fallen by 7.9% and thefts of and from motor vehicles by 26% over the same period.

Referring to the reduction in crime since April, Mr Burnett promised, “Every effort will be made to continue that trend.”

Justice minister Cathy Jamieson said, “We knew when the police introduced the new crime reporting standard it would impact on the amount of so-called minor crime recorded by the police.

“These statistics do not mean that crime is on the up.”

Ms Jamieson said an apparent increase in the number of crimes such as rape — which increased by seven per cent — were down to good policing rather than an actual rise in the number of attacks.