Mr Cairnie said the force had had to give talks at Dundee Abertay University, which has courses offering the necessary qualifications for the job, to disabuse students of the image promoted by TV.

Mr Cairnie said, “The job is not what it is on CSI. A lot of people believed it would be very exciting, but it can be anything but if you are going to a major car accident, for instance.

“The reality is a little less glamorous, but it was encouraging to have so much interest in the job”.

Although CSI is superficially accurate, the processing of information takes a good deal longer than is apparent on the TV show. Scenes of crime officers are also likely to be involved in more down to earth crimes than those depicted in CSI.

Tayside Police joint board heard today that the over-subscription to that job — in all there were 311 applications for the post — and others advertised by the force was a good sign and proof that recruitment was going well.

In a report to the board’s personnel sub-committee, Mr Cairnie said there were over 150 applications for the post of dispatcher and, on average, more than seven people were chasing every police constable vacancy. He described recruitment to the force as “very healthy” and said there was a “great deal of interest” for most vacancies.

In the case of support staff jobs, Tayside Police was issuing more than 10,000 information packs each year, making it one of the job centre’s biggest employers.

Recruitment of special constables was also going so well that two other forces contacted Tayside Police to find out how it achieved it success rate.

Inquiries into the role of special constable were currently running at around 600 a year.

A total of 49 people became special constables during 2005-06 and another 30 are expected to be joining them next month, hopefully including a number of people from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Many school children, Mr Cairnie told the meeting, were still of the understanding that police officers were all 6-feet tall white men and efforts were being made to show them the diversity of police employees.

Committee chairman Councillor Colin Young said it was good to see that so many people wanted to join Tayside Police. He added, “It gives us the opportunity to pick out the best people to work with.”

The number of days lost by police officers and support staff in Tayside due to sickness has increased, but the long-term trend remains “fairly positive”, a meeting of Tayside Police joint board heard today.

A report presented to the board showed absence rates between April and July were slightly higher than the same period last year. There has been an increase of 352 days lost across the divisions, attributed to a small number of staff absent over a long period with serious illness who account for a fifth of the total.

In total, 3864 days were lost by police officers — an increase of 4.05% to 4.41% — and 2705 days by support staff between April and July, a rise of 5.08% to 5.09%.

Board chairman Colin Young said that, with a force the size of that in Tayside, there were bound to be “blips” in absence rates but everyone at the force was working hard to reduce the figures.