Scotland's largest police force last night revealed that details relating to staff payroll have been misplaced by a data company.

Scotland's largest police force last night revealed that details relating to staff payroll have been misplaced by a data company.

Strathclyde Police, which has about 8000 officers, said it was told on Wednesday that data containing the personal details of 49 police officers and staff had gone missing.

The force said that the affected members were being contacted directly by e-mail, letter and telephone.

It said there was no evidence to suggest any criminal activity had occurred and blamed the loss on an administrative error on the part of the data service provider.

The force also said it appeared that the data had not been mislaid in transit and said it was in a format which would require specialised equipment to access.

It said police and the company concerned were making every effort to recover the data.

Deputy Chief Constable Neil Richardson said: "We are seeking a full explanation from the company involved and are contacting the staff directly to inform them of the situation and offer help and advice."

Les Gray, chairman of Strathclyde Police Federation, said: "We were called to an emergency meeting yesterday where we were told about the missing data.

"It appears the company which has the contract misplaced data relating to our staff and sent us data from another employer.

"The data includes the salary and registration number of staff.

"There is only a very slim chance that it could get into the public domain.

"The force has followed all the correct procedures and has done all it could in the circumstances in contacting staff and the relevant departments."

Yesterday's development comes less than four months after details of almost one million 999 emergency ambulance calls, including caller numbers and patient names, were lost during a transit of a data disk.

Ambulance service executives were later cleared of any blame by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon, who said they had followed guidelines.

An investigation was launched into how the records of 894,629, calls which were made to the Paisley Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre since February 2006, were lost by the courier service TNT.

It was both encrypted and password protected.

Ms Sturgeon insisted that the incident could not be compared with cases like the loss by Revenue and Customs last year of computer disks with information on millions of people.

That data had not been encrypted and included financial information and national insurance numbers.