Charities that campaign to end child poverty criticised the government for "abandoning" the UK's poorest children by failing to invest money in low-income households.

Charities that campaign to end child poverty criticised the government for "abandoning" the UK's poorest children by failing to invest money in low-income households.

Chancellor Alistair Darling announced an increase of an extra £20 a year to the child element of the Child Tax Credit from April 2010, with the government saying that this would help "low to middle-income families".

It also announced additional contributions of £100 a year to the child trust funds of all disabled children, with severely disabled children receiving £200 a year.

Mr Darling said the government was "determined to eradicate child poverty", but charities said that Westminster's target to halve child poverty by 2010 was "no longer achievable".

Douglas Hamilton, head of Save the Children in Scotland, said: "We are hugely disappointed that the Budget has not prioritised the urgent needs of the quarter of a million children living in poverty in Scotland. Putting money into the hands of parents is the key way to lift children out of poverty and the shamefully small increase in child tax credit will not be enough.

"Today was their last chance to keep their promises that they made a decade ago and they have failed to do that. Without the £3bn invested in family incomes that we called for in this Budget, children across Scotland will continue to grow up missing out on the basic necessities that most children take for granted.

"It is precisely because they need the money most that it makes economic sense to invest money in low-income households who would spend it, creating demand and boosting local businesses. They have lost out and the rest of us will suffer as a result."

The government said that around 600,000 children were lifted out of relative poverty between 1998/99 and 2006/07 and measures announced in the 2007 Budget and since then had benefited another 500,000 children.

But Martin Narey, chief executive of Barnardo's and chaiman of the Campaign to End Child Poverty, said: "The poorest families who are bearing the brunt of the economic downturn have been failed by the government. While we welcome the investment in getting the unemployed back to work, poor families - including more than 1.5 million children with a parent in work - were entitled to believe they would be helped. That help - 38p a week per child - is derisory. The poorest children have been abandoned."

Kate Green, chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group, added: "The money targeted on the children struggling most during the recession amounts to less each week than the cost of a pint of milk. It is disgraceful to give such a pittance."