If you got bored with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's budget speech and decided to opt out at 55 minutes, then you will have missed the main announcement affecting families. 

Despite George Osborne claiming that the "central goal of this budget is to support working families," measures which benefit them directly were thin on the ground.  And most attention was given to the better off ones.

Talking about dancing on pinheads, the Chancellor spent so long building up to his announcement about needing to "avoid a cliff edge" in relation to the proposed cut off for child benefit, I thought he was going to renege on it altogether.

But no, families with the highest incomes above £60,000 will still go without from next year, those earning over £40,000 have been given a reprieve and anyone earning over £50,000 will see their child benefit reduced on a taper. 

I suspect there will be some rejoicing in Newton Mearns and Morningside, but little anywhere else.

The Chancellor also announced the biggest ever increase in the personal tax allowance - to huge cheers it has to be said.  This crowd-pleaser means that from April 2013, no one will have to pay tax until they earn £9,205. 

It means that individuals will be better off by £220 per year or £170 after inflation.  To the delirium of his own benches, this means that income tax has been cut in half for people on the minimum wage and the move will lift 2 million people on the lowest incomes out of tax.  

Clearly this will have significant benefits for many families with children in Scotland on low incomes, but it hardly amounts to a package of measures to support the "squeezed middle". 

And just as many of those families will be hit by the loss of child tax credits which come into effect this year.  This year long transition is going to be painful for many and at the end of it, some are still going to be worse off.

Other measures of benefit to families?  The continued VAT exemption on children's clothing was hardly a surprise, the relaxation of Sunday trading during the Olympics won't apply in Scotland (separate laws and all that), but the freezing of fuel duty on hauliers should help keep costs down on staples like food.  Well, that's the theory.

Likewise in rural Scotland, the continuation of the fair fuel stabiliser means no big shocks at the petrol pumps.  Again, in theory.  No doubt, Lib Dem MPs in the Highlands will trumpet this measure, but as it is a universal measure it's hard to see how it can translate into "support for working families"

One measure of interest - though it is not clear if it will apply in Scotland, given that enterprise policy is devolved - is the creation of enterprise loans for young people wanting to start their own business.

A good move, but as with an awful lot else in this budget, it's yin is balanced out with the yang of freezing the minimum wage rate for young people in employment.  Which, of course, in real terms means that by Christmas, young people will be working as hard as they did before but for less money.

What else did this budget deliver for low income families?  Not a lot.  Unless you happen to be in the wealthiest income bracket and are looking forward to spending your tax reduction on a pony for your precious offspring or a holiday abroad. 

When some families are struggling to pay their bills for basics, and mothers are admitting to missing meals to ensure their children do not miss out, you have to wonder at the Chancellor's sense of priority.

Still, if it was dismal for low income families, measures that benefit all of us here in Scotland were even thinner on the ground.  The fuel duty freeze will of course potentially help rural areas which regularly pay most; and the enterprise measures for certain areas will help, especially as Irvine is in one of our unemployment black spots.

But the failure to do anything at all on alcohol - despite false trails in this weekend's press - leaves our own vanguard measures to address our appalling relationship with alcohol - and its impact on children - rather isolated.  A big opportunity missed.  

Which sums up this budget perfectly.