The Scottish government will miss its own child poverty targets unless it substantially increases investment, according to a report on last December’s budget published by the independent Poverty and Inequality Commission.

The report highlights “a massive gap between the scale of Scotland’s ambition to tackle child poverty and the scale of resources allocated to delivering that commitment”, according to the Scottish branch of the charity Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).

The commission, which was established in 2017, said: “If the Scottish government is to have any chance of tackling poverty effectively and meeting its statutory targets on child poverty, it will need to take sustained action and make considerable investment.”

It recommends more targeted funding, especially towards social security, work and earnings and reducing housing costs, as well as using tax-raising powers to boost revenues.

The report says the commission’s scrutiny of the budget was hindered by a lack of transparency around how much is being spent on different areas, and that more should be done to show the impact that specific policies have on socio-economic outcomes.

Nearly one in four children in Scotland are officially recognised as living in poverty. In November 2017, Holyrood passed Scotland’s first child poverty bill, which reintroduced the statutory targets abolished by the UK government a year earlier.

Since then, concerns have emerged about meeting the initial targets and in March projections from the Resolution Foundation suggested they would be missed by a figure equating to more than 100,000 children.

The CPAG Scotland director, John Dickie, said the report showed current investments were “nowhere near sufficient to make the kind of impact on child poverty needed to meet the 2030 target of less than 10% of our children living in poverty”.

Campaigners including CPAG Scotland have raised concerns that the Scottish government’s proposed income supplement, specifically intended to reduce child poverty, remains ill-defined and uncosted, and will not be implemented in time to mitigate the devastating effects of Westminster austerity.

“The Scottish government’s commitment to a new income supplement is a potential gamechanger,” said Dickie. “But as the commission makes clear, it needs to be backed by a level of investment that provides meaningful support to families and a substantive impact on overall child poverty numbers. The current 2022 timetable for the supplement lacks urgency.”

A Scottish government spokesperson said: “We are clear that in order to reach our ambitious child poverty targets we will require to make substantial new investment, and we have committed to introducing a new income supplement which will put money directly in the pockets of families in need.”

