A lifeline payment for low incomes families will be increased to £25 a week to help struggling Scots cope with the cost-of-living crisis.
The move by the SNP/Green Government will affect over 400,000 children and could lift 50,000 kids out of poverty by 2024.
Ministers will also try to "mitigate" the Tory benefits cap by giving £10m to councils.
The centrepiece of the Government’s most recent budget was the doubling of the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) to £20 a week for families of eligible under 16s by the end of the year.
However, with the living standards crisis growing more serious by the day, the Scottish Government has announced it will go further on the SCP.
Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison told MSPs that the weekly payment, which is means-tested, will rise to £25 a week by the end of 2022.bShe said: "That is five times higher than the £5 payment we were being asked to introduce less than five years ago.
"Over 400,000 children will be eligible, with the payment expected to lift 50,000 children out of poverty in 2023/24."
She announced the policy, worth £1300 a year for each eligible child, as part of the Government's child poverty delivery plan.
Other measures announced include mitigating the UK Government benefit cap by giving £10m to councils to boost Discretionary Housing payments - a move pushed for by the Greens.
Robison said current modelling shows that by 2023 Scotland could have the lowest levels of child poverty in 30 years and keep around 90,000 children out of poverty.
She said: "Using current projections we anticipate that in 2023, over 60,000 fewer children will live in relative poverty compared to when the Act was passed in 2017, with 17% of children projected to live in relative poverty."
It comes amid widespread criticism of Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spring statement, which campaigners claimed contained very little for those on low incomes.
UK benefits will rise by 3.1%, compared to forecasted inflation of around double this level, and Sunak also promised a 1p income tax tax within two years.
The latter policy has been widely dismissed as a pre-election giveaway.
A Joseph Rowntree Foundation analysis found that those at the bottom of the income scale were hardest hit by the UK Government changes.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: “This @jrf_uk illustration is utterly damning of the Chancellor’s decisions yesterday. Squirrelling money away for pre-election bribes when he could use it now to help people in the most desperate circumstances is disgusting.”
Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman said: “The benefit cap is a cruel and thoughtless policy driven by ideological discrimination against people in poverty. It hurts those who are already the most vulnerable and has pushed families onto the street.
"That’s why just this week the Scottish Greens called for the Chancellor to scrap it, and why our manifesto committed to do all we can with devolved powers to mitigate it."
Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance said:
“Child poverty is unjust and unnecessary. It’s a sign of Scotland’s commitment to compassion and justice that there are stretching targets to end it.
“A clear message from Poverty Alliance members ahead of the new plan was to ‘put money in people’s pockets’. Commitments to increase the Scottish Child Payment to £25 by the end of this year and to mitigate the unjust benefit cap are therefore welcome. With one in four children in Scotland still growing up in the grip of poverty, and the rising cost of living meaning that many more families are being swept into hardship every day, this new plan needed to set out how we can do more to protect people from harm.
“On the back of the Chancellor’s failure of a Spring Statement yesterday, we needed to see real commitments that will make a positive impact on the lives of people on low incomes. Alongside the mitigation of the benefit cap, the expansion of employability support that provides tailored support to families can help to make that impact."
Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy said: “Today’s announcements are welcome, but we can’t do half measures when it comes to tackling child poverty.
“One child in poverty is one too many, and one day spent in poverty is a day too many.
“A plan that leaves 1 in 6 children in absolute poverty is nothing to be proud of.
“We should be using every power at our disposal to lift as many children out of poverty, not crossing our fingers and hoping to scrape past our targets by the skin of our teeth.”
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