10,000 more children sink to the bottom of the poverty trap

However, the executive hailed an improvement since devolution, with a reduction of 90,000 in the number of children in families broadly defined as poor since 1998-99.

These are families with incomes lower than 60% of the median. But campaigners said that current measures, focused on getting people back into work had gone over the heads of the very poorest.

They are the families blighted by chronic illness and disability, mental ill health, drug or alcohol addiction, or trapped inside a cycle of poverty going from generation to generation.

Douglas Hamilton, head of policy and research in Scotland for Save the Children, said that the child poverty target, one of the government's chief priorities, was now in serious jeopardy.

This aims to halve the 2003 level of child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020.

"These figures reveal that progress in Scotland has stalled over the past year," said Mr Hamilton.

"The Scottish Executive and UK government strategies have not gone nearly far enough - the figures are disgraceful.

"If the government is genuinely committed to the target of halving child poverty by 2010 then urgent action and investment is needed.

"The forthcoming elections in Scotland give an opportunity for all political parties to make the ending of child poverty a priority. Children can't wait."

While the Scottish figures were showing a reduction over the longer term, and were still on target for 2010, the current strategies and investment by the Treasury, the executive and its agencies were not working to reduce the numbers of the very poorest, he said.

"The money going into this is not reaching the most disadvantaged.

"The approach of getting people back to work using tax credits has clearly had an impact on a lot of families but those policies are not going to work for the poorest families," he said.

"We have to target the very poorest families and look at new ways to address this with flexible measures."

The figures refer to relative poverty, a measure of whether those in the lowest income households are keeping pace with the growth in incomes in the economy as a whole, by comparing their incomes now with incomes in 1998-99.

They also cover absolute poverty, a measure of whether incomes are rising in real terms, by comparing them with current median incomes.

Most other trends measured in the statistics showed neither improvement nor deterioration over the year, indicating that investment to end poverty has got through the soft targets and is now up against the hard core.

Communities Minister Rhona Brankin said there would always be ups and downs in the statistics from year to year.

But she said: "Although there has been little change in the overall number of people in poverty from last year, we have made real progress tackling poverty since devolution.

"There are fewer children, adults and pensioners in absolute poverty than there were in 1998/99 and our drive to tackle poverty is having the desired effect over the long term.

"We have already exceeded our target to reduce child poverty by a quarter by 2004/05, ahead of the UK, and there is no doubt we are on target to meet our promise to eradicate child poverty by 2020."

But the figures drew an attack from SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon, who described them as a shocking indictment of 10 years of Labour in power.

"Poverty figures are actually rising in Scotland. And last week's Budget, which doubled the tax rate for low income households - increasing the burden for over 800,000 Scots - can only have made the problem worse.

"Labour have had their chance and failed. Instead of a sustained focus on driving down poverty, Labour have wasted time and resources on the illegal war in Iraq, and are planning to waste up to another £100bn on new Trident nuclear weapons.

"Scotland is a rich country, but we are not the rich society we should be. And these disgraceful figures show that we are going the wrong way under Labour."