Benefit cuts come into force today that will push a quarter of a million children into poverty. But what’s terrifying is that when it comes to this government throwing away swaths of children’s futures, this is only part of the picture. With little fuss, the Conservatives have quietly been overseeing a crisis in the system designed to help the country’s most vulnerable children.

Child social care is in essence the bedrock of state support for any child in need: from children with severe disabilities, to toddlers at risk of neglect and teenagers in care. While the crisis in adult social care has dominated the headlines recently, the funding gap in the child social care system has barely made the political radar.

For an insight into how bad things are getting, look at the newly released findings of a year-long inquiry into child social care in England: almost 90% of directors of children’s services say they are now finding it increasingly difficult to fulfil their legal duties to children who need support. That’s the basics of keeping a child safe, healthy and developing. As the National Children’s Bureau, which coordinated the inquiry, put it to me: “They’re being asked to do more with less. Something has to give.”

For some kids, what’s “giving” is protection from being abused or neglected. For disabled children, it can be their health. Anna – not her real name – has a young severely disabled son with a life-limiting chromosome disorder. The child social care system is a lifeline: some respite care from a local hospice to help her and her husband rest and take short breaks away. But as council cuts have come in, the family’s short breaks have been stopped entirely and from this year their respite care will be reduced from eight weekends a year to only two. Anna’s son’s occupational therapy and home visits have been cut too – in her words, it’s “catastrophic” – and the family are now struggling to cope.

While children such as Anna’s are being left without respite care, others are losing their chance of a family life. As councils reel from 20% cuts in total spending power, the social care inquiry heard that local authorities are having to target dwindling resources towards children who are already suffering rather than giving pre-emptive help – such as a social worker spotting domestic violence – that could have prevented further issues arising. By the time social care services are involved, in many cases it means there is no option but to remove a child from their family. One child being removed from their parents that could have been avoided is one too many but this is not a handful of cases: since 2010, the number of children being taken into care has increased by 17%.

‘The surge of children in need is the result of years of welfare cuts and growing poverty.’ Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

It is no exaggeration to say this is inhumane. But in a climate in which the government tells us “there is no money”, it’s also hugely costly: in crass terms, it is more expensive to pay to keep a teenager in care after years of neglect than to fund a social worker to support a toddler at home when their parents are first starting to struggle. It’s why the money being spent on the average child in need has actually increased in recent years – but rather than it being a sign of high funding and efficiency, it’s a symptom of shrinking resources and desperation.

While central government cuts the money local councils can put into child social care, the number of children who need help is surging: since 2010, child protection plans (where social workers believe a child is at risk of harm) have risen by almost a third. This gets more brazen still when you learn that the government is not only failing to help these children but is helping to cause the misery in the first place.

As well as factors such as an increase in children’s mental health problems and child exploitation (and a growing awareness of them), the inquiry found repeated evidence that the surge of children in need is the result of years of welfare cuts and growing poverty. Cut housing benefit and a child loses his or her bedroom. Remove tax credit and a child doesn’t get breakfast.

But this gutting of support for the poorest families doesn’t stop at the social security system. Take something as simple as local youth clubs or children’s centres. Between 2010 and 2016, local authority funding for these early intervention services was cut by 31%. Close them down and there is nowhere for young mothers to get nutritional support for a toddler, a new father to get job advice or an evicted family to be passed on to a homelessness service. And that’s coming at the same time as one in 10 maintained nurseries are shut, funding for youth mental health services and schools is cut and, as of this week, a third of Sure Start nurseries have closed their doors.

It’s the definition of a rigged system: the government cuts public services and social security, which pushes hundreds of thousands more into poverty, while cutting the council budgets, which in turn shrinks the social care meant to protect children who need it. As each thread of the safety net is pulled one by one, a generation of children is left to fall through.