Performance Reporting

Core Business Area: Child Care

Goal: A sustainable child care system that meets the needs of families

The ministry supports the child care system by providing operational and capital funding to eligible child care providers and subsidies for children of low-income families, and by funding child care resource and referral providers. The ministry also certifies early childhood educators and approves early childhood education training programs.

Evidence of the need for a sustainable child care system is provided in the following statistics. In 2001 Statistics Canada reported that:

• 70 per cent of women with children under age 16 living at home were part of the employed workforce, compared to 39 per cent in 1976.
• 62 per cent of women with children under age three worked outside the home, compared to 28 per cent in 1976.

About 36 per cent of families in BC include children under age 13. According to the 2003 Provincial Child Care Needs Assessment Survey, 38 per cent of the 600,000 children under age 13 are in some kind of non-parental child care arrangement (227,000 children). Access to affordable child care helps parents participate in education/training or the paid labour force, and contributes to the ministry's mission and vision for British Columbia.

Objectives and Strategies

Objective 1: More child care spaces are available.

Key Strategies Undertaken:

• In 2003/04, the Child Care Operating Fund was implemented. This fund integrated and improved upon a variety of pre-existing operational grants and contributes to the support of licensed child care spaces.
• A revised capital grant program was implemented to create new child care spaces and to address minor emergency repairs.

Explanation of Variance:

The uptake of the program was higher than estimated for the first year, resulting in more providers being funded and more spaces being made available.

In 2003/04, the ministry contributed $40 million or about 15 per cent, on average, of the costs of providing care for those providers that receive operating funding. This contributes to the stability and quality of the child care system, helping to ensure that it is available at a reasonable cost to working parents.

In 2003/04, a new capital funding formula was developed to assist non-profit child care providers to build and renovate child care spaces, and funds for expansion and renovation increased from $1.5 million per year to $2.5 million for 2003/04. This resulted in an additional 150 child care spaces in rural communities.

Objective 2: Low-income families are better able to meet the costs of child care.

Key Strategies Undertaken:

• An increase in child care subsidy funding was provided to 3,657 low-income families, thereby assisting parents to participate in the labour force or education/training.

Objective 3: Government is enabled to make informed decisions on issues that affect child care services.

Key Strategies Undertaken:

• Implementation of the long-term child care strategy began with new programs that support increased child care choices for parents, expand the number of child care spaces available and target funding to help parents who need it most.
• Evaluation frameworks were developed to evaluate the child care operating and capital programs, Child Care Resource and Referral program, and Subsidy Program.