---
title: Public management
url: https://buildingchildcare.ca/public-management/
date: 2024-11-14
modified: 2026-03-05
author: Billie Carroll
description: "In a well-functioning system, governments – not private groups or individuals – are responsible for planning, managing, and expanding regulated child care."
categories:
  - name: 10-critical-components
    url: https://buildingchildcare.ca/10-critical-components/
---
# Public management

## Public management

Transforming child care to a well-functioning system must include a shift to public responsibility for leading, planning, managing, expanding, and maintaining regulated child care. This requires shifting responsibilities from private groups or individuals to provincial/territorial governments or other government bodies such as municipalities.

## Relying on private responsibility is ineffective and risky

Canadian child care has long relied on non-profit groups and entrepreneurs (for-profit providers) to develop, manage, and maintain regulated child care. This dependence on private individuals and groups to deliver an essential service is ineffective and risky and creates child care deserts.

## What does public management entail?

Public management of child care provision includes but is not limited to:

- Deciding the type and location of services according to community need and public interest;
- Setting up operations, including securing funding and licensing;
- Establishing parent fees, staff compensation, and working conditions;
- Ensuring the viability and sustainability of provision;
- Developing and maintaining quality assurance mechanisms;
- Conducting regular evaluations and research to inform ongoing system improvements.

![The word ](https://buildingchildcare.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/resources-green.png)

[**From child care market to child care system**](https://childcarecanada.org/documents/research-policy-practice/24/11/child-care-market-child-care-system)  
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), article, Sep 2015. Canada  
  
[**A bad bargain for us all: Why the market doesn’t deliver child care that works for Canadian children and families**](https://childcarecanada.org/documents/research-policy-practice/19/06/bad-bargain-us-all-why-market-doesn%E2%80%99t-deliver-child-care)  
Childcare Resource and Research Unit, article, May 2019. Canada  
**[How child care services are created in Canada](https://childcarecanada.org/publications/other-publications/22/01/how-child-care-services-are-created-canada)**  
Childcare Resource and Research Unit, article, Jan 2022. Canada  
  
[**The municipal role in child care**](https://childcarecanada.org/documents/research-policy-practice/24/05/municipal-role-child-care)  
Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG), report, May 2024. Canada  
  
[**Neoliberalism and early childhood education: Markets, imaginaries and governance**](https://childcarecanada.org/documents/research-policy-practice/21/06/neoliberalism-and-early-childhood-education-markets)  
Routledge, book, Apr 2021. Europe