ian munro · 2020. 5. 1. · about the author ian munro is an independent consultant based in...

Understanding Child Care Shortages in Nova Scotia

Ian Munro

January 2013

Atlantic Institute for Market Studies

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CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS

Understanding Child Care Shortages in Nova Scotia

IAN MUNRO

Atlantic Institute for Market StudiesHalifax, Nova Scotia

January 2013

© 2013 Atlantic Institute for Market Studies

Published by the Atlantic Institute for Market StudiesSuite 204, Park West Centre287 Lacewood DriveHalifax, Nova Scotia B3M 3Y7

Telephone: (902) 429-1143Fax: (902) 425-1393E-mail: [email protected] site: www.aims.ca

The author of this report worked independently and is solely responsible for the views pre-sented here. The opinions are not necessarily those of the Atlantic Institute for Market Stud-ies, its Directors, or Supporters.


About the Author ......................................................................................................................... iii

Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... iv

Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... vi

Section 1 – Introduction ..................................................................................................................1

Section 2 – Regulatory and Policy Framework ............................................................................. . 42.1 The Day Care Act 2.2 The Day Care Regulations 2.3 Funding 2.4 Policy Statements

Section 3 – What Do We Know? ................................................................................................... 93.1 Demand for Child Care Spaces 3.2 Supply of Child Care Spaces 3.3 Assessing the Demand-Supply Imbalance 3.4 Results of Informal Survey

Section 4 – Conclusions and Recommendations .........................................................................184.1 Is Nova Scotia Experiencing Child Care Shortages? 4.2 What Do Shortages Look Like? 4.3 What Factors Are Causing Shortages? 4.4 Recommendations

Appendix – Derivation of Figures in Table 1 ................................................................................ 22

About the Author

Ian Munro is an independent consultant based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. During his career Ian has worked for the federal government, for consulting firms, and for AIMS as its Director of Research in 2007 and 2008. He holds a B.A. in economics from Mount Allison University, an M.A. in public administration from Carleton University, and an M.A. in economics from Dalhousie University.

Ian has worked as an economist and public policy analyst for almost 20 years. His interest in the public policy aspects of child care provision stems from the births of his two sons in 2008 and 2010 (both of whom attend a non-profit daycare) and from dinner table discussions with his wife, who is a professor of psychology and an expert in child development. While Ian is grateful for all that he has learned from her on this topic, and also for the comments provided by two anonymous reviewers, the views expressed in this paper are entirely his own, as are all errors and omissions.

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Executive Summary

There appears to be a widely-held view, in Nova Scotia specifically and across Canada more generally, that there is a significant shortage of child care spaces. In response, advocates have made many requests and politicians have made many promises for major new programs and very substantial expenditures of public money.

Confirming or rejecting this assessment is complicated by a number of subtleties: Are we discussing a shortage in its textbook economic sense, or describing a general inability of low-income families to afford child care? If there are shortages, are they limited to specific areas and/or age groups? Are shortages of short duration or do they persist?

The bottom-line answer to these questions is: we don’t really know. The right data are not being collected and the right questions are not being asked.

In the absence of hard data and useful survey results, this paper provides a basic analysis of the supply-demand balance for child care spaces in Nova Scotia overall, and in three areas within the province – Halifax (large city), Truro (town), and Annapolis County (largely rural area). This is supplemented with the results of an informal survey of child care sector insiders.

The evidence seems to point towards the existence of child care shortages, particularly in rural areas and for the infant age group, but the available information does not provide definitive answers regarding the magnitude or nature of shortages across Nova Scotia.

A number of possible causes for shortages are considered, including lack of qualified staff, the perceived risk associated with investing in the sector, and scale issues. However, none of these theories seems fully satisfactory.

Without a firm grip on these questions, it is difficult to formulate appropriate policy recommendations. Thus the key recommendations contained in the last section of the paper pertain mainly to information gathering via centralized or coordinated application and wait-list data and new surveys to better ascertain parents’ needs, desires, and challenges related to child care access. The choice of Crisis? What Crisis? as a title is not intended as a rebuttal to those who claim that there is a critical shortage of child care spaces in the province; rather, the intention is to highlight the fact that if there is indeed a crisis, we currently cannot define or describe it very well, and this lack of information will hamper efforts to solve the problem.

iv

Acknowledgements

The assistance of the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services in answering questions and providing data is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks also are due to the interviewees who generously provided their time and insights, as well as to two anonymous reviewers.

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Section 1- Introduction

Many people, especially parents of young children, are familiar with the following story: a woman goes to see her doctor and is told that she is pregnant. The first person with whom she shares the joyous announcement is … the person in charge of admissions at a child care centre. Only later will the soon-to-be father, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, etc., be let in on the happy news.In my own family’s experience, which is consistent with experiences recounted to me by other parents of our acquaintance, trying to find a child care space (in Halifax, in our case) can be difficult and stressful.

Indeed the perception of a serious shortage of child care spaces – both across Canada generally and in Nova Scotia specifically – seems to be widely shared:

• “Finding day care for your children can be challenging” Web site of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada

• “Currently in Nova Scotia, access to reliable and developmentally appropriate child care can be difficult for families. Barriers include a limited number of child-care spaces …” Government of Nova Scotia, Giving Children The Best Start – The Early Years: Discussion Paper, May 2012

• “Daycare shortages plague Calgary parents,” story headline, CBC News website, August 27, 2011 • “Shortage of infant daycare spaces causing problems for working parents,” story headline,

Charlottetown Guardian, August 24, 2011• “Child care shortage defies easy solutions,” story headline, Burnaby NewsLeader, May 26, 2011• “Families don’t have choice in child care when there’s a shortage of high-quality, affordable child

care spaces … Too often, working families are stuck on waiting lists for years before a child care space opens up ...” Michael Ignatieff, Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Press Release: “Michael Ignatieff announces Early Childhood Learning and Care Fund,” March 31, 2011

• “Clearly there is a shortage of daycare spaces in our province.” Manning MacDonald, Liberal Member of the Nova Scotia Legislature, Media Release: “Liberals Want Review of Province’s Daycare Services,” November 2, 2009

It is important to note, however, that a “shortage” can mean different things.In technical economic language, a shortage is defined in reference to a specific price.

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Figure 1- Graphical Representation of a shortage

Figure 1 shows a standard economic supply and demand graph. In a normal, well-functioning market, equilibrium occurs at the point (Qe, Pe), where the demand and supply functions intersect. At price Pe, the quantity demanded is equal to the quantity supplied and therefore there is neither shortage nor surplus.

If, however, for some reason the prevailing price level is P*, rather than Pe, then the quantity demanded is greater than the quantity supplied at that price and a shortage will occur. A legally-mandated maximum price (e.g., rent control) is one example of a factor that can cause a market to deviate from equilibrium and end up in a shortage situation.

In more common parlance, the term shortage sometimes is used to describe a situation in which some people simply cannot afford something that they would like to have. In cities with high house prices and rent levels, people with lower levels of income may be unable to afford housing at the prevailing market rates, and so they may be forced to live with family members, share accommodations with roommates, endure lengthy commutes, or move to another city or town with lower prices for accommodations.

1 More facetiously, one could argue that there exist shortages in Rolex wristwatches, Porsche automobiles, and ski chalets because there are many people who would like to have them but cannot afford them. Unlike housing and other basic goods and services, though, such “shortages” in luxury goods are unlikely to be considered by many as deserving of a policy and regulatory response.

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So, is the shortage alluded to in the series of quotations of the first type – a chronic state of market disequilibrium caused by, say, regulatory or institutional factors? Is it of the second type in which the market actually is functioning efficiently but some segment of the population simply cannot afford the price?

And is there really a shortage at all? Could it be the case that while many parents may not get a space in their first-choice child care centre on the precise starting day they desire, most find an acceptable option with a minimal delay? Or if there is indeed a current shortage, is it merely a short term phenomenon that will be eliminated as investment flows into the expansion of capacity, as a standard economic model would predict?

Furthermore, what do the details of any shortage look like – does it vary by community size or by neighbourhood income level, for example?

Different answers to these questions would suggest very different policy responses. The goal of this paper is to investigate the existence and nature of any shortage of child care spaces in Nova Scotia and then recommend policy responses that are appropriate, given the facts of the situation.

In order to examine potential differences across geography, but keep the scope of the paper manageable, additional focus is provided on three regions: Halifax (large city), Truro (town), and Annapolis County (largely rural).

An additional constraint is to focus only on full-time child care services, during normal business hours, for children who are too young for the public school system. That is, “wrap-around” (early morning and late afternoon) and summer care for school-age children generally are excluded from the analysis, as is evening and weekend care for children of any age.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows:

• section 2 describes the prevailing regulatory and policy framework in Nova Scotia;• section 3 considers the available data regarding potential shortages of child care spaces in the

province; and,• section 4 provides conclusions and recommendations.

Section 2- Regulatory & Policy Framework

2.1 The Day Care ActThe paramount legal authority regarding child care services in Nova Scotia is the Day Care Act.

The Act provides the Minister of Social Services (now known as the Minister of Community Services – currently this is the Honourable Denise Peterson-Rafuse) with the authority to grant licences to child care facilities, requires facilities to hold a licence, and grants the Governor in Council (the Cabinet) the ability to make regulations.

2.2 The Day Care RegulationsThe Day Care Regulations were revised in 2011. Among other things they:

• require inspections, at least annually;• establish daily program standards;• proscribe certain forms of behaviour guidance, e.g., corporal punishment;• set out building, space, and equipment requirements;• establish staff-to-children supervision ratios, which decrease by age level (“infants” –

The Regulations set out two broad forms of day care provision: facility-based care and home-based care. (The Act and the Regulations do not distinguish, in any material sense, between non-profit and commercial enterprises.)

A facility must hold a licence, must have a qualified director, and must meet building, space, and equipment requirements set out in the Regulations. At least two-thirds of a facility’s staff members are required to have at least a one-year certificate in early childhood development or early childhood education (or an equivalent level of training and/or experience as set out in the Regulations).Regulated home-based care features several key roles: an agency, a care provider, and a family home consultant.

An agency is licensed to manage a family home day care program. A private business, a licensed child care facility (profit or non-profit), or a community based non-profit organization can apply to become an agency.

The agency also selects and approves, provides administrative support to, and carries out periodic assessments of, the family home day care providers.

The agency also provides a space, which is subject to standards specified in the Regulations, for certain activities that will be shared by its associated family home day cares, including play groups and a lending library, as well as transportation to and from the home day cares for these activities.

The agency must hire a family home consultant to provide various forms of administrative and program support to the care providers. The family home consultant must have at least two years’ related work experience and, generally speaking, at least a two-year diploma in early childhood education. Care providers must complete a training course and ongoing professional development workshops.

Family home day cares are subject to the same requirements as day care facilities regarding daily programs, behaviour guidance, record keeping and documentation, nutrition, health, safety, and communicable disease control.

A third category of child care provider is those who are exempted from the Regulations and from the requirement to have a licence. This category includes those providing care to a small number of children (six or fewer of any age, eight or fewer of school age), “casual and irregular” babysitting arrangements, special programs and camps (hockey, dance, band, summer camp, etc.), and programs held in public or private schools.

2.3 FundingNova Scotia’s budget for fiscal year 2012-2013 estimates spending on direct grants of approximately $5.2 million within the Department of Community Services’ “Family and Children’s Services” umbrella. This figure captures grants related to the provision of child care, but also grants related to child welfare, community residential services, early intervention programs, transition houses, and other programs and services.

4 http://www.novascotia.ca/finance/site-finance/media/finance/budget2012/Estimates_And_Supplementary_Detail.pdf

4

http://www.novascotia.ca/finance/site-finance/media/finance/budget2012/Estimates_And_Supplementary_Detail.pdf

The federal government states that it provided close to $6 billion in fiscal year 2010-2011to support early childhood development and child care through transfers to the provinces and territories and payments and tax breaks to parents. Using rough per capita math, this would suggest a federal spending figure of approximately $165 million in Nova Scotia.

Various sources of government funding related to child care are discussed in more detail below.

Nova Scotia Child Care Subsidy

The Nova Scotia Child Care Subsidy is available to parents of children attending a child care facility or a family home day care that offers full-day care. The subsidy is paid by the Department of Community Services directly to the day care and is portable – if the parents choose to move their child from one eligible day care to another, the subsidy goes with the child.

To be eligible, the applicant for a subsidy must maintain or seek employment, or attend school or job training activities. A subsidy also may be available in the case of a parent who is on maternity or sick leave, where a family is experiencing illness or some other form of crisis, or where a child’s emotional, cognitive, social, or physical development is at risk of delay.

An income test is conducted to determine the amount of subsidy for which the applicant is eligible. The maximum allowable family income level to receive a subsidy ranges from $62,731 for a family with one child up to $108,200 for a family with five children. Families are permitted to have up to $50,000 in liquid assets and remain eligible for a subsidy. The maximum daily subsidy for full-day child care ranges from $22.00 for an infant to $17.70 for a school-age child (which works out on an annual basis to approximately $5,500 for an infant and $4,400 for a school-age child).

In fiscal year 2011-2012 there were 4,427 subsidized child care spaces in Nova Scotia. Total spending on subsidies in fiscal year was 2010-2011 approximately $17 million.

Universal Child Care Benefit

All Canadian families receive the federal Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) of $100 per month, or $1,200 per year, for each child under the age of six. However, there is no requirement that this money be spent on child care. The UCCB is taxable in the hands of the lower-income parent. Total federal government spending on the UCCB program is approximately $2.6 billion per year.

Child Care Expenses Deduction

Child care expenses can be claimed as an income tax deduction. In two-parent families, the deduction must be claimed by the parent with the lower income. The total tax reduction due to the Child Care Expenses Deduction is approximately $750 million per year.

5 http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/corporate/facts/children_families.shtml6 Statement of Mandate 2012-2013, Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, http://www.gov.ns.ca/coms/department/docu ments/DCS-Statement_of_Mandate-2012-2013.pdf. 7 ELCC Plan Priority Area Action Checklist 2011, Nova Scotia Department of Community Services, June 2011, http://www.gov.ns.ca/ coms/families/provider/historical/documents/ELCC_Plan_Priority_Area_Action_Checklist_June_2011.pdf.8 http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/corporate/facts/children_families.shtml 9 http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/corporate/facts/children_families.shtml

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http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/corporate/facts/children_families.shtmlhttp://www.gov.ns.ca/coms/department/docuDCS-Statement_of_Mandate-2012-2013.pdfhttp://www.gov.ns.caELCC_Plan_Priority_Area_Action_Checklist_June_2011.pdfhttp://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/corporate/facts/children_families.shtmlhttp://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/corporate/facts/children_families.shtml

Early Childhood Enhancement Grant

The Early Childhood Enhancement Grant is available to all licensed child care facilities. The main focus of this grant program is to enhance the salary and benefits of child care staff. A minimum of 80 percent of grant money received must go towards staff wages and benefits, a maximum of 15 percent may be devoted to the facility’s operating expenses, and a minimum of 5 percent must be used for activities related to the professional growth of staff. The amount of the grant received by the facility is tied to the training level of its staff members; similarly, the amount of grant ultimately received by each staff member as enhanced wages and benefits is tied to her own level of training.

As a rough example, a centre with 40 children enrolled across the infant, toddler, and pre-school age groups and with seven staff members spanning the five defined training levels might receive an annual grant in the vicinity of $60,000. In this example, a staff member with the highest training level (Level 3 – a degree in early childhood education) might receive roughly $8,700, while an untrained, entry level staff member would receive approximately $5,000.

Total spending on the Early Childhood Enhancement Grant is approximately $16 million per year.

Supported Child Care Program

The Department of Community Services also provides the Supported Child Care (SCC) Program to “assist in the creation or enhancement of existing inclusive child care programs for young children” with special needs. This funding may be used to pay wages for additional (i.e., exceeding the ratio required by the Act and Regulations) staff, for approved professional development and training, and for approved educational and resource materials. For each facility, the funding formula is equal to: (10% of licensed capacity) X ($15 per day) X (annual number of operating days)For a facility with, say, licensed capacity for 40 children and which is open on every weekday of the year (260 days), the annual grant would be $15,600. In fiscal year 2010-2011, grants totalling $4.6 million were awarded to 194 centres throughout Nova Scotia.

Federal Investment Tax Credit for Child Care Spaces

The federal government provides a non-refundable investment tax credit to employers that create child care spaces in a licensed facility for their employees’ children (and potentially other children as well). The credit is equal to 25 percent of eligible child care expenditures (the cost of depreciable property plus start-up expenditures), up to a cap of $10,000 per child care space.

Early Childhood Education Assistance Program

This program provides debt relief to Early Childhood Education graduates with the aim of enticing more people to pursue studies in the field and thereby increase the number of trained child care workers in the province. Up to $5,000 in loan relief is available for each year of attendance (e.g., two years for a diploma program and four years for an undergraduate degree). Following graduation, eligibility for the loan relief will be contingent upon accumulation of 1,500 working hours in a Nova Scotia licensed child care facility or family home day care for each year of relief sought. This program is slated to be wrapped up at the conclusion of the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

2.4 Policy StatementsOn May 25, 2012, the provincial government initiated a public consultation process by issuing a document entitled Giving Children the Best Start – The Early Years: A Discussion Paper.

The paper notes that in recent years the province has created hundreds more child care spaces – both in licensed centres and in regulated family home day cares, made child care more affordable via increased subsidies, enhanced child care resources for children with special needs, and increased support for child care staff.

Issues related to child care identified by the report include: child care is too expensive for some Nova Scotia families, even with existing financial assistance; wage rates for child care workers remain low; and child care options remain limited for parents who work irregular hours or shifts.

Among the desired outcomes listed by the report are that families in every region have greater access to appropriate high-quality early childhood development and learning programs; that families in greatest need have greater access to programs and services; and that society recognizes the people who work in the early-years workforce as critical contributors to children’s learning, care, and development.

There are several statements in the report implying that the current number of regulated child care spaces in the province is inadequate, but, notably, the report contains no data regarding shortages of or wait-lists for child care.

10 http://www.gov.ns.ca/earlyyears/

10

http://www.gov.ns.ca/earlyyears

Section 3 - What Do We Know

The provincial government collects no data regarding child care shortages (or surpluses) or child care capacity utilization in Nova Scotia.

While Statistics Canada does include questions related to child care in some of its regular surveys, it does not ask respondents about the adequacy of their child care arrangements. The Statistics Canada data provide insight into how many families are using different types of child care services, but not into how many need and want them.

In 1988 Statistics Canada conducted its one and only National Child Care Survey. Almost 25 years later, those data are of little use in answering today’s child care policy questions.

However, there are some data available that provide an imprecise sense of the child care demand and supply situation in Nova Scotia. Both halves of this equation are sketched out below.

3.1 Demand for Child Care SpacesAssessing the level of demand for child care in Nova Scotia is a complicated matter because the an-swer varies depending on how the question is specified.

Most parents need child care that covers the standard work week, but others who work non-standard hours – e.g., nurses, police officers, workers in the retail and hospitality sectors – may need coverage at night or on weekends. Some parents require full-time child care, but others, such as a family in which one parent works only part-time, may need only two or three days a week, or perhaps only mornings for the entire week. For many families child care outside the home ideally would begin after the child’s first birthday, coincident with the end of the mother’s maternity benefits and her return to work; however, other families may desire, for a variety of reasons, a starting date earlier or later than the one-year mark.

11 For example, the General Social Survey (http://www23.statcan.gc.ca:81/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=4501&lang=en &db=imdb&adm=8&dis=2) asks respondents if they use a child care arrangement, what type of child care arrangement they use, how much they spend, etc.

11

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http://www23.statcan.gc.cap2SV.pl

Bearing these caveats in mind, a starting point for assessing the potential level of demand for child care is the census.

Table 1 presents an approximation, using 2011 data, of the maximum potential number of children for whom full-time child care spaces were desired in Nova Scotia and more specifically in Halifax, Truro, and Annapolis County. (Details regarding the derivation of these estimates are provided in the Appendix.) With the simplifying assumptions that all parents wish to access child care beginning on their child’s first birthday and that all children enter the school system when they are first eligible (in the year in which they turn five), the maximum quantity of daycare spaces demanded in the province would be approximately 36,600. (This figure does not include demand for “wrap-around” child care services, such as, say, child care for elementary school-aged children between 3:00, when the school day ends, and 5:30, when parents finish their work day.)

AREA TOTAL Infants Toddlers Pre-Schoolers

Nova Scotia 36,592 4,341 13,022 19,229

Halifax (Population Centre ) 12,217 1,457 4,370 6,390

Truro (Population Centre) 979 116 349 513

Annapolis County 684 81 243 360 .

Table 1: Approximate Daycare-Aged Population

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While many families place significant value on the perceived quality of regulated, licensed child care, some families prefer to have their child stay at home with a parent or some other family member, to hire an in-house nanny, or to place the child in unregulated care at the home of a friend or neighbour. There appear to be no readily available data on the number of Nova Scotia families who fall into these categories, though, so it is impossible to use the census data for anything more than an upper-bound estimate of child care demand.

A second possible source of demand data comprises the enrollment and wait-list figures from the province’s licensed child care providers. In theory, the sum of the number of children enrolled in each daycare plus the number of children on each daycare’s wait-list should constitute the total number of daycare spaces desired in an area – this assumes that parents who truly want a daycare space will at least go the trouble of registering on the wait-list. Practically, however, this methodology is subject to some fatal pitfalls. First, it is not necessarily the case that all daycares do frequent, comprehensive

12 Statistics Canada defines a population centre as “an area with a population of at least 1,000 and a density of 400 or more people per square kilometre” – http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/standard-norme/sgc-cgt/urban-urbain-eng.htm. The population centre of Halifax comprises the urban and suburban core of Halifax Regional Municipality including Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, and Sackville; the population centre of Truro includes the town of Truro and neighbouring communities such as Bible Hill.13 This is in contrast to families who would prefer to use licensed child care but who still opt for one of these alternatives because licensed child care is too expensive, impractical (e.g., too far away from home), and/or unavailable.

13

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/standard-norme/sgc-cgt/urban-urbain-eng.htm

updates of their wait-lists. A daycare with, say, 100 names on its wait-list and no expectation of any more than 20 spaces opening anytime soon may not expend a great deal of effort in regularly confirming that families at the bottom end of the list are still interested in obtaining a space. Furthermore, many families will place their names on the wait-lists of multiple daycares, recognizing that their first choice(s) may not become available, and in Nova Scotia there is no central registry for or cross-checking of child care wait-lists. Thus a simple summing of wait-lists could result in a severe double-counting (or triple-, quadruple-, or quintuple-counting) error.

3.2 Supply of Child Care SpacesAs of June 2012 there are 17,331 regulated child care spaces in Nova Scotia, 16,347 of which are in child care centres and 984 of which are in regulated family home day cares.

Of the 16,347 spaces in child care centres, 2,356 are part-time spaces for pre-school age children and 3,407 are spaces for school-age children (e.g., wrap-around spaces before and after school hours). Thus the supply of full-time, centre-based spaces for children too young to enter the school system equals 10,584. Age breakdowns and full-time versus part-time breakdowns for family home day cares are not available. In the most “optimistic” case that all family home day care spaces are full-time spaces for below-school-aged children, the total supply would be boosted to 11,568.

Figure 2 shows the provincial breakdown of child care spaces by form (centre-based versus family home day care) and auspice (commercial versus non-profit). Drilling down below the provincial level, it generally is the case that family home day care spaces constitute less than ten percent of total supply, although in the Western Region almost fourteen percent of spaces are in family home day cares.

14 The data discussed in this section were provided by the Department of Community Services or taken from the Department’s Web site – https://nsbr-online-services.gov.ns.ca/DCSOnline/ECDS/loadSearchPage.action.

15 The Department of Community Services defines the Western Region as the combination of Annapolis, Digby, Hants, Kings, Lunenburg, Queens, Shelburne, and Yarmouth Counties.

Figure 2: Breakdown of Nova Scotia Child Care Spaces by Form and Auspice

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https://nsbr-online-services.gov.ns.ca/DCSOnline/ECDS/loadSearchPage.action

AREA TOTAL Infants Toddlers Pre-School-ers

Nova Scotia 10,584 730 3,554 6,300

Halifax (Population Centre ) 6,715 2,304 3,869 6,390


Annapolis County 114 0 57 57

Table 2: Supply of Full-Time Regulated Child Care Spaces by Age Group

Table 2 shows that there tends to be far more toddler and pre-schooler spaces than infant spaces. Particularly striking is the fact that there are no regulated infant child care spaces in all of Annapolis County. (Additional searches of the Department’s on-line child care directory revealed that there also are zero regulated infant spaces in Guysborough, Inverness, Queens, Richmond, Shelburne, and Victoria counties.) The infant space numbers estimated for Halifax and Truro also may be optimistic. Contrary to the simplifying assumption that the relevant facilities will split their spaces in equal thirds among the infant, toddler, and pre-schooler categories, many facilities may opt to increase the share of spaces for the older age groups both to reduce costs (due to lower staff-to-child ratios for the older

From fiscal year 2010-2011 to 2011-2012, the supply of centre-based spaces grew by 943, or 6.1 percent, while the supply of family home day care spaces grew by 150, or 17.9 percent. As with the overall provincial figures, in Halifax County (also defined as the Central Region) the number of com-mercial spaces exceeds the number of non-profit spaces. In all other regions the opposite holds true.

From fiscal year 2010-2011 to 2011-2012 the number of child care spaces in Halifax County grew at almost 2.5 times the growth rate for the remainder of the province. Of all the new spaces created since 2010, 83 percent have been in urban areas.

Province-wide, of all full-time child care spaces for children who are too young to enter the school system, less than ten percent are for infants, with roughly one-third for toddlers, and the remainder, just under 60 percent, for pre-schoolers.

Table 2 provides age breakdowns for selected areas within the province. To generate these estimates, the following methodology was employed: first, the Department’s on-line child care database was filtered by county and community to generate a list of full-time child care centres and family home day care agencies that serve the location in question; second, all facilities serving the infant, toddler, and pre-school age groups were assumed to divide their spaces equally across these three groups; third, all facilities serving only the toddler and pre-school age groups were assumed to divide their spaces equally between these two groups; and finally, facilities serving only the pre-school age group had all their spaces allocated to that group.

groups) and to provide some flexibility to accept new children from outside into their older groups.

3.3 Assessing the Demand-Supply ImbalanceSubtracting the figures in Table 2 from those in Table 1 generates a measure of excess demand (shortage). This simplistic base case is presented in Table 3.

Note that underlying these figures is an assumption that all Nova Scotia families want to place their children in full-time, regulated child care outside the family home. This is not realistic. Some families choose to have their children stay at home with a parent, or with another family member or a nanny if both parents work outside the home. Other families choose unregulated child care arrangements such as taking their child to the home of a friend or neighbour.

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Nova Scotia 26,008 3,611 9,468 12,929

Halifax (Population Centre) 5,502 915 2,066 2,521



Table 3: Excess Demand for Full-Time Regulated Child Care Spaces - Base Case

Arriving at a more accurate sense of the magnitude of any true shortage requires knowing what percentage of families actually wants regulated child care spaces for their young children. However, there are no recent and reliable data available to answer this question. In the absence of such data, Table 4 through Table 6 present three scenarios – 75 percent, 50 percent, and 25 percent – for the percentage of families who want regulated child care spaces. Each scenario is simplified in that the same percentage is assumed to apply for all age groups in all areas; in reality it seems more likely that the proportion of families who want a regulated child care option will vary according to the age of the child in question and by geography. Note that negative figures represent a surplus (excess supply) of spaces.

16 Suppose a child care centre had space for 15 children and divided the spaces equally across the three age groups. The centre will be constrained in filling any vacancies in its older groups because it will need to hold spaces open for the children who will be moving up from the younger groups in the coming months.


Nova Scotia 16,861 2,526 6,213 8,122 Halifax (Population Centre) 2,447 550 973 924



Table 4: Excess Demand for Full-Time Regulated Child Care Spaces with 75% of Families Desiring a Space


Nova Scotia 7,711 1,440 2,957 3,314

Halifax (Population Centre) -607 186 -119 -674

Truro (Population Centre) -57 1 -41 -17



Nova Scotia -1,436 355 -298 -1,493

Halifax (Population Centre) -3,661 -178 -1,212 -2,271

Truro (Population Centre) -303 -28 -129 -146




In the first scenario, with 75 percent of families desiring a space, shortages remain for all age groups across the province as a whole and in each of the three case study areas. In total, almost 17,000 Nova Scotia families would be without child care or using a form of child care that they considered sub-optimal.

Moving to the 50 percent scenario, shortages persist across the province as a whole, in the infant category, and in the mainly rural case study area, Annapolis County.

At the 25 percent level, the shortages generally have turned to surpluses, except in rural Nova Scotia.

Another scenario was generated in which the model was solved for the percentage figure that would generate, for the province as a whole, a perfect balance of supply and demand. This figure turns out to be 28.9 percent. However, in this macro-balance scenario, micro-imbalances remain. For the province as a whole, there is a surplus of pre-schooler spaces, but shortages of spaces for toddlers and infants. Both Halifax and Truro show surpluses for all age groups, while Annapolis County maintains shortages for all ages.

An additional piece of evidence regarding possible shortages is that from time to time the provincial child care subsidy program runs into a wait-list scenario, suggesting at least a short-term problem for lower-income families.

3.4 Results of Informal SurveyGiven the paucity of hard data regarding the existence or severity of child care space shortages, an informal survey was conducted in an attempt to gain some insight from experts and “on the ground” sources.

A number of government officials, daycare operators, and other professionals whose work is connected to the child care sector were interviewed in person, by phone, or via e-mail. An effort was made to get representation from various viewpoints: e.g., urban and rural (focusing on Halifax, Truro, and Annapolis County), commercial and non-profit, independent operator and multi-centre chain, etc. Given budget constraints, the number of interviews conducted was small and in no way should the results discussed here be considered as a statistically valid sample.

Interviewees were asked the following base questions (plus additional follow-up questions that flowed from the answers given):

• Do you believe that there is a shortage of child care spaces in your community (and/or in Nova Scotia in general)?

• How do you define and measure that shortage?• Do you think this shortage situation has been improving, staying the same, or getting worse in

recent years?• Do you think the shortage is specific to certain types of child care services (for example, regulated

spaces)?• Do you think the shortage varies by age (infants versus toddlers versus pre-schoolers)?• Do you think the shortage varies across Nova Scotia by community or neighbourhood?• Do you think the nature of the shortage varies according to income?• Why do you think this shortage exists and persists?• What causes are behind the shortage?

In general, there is a sentiment that a shortage of child care spaces does exist, with some respondents using adjectives like “substantial” or “severe” and with some operators noting that their wait-lists had become so long that from time to time moratoria had been placed on taking new applications. There also was a general consensus that the situation is tighter for infants than for older children (which is consistent with the fact that infant spaces are more expensive to provide given the higher staff-to-child ratio required by regulation).

However, some respondents – noting the overlapping wait-list phenomenon and the fact that in some cases parents can find a space, just perhaps not one in the first-ranked child care centre on their list – wondered if perhaps the alleged widespread child care shortage is over-stated. As well, in contrast to the situation with infant spaces, some respondents suggested that there are child care centres find-ing it difficult to maintain full enrollment for older children. A representative of an umbrella business organization had no specific view as to whether child care shortages were or were not a problem, but did note that the issue of access to child care was rarely, if ever, raised by the organization’s members as an area of concern.

Most respondents suggested that the situation had not become markedly better or worse over the past few years.

One or two respondents speculated that shortages were more acute in rural areas, but most had no strong opinion to offer on this question.

Another distinction cited by several respondents is that while it may not be all that difficult for most parents to find some sort of child care arrangement, there may be significant difficulty in finding a space in a high-quality, regulated facility. Some parents are forced to take a leap-of-faith with the lady-who-lives-next-door-to-the-hairdresser’s-cousin because no other space is available and maternity leave is about to run out.

There also is a financial angle to the question of child care shortages. If a family cannot afford child care, even with available subsidies, then that demand will go unmet. As the number of subsidized spaces in the province is capped, it also can be the case that Family A has found a space at a child care centre, but cannot take it while they sit on a wait-list for a subsidy; meanwhile, so long as the centre holds that space open while waiting for Family A, Family B remains on the centre’s wait-list for a space.

When asked about the reasons underlying a shortage of child care spaces, a variety of issues were raised.

Several respondents noted that it generally was difficult to attract and retain qualified staff. Staff wage rates tend to be low and a large proportion of staff members are women of child-bearing age who may take maternity leave and who may themselves have difficulty affording child care and returning to work once their leave ends. It also is apparently not uncommon for graduates of early childhood education programs to work in the child care sector for a brief period, and then move on to further studies and career opportunities in the K-12 education system, social work, and other fields. That said, no respondents specifically stated that staff vacancies in their own centres were preventing

17 One respondent provided a rough estimate that, even with full subsidization, the annual cost of a child care space could be in the range of $2,500. As an example, for a family with a single-earner making minimum wage (full time), this cost represents more than 10 percent of pre-tax income.

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them from enrolling more children. An interesting question, but one to which this paper cannot provide any answers, is whether difficulties in recruiting staff are preventing new centres from opening: are there entrepreneurs or non-profit organizations who are ready and willing to open new child care centres in Nova Scotia but for a lack of qualified staff?

A number of respondents also cited cost factors. Even with relatively low staff wages, once the costs of rent, electricity, heat, food, toys, educational materials, etc., are included, the cost-per-child may be prohibitive for many families. Thus shortages may exist in the sense that many families desire a child care space, but cannot afford the going rate.

Given that commercial enterprises are not restricted from offering child care services in Nova Scotia and are eligible for the same subsidy regimes as non-profit operations, the existence of any persis-tent shortages is puzzling from an economic perspective. According to a standard microeconomic model, the existence of a shortage should result in prices being bid up by consumers, prompting new investment and increased supply from suppliers until the shortage is eliminated and equilibrium is re-established. (Note that this new equilibrium may still exclude many would-be consumers of child care services simply because they are too poor to afford them.)

When asked about the applicability of this model to the Nova Scotia situation, several respon-dents noted the often acrimonious relationship between the commercial and non-profit sectors, with one respondent saying the “poisonous” atmosphere in Nova Scotia was worse than in any other province and another noting that child care operators like herself sometimes felt vilified by others for their “for profit” status even though, in the very best of years, the annual “profit” was equivalent to a very modest salary. In the same vein, another respondent observed that when politicians muse about “phasing out funding for private daycare,” as Community Services Minister Denise Peterson-Rafuse did late last year, the risk-reward calculation of commercial child care providers considering entry or expansion in the province is impacted negatively.

18 “Private daycare funding threatened,” Jennifer Taplin, Metro Halifax, December 16, 2011, http://richmobile.metronews.ca/halifax/lo cal/article/1052112.

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�Private daycare funding threatened,� Jennifer Taplin, Metro Halifax, December 16, 2011, http://richmobile.metronews.ca/halifax/local/article/1052112.�Private daycare funding threatened,� Jennifer Taplin, Metro Halifax, December 16, 2011, http://richmobile.metronews.ca/halifax/local/article/1052112.

Section 4 - Conclusions and RecommendationsFour broad questions were set out at the beginning of this paper:

1. Are Nova Scotia families suffering from shortages in the availability of child care services?2. If so, how severe are these shortages and how do they vary by age group, geography, and other

dimensions?3. What factors – political, economic, regulatory, etc. – cause (persistent) child care shortages? 4. Given the previous answers, what policy measures, if any, should be implemented?

4.1 Is Nova Scotia Experiencing Child Care Shortages?The answer to the first question is … we’re not sure.

There are various pieces of evidence that suggest the existence of shortages – anecdotal observations and opinions of child care sector insiders, the existence of wait-lists for both child care spaces and subsidies, the fact that zero regulated spaces exist for infants in seven of the province’s 18 counties, and the fact that the number of regulated, full-time child care spaces in Nova Scotia is less than 30 percent of the relevant population.

However, there are no hard data or survey results that can unequivocally confirm the intuition that child care shortages are a real problem in Nova Scotia:

• Not all the insiders who were interviewed for this project believe that shortages are a serious problem, and of those who do believe so, their opinion often was accompanied by an admission of uncertainty.

• Without data on how long families remain on wait-lists relative to their desired start date, the existence of wait-lists do not, in and of themselves, prove the existence of shortages. For example, a family with a six-month old may apply today for a child care space beginning in six months’ time on the child’s first birthday. The family may get exactly what it wished for, but would still be considered to be “waiting” for six months.

• We also do not know how many families quickly and easily can migrate to an acceptable second-best choice when space in their preferred child care facility is unavailable, nor do we know how many families suffer real hardship when child care is not available exactly when and where they want it. For some families, having one parent take an extra few weeks or months away from work while waiting for a child care space to open up may be an entirely welcome experience that provides additional time for bonding with the child, while for others it may be a financial impossibility.

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• And, we do not know what percentage of Nova Scotia families prefer to have a parent or other

relative to stay at home with their child, how many prefer to hire a nanny or baby-sitter, or how many prefer an unregulated child care option such as a friend or neighbour. It is possible that 30 percent is very close to the right number of regulated child care spaces relative to the pre-school age population.

4.2 What Do Shortages Look Like?Bearing in mind the fact that the very existence of child care shortages has not been established with certainty, the evidence suggests that shortages are more probable and more severe in specific circumstances.

The most compelling case is for infant care. A large number of child care facilities do not accept children under 18 months of age. As maternity/parental leaves and benefits tend generally to last no longer than one year, one would expect many families to face difficulties when their children are between 12 and 18 months old.

The crude supply-demand model discussed in section 3.3 suggests that in order to have the supply and demand of infant child care spaces across Nova Scotia as a whole in balance, only one in six families must want a regulated child care space for their child aged 12-18 months (and this also assumes that zero Nova Scotia families desire a regulated space for any child under the age of one).Furthermore, this ignores the disparity between rural and urban Nova Scotia. Assuming, say, that 50 percent of Nova Scotia families want a regulated child care space for their children aged one-to-four, Halifax and Truro would have an overall surplus of spaces and the demand for infant spaces would be 74 percent met in Halifax and 98 percent met in Truro. In rural Annapolis County, though, only 67 percent of overall demand would be met and, as in six other rural counties, zero percent of the demand for infant spaces would be filled.

One of the most important characteristics of any existing child care shortages – duration – is, unfortunately, an unknown. There are no data available to distinguish between those families for whom a lack of child care is a short-term inconvenience and those for whom it represents a calamity.

4.3 What Factors Are Causing Shortages?Consistent with this section’s theme of uncertainty, ascribing causation is a somewhat speculative exercise.

If it is the case that, in general, the families who want a regulated child care space but do not have one are in that situation simply because they cannot afford the going price, then there is no shortage in an economic sense. The market is functioning efficiently. However, there may well be valid public policy reasons to implement subsidy programs that allow more lower-income families to access child care.

19 Some of these issues are discussed in a prior AIMS paper on child care policy – See Dick Grow Old, See Jane Retire: Today’s Child Care Policy and its Impact on Tomorrow’s Labour Shortage, Ian Munro, November 2010, The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, http://www.aims.ca/en/home/library/details.aspx/3042.

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http://www.aims.ca/en/home/library/details.aspx/3042

because of staffing vacancies. Furthermore, this theory fails to explain why facility operators do not bid up wages to attract additional staff and increase capacity; prices to parents may have to rise, but this would serve to eliminate the shortage of child care spaces.

In smaller communities there may be scale issues. Any child care facility must incur a number of fixed costs for real estate, utilities, equipment, etc., and some minimum number of children will need to be enrolled in order to cover those costs. Some rural areas may not meet this threshold. (It is in these cases where family home daycares may prove to be a particularly useful solution.) Note, though, that this theory does not explain shortages in larger towns and cities.

Inertia is another possible answer. Just under half of Nova Scotia’s regulated child care capacity is non-profit. In the ongoing auspice debate, it generally is conceded that non-profit organizations tend to be less adept at reacting swiftly to changes in consumer preferences. Existing non-profit centres face no strong incentives to expand, and transaction costs, free-rider problems, and difficulties in accessing start-up financing may make it difficult for new non-profit centres to arise, even though there may be considerable community support for the concept.

Consistent with this theory, the Department of Community Services notes that over the past few years, most new centres have been started by commercial entities. The question then becomes, however, why have commercial operations not entered or expanded in sufficient numbers to eliminate any existing shortages, as standard microeconomic theory would predict?

One possible answer to this question is that commercial enterprises perceive a high degree of risk associated with investments in child care facilities in Nova Scotia. Fear of changes in government policy or of negative public relations campaigns from ideological opponents of for-profit child care options (e.g., the Canadian Union of Public Employees) may deter investments in Nova Scotia in favour of other jurisdictions that are perceived to have a more welcoming business climate.

4.4 RecommendationsDepending on the assumptions one begins with, certain policy solutions quickly come to the fore.If it is the case that no shortage exists in an economic sense, but that low-income families simply cannot afford quality child care, then the subsidy system should be revamped. This could involve simply raising the level of the portable subsidy that is provided to qualifying families; in addition to equity concerns, a social cost-benefit analysis of the return to the broader public that such subsidies would generate should be part of the calculus in determining the appropriate level of the subsidy. Another option is to finance some or all of the increased portable subsidy to low- and moderate-income families through a reduction in the grants that are provided directly to child care facilities – here the idea is to reduce or eliminate the implicit subsidy provided to affluent families in favour of increased, explicit subsidies for low- and moderate-income families.

20 Admittedly, though, this too is merely anecdotal information. It is possible that a more rigorous survey of child care providers could reveal that some are operating below capacity due to an inability to fill vacant staff positions.21 See again: “Private daycare funding threatened,” Jennifer Taplin, Metro Halifax, December 16, 2011, http://richmobile.metronews.

ca/halifax/local/article/1052112 as well as “The pursuit of profit and child care: Risky business for parents and government,” CUPE backgrounder, March 2012, http://cupe.ca/updir/Canada_Child_care_at_risk.pdf.22 The economic rationale for such subsidization is laid out in See Dick Grow Old, See Jane Retire: Today’s Child Care Policy and its Impact on Tomorrow’s Labour Shortage, Ian Munro, November 2010, The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, http://www.aims.ca/en/home/library/details.aspx/3042 .

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http://richmobile.metronewshttp://cupe.ca/updir/Canada_Child_care_at_risk.pdfhttp://www.aims.ca/en/home/library/details.aspx/3042

If instead, for example, shortages in child care capacity do exist because commercial enterprises who otherwise would be willing to invest in new facilities perceive significant political and regulatory risk, then the government should signal its willingness to move beyond the stale “auspice debate” and take steps to provide confidence to these enterprises that ideology will not be allowed to stand in the way of achieving results. That said, all child care centres, commercial and non-profit alike, should be subject to strong and rigorously enforced regulations, including regular audits and inspections.

The problem, though, is that we do not know which assumptions are the right ones. The right data are not being collected and the right questions are not being asked. Thus the more concrete recommendations in this paper pertain to information gathering. Many prominent and respected voices have called for major policy changes and substantial new expenditures of public dollars. It would be extremely irresponsible, especially in these fiscally troubled times, to embark on such endeavours without really defining and understanding the problem that purportedly is being addressed.

First, a means of centralizing or coordinating wait-lists should be established.

One option is to have the Department of Community Services act as the initial portal through which all parents would submit their applications to the child care facility(ies) of their choice. Presumably most centres request similar information – name, contact information, date of birth, desired start date, allergies and medical conditions, etc. – but there is no reason why each centre could not continue to request any specific data points that it deemed useful. The Department would automatically send along the application form to the relevant centre(s) and now also would have aggregated information on child care demand and wait-times and the ability to overcome double-counting issues.

Another option is to maintain the current system in which parents apply directly and separately to child care centres, but require the centres to forward copies of the applications to the Department. Again, this would provide the Department with aggregated demand and wait-time data. Some care would be required in defining the identifiers on each centre’s application form so that the Department could determine whether or not the “Johnny Smith” named on the form for child care centre X is the same “John Smith” named on the form for centre Y.

In either case, regular updates of the wait-lists would be critical to ensure data quality. A simple and low-cost means would be to require parents to submit a short update form (“yes, we’re still waiting” or “no, we’re not”) via e-mail or regular mail periodically.

It is possible that this sharing of information between child care centres and the Department could raise some privacy issues, but it is hard to believe that these would be insurmountable.

Second, new surveys should be conducted to get a better sense of what type of child care parents truly want, what they currently have access to, and what financial and employment problems related to child care access they may be experiencing.

Finally, answers to these current questions should be supplemented with demographic projections to predict levels of child care demand into the future.

Appendix- Derivation of Figures in Table 1The figures provided in Table 1 in section 3.1 are based on the numbers presented below.

It is assumed that, on average, parents seeking a child care space wish to have it available at the time of their child’s first birthday. Recently released figures from the 2011 census for the population aged 0-4 as of May 10, 2011, are provided in the second column of the table above. The third column provides the estimated number of births from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011; these values are derived by taking the figure provided by Statistics Canada for Nova Scotia as a whole and then assuming the same ratio of population aged 0-4 to births for Halifax, Truro, and Annapolis County. By subtracting the latter from the former, we get an approximate value for the population aged 1-4 in 2011, as shown in the fourth column.

In Nova Scotia, children are eligible to enter the public school system in September of the year in which they turn five. Thus four-year olds born in the last third of the calendar year may transition from daycare to school when they are still four, and five-year olds born in the first two-thirds of the calendar year may require child care for up to eight months between their fifth birthdays and the following September when they begin school. The fifth column provides the population aged 5-9. As precise data are not available, a simplifying assumption is made that the population aged 5-9 is distributed evenly over the five constituent age sub-groups (ages 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9). The estimated number of five year-olds is presented in the sixth column. A simple model was constructed to portray the relative proportions of four-year olds and five-year olds in daycare or school over the course of a year and the resulting adjustment factor was used to produce the final estimates for daycare-aged children shown in the far right-hand column.

In estimating the population of each sub-group – infants (< 18 months), toddlers (18 months to three years), and pre-schoolers (> three years up to school age) – the estimated population aged 1-4 is assumed to be distributed evenly across all constituent age groups. Thus 12.5 percent of 1-4 year olds are assigned to the infant category, 37.5 percent are assigned to the toddler category, and 50 percent are assigned to the pre-schooler category, along with the estimated number of five-year olds who are not yet in the school system.

23 http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/prof/search-recherche/lst/page.cfm?Lang=E&GeoCode=12&TABID=1 &G=1&Geo1=PR&Code1=10&Geo2=0&Code2=0 24 http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo04a-eng.htm 25 http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/prof/search-recherche/lst/page.cfm?Lang=E&GeoCode=12&TABID=1 &G=1&Geo1=PR&Code1=10&Geo2=0&Code2=0

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http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/prof/search-recherche/lst/page.cfm?Lang=E&GeoCode=12&TABID=1http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo04a-eng.htmhttp://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/prof/search-recherche/lst/page.cfm?Lang=E&GeoCode=12&TABID=1

Selected Publications from the AIMS Library

Books & Papers

Second Annual Report Card on Western Canadian High SchoolsAIMS and FCPP have released the second annual Report Card on Western Canadian High Schools (Manitoba and Saskatchewan edition), which ranks high schools from Manitoba and Saskatchewan based on the AIMS model.

Building a Bigger TentPaul W. BennettIn this paper, AIMS Author Dr. Paul W. Bennett calls for a review of New Brunswick’s public education system, with the goal of creating a truly inclusive environment for all learning disabled students.

See Dick Grow Old, See Jane Retire: Today’s Child Care Policy and its Impact on Tomorrow’s Labour ShortageIan MunroThis paper examines the choices for child care and concludes Government funding for vulnerable children is a good investment of taxpayers dollars.

Commentaries

We’re number...34!Tony BislimiIn this commentary, Bislimi Group Foundation founder and president Tony Bisimli explains how the education establishments in Canadian provinces embellish international results, which has serious repercussions for Canadians.

Recipe for Disaster: Solving a problem that doesn’t existAndrea MrozekUniversal program fails to address real needs in early childhood education.

http://www.aims.ca/en/home/library/details.aspx/3412?dp=aXM9Mg__http://www.aims.ca/en/home/library/details.aspx/3388?dp=aXM9Mg__

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ian munro · 2020. 5. 1. · about the author ian munro is an independent consultant based in...

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