评论
打印
Birmingham is officially broke. The City Council, the largest local authority in Europe, is effectively bankrupt.
伯明翰正式宣布破产。欧洲最大的地方政府--伯明翰市议会，实际上已经破产。
Services for more than 1.1 million people are now under threat.
超过110万人的服务现在受到了威胁。
And the Labour leadership, under pressure, to explain and apologize.
迫于压力，工党领导层出面进行了解释，并为此道歉。
"For anybody who's suffering across the city, anything that impacts them that the council has done wrong will hold up our hands, and we will say sorry for.
“对于在伯明翰市遇到麻烦的所有人，市议会做错的任何影响他们的事情，都是我们的责任，我们会为此道歉。
We've had the council itself has lost over a billion pounds worth of funding as a result of consecutive Conservative governments.
由于连续几届保守党政府的原因，议会本身已经损失了超过10亿英镑的资金。
This has been ongoing. It's not just unique to Birmingham."
情况一直在持续。而伯明翰并不是唯一一个遇到类似问题的城市。”
What is unique to Birmingham is the council faces a 760-million-pound bill for equal pay claims, that still owes after a court ruling in 2012.
伯明翰的独特之处在于，市议会面临着一笔7.6亿英镑的同工同酬索赔账单，在2012年法院裁决后，这笔账单仍然未付清。
A botched IT upgrade could cost a hundred million pounds.
而该市IT系统一次糟糕的升级，成本可能达到了1亿英镑。
And leaders also blame inflation for the 87-million-pound black hole in the current budget.
此外，工党领导将目前8700万英镑的预算缺口归咎于通货膨胀。
It's not the first council to announce effective bankruptcy,
伯明翰市议会不是第一个宣布实际破产的议会，
but it is the largest and provides housing for families in places like Hall Green, which has one of the highest levels of child poverty in the country.
但它确是最大的，要为像霍尔格林这样全英国儿童贫困程度最高的地区的家庭提供住房。
Teachers worry funding for children with additional needs could be hit.
教师们担心，伯明翰的破产，可能会影响到为有额外需求的孩子提供的资金。
"We rely on that money to be able to get the resources we need for our pupils and to pay for additional adults.
“我们都要靠这笔钱来获得学生所需的资源，并支付额外的成人费用。
We have speech and language therapist that we pay for that comes to school. Without that funding, we would struggle to provide that."
我们要花钱请语言治疗师来学校。如果没有这笔资金，我们将很难做到这一点。”
