Thousands of female council workers across Britain have lost out on pay and benefits worth billions because of unequal pay over decades. Now claims for compensation and demands to reform pay and grading threaten to capsize council finances, upset male council workers and cause massive cuts to local services. Anushka Asthana investigates why such pay discrimination is still happening despite being illegal for the last fifty years. And she discovers what the price of equality might actually be, for the women seeking it and the millions of us living in places where our local council has ignored the problem for years. Presenter: Anushka Asthana Producers: Jonathan Brunert and Leela Padmanabhan

Ash Bhardwaj finds out why the British Army is shrinking at a crucial juncture for the future of UK defence.

He speaks to new recruits to understand what drove them to a career in the army – and visits secondary schools across the country to ask whether it’s really true that young people don't want to fight for their country.

We hear from insiders who’ve been at coalface of recruitment over the last ten years, who tell us where we’ve been going wrong, and how we might start to get it right.

Presented by Ash Bhardwaj Produced by Artemis Irvine A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

Reactive features from Radio 4, exploring what's really happening behind the headlines and unearthing untold stories, both at home and abroad.