WHEN the chief executive of five East Lancashire councils are, as is revealed today, calling on the Home Secretary Jack Straw not to let asylum-seekers be moved to their towns without them being told, it is clear that something sinister is going on -- dispersal by stealth.

Despite the still-raging political controversy over the handing of the country's refugee problem, the policy of spreading these people around the country may be manifestly necessary in order to reduce the costs, strains on public services and risk of trouble in the ports of entry where large numbers have gathered.

But the way it is being done is most disquieting.

Already, dozens from widely-differing backgrounds have been sent to Pendle without the council being informed. The authorities there only found out when an African teenager talking a tribal language turned up at a Nelson supermarket with a food voucher.

What is plain is that the Home Office has handed on the task of placing many refugees about the country and that not only have councils not been told, but also there is a murky picture forming of them being exploited for profit and dumped in slum properties. This has come about through the Home Office passing the buck and awarding contracts to private firms to undertake the dispersal and placement of asylum seekers.

And, disturbingly, what has emerged is evidence of them being handed on to private landlords who have bought up run-down homes and are raking in the housing-benefit rent revenue.

It all smacks of social dumping and greed -- and for this to be a Home Office-approved set-up is a disgrace.

For whatever one thinks of the asylum-seeker question and whether or not many refugees are simply economic migrants rather than victims of oppression, they are people, not cattle, and have a right to decent treatment.

Why has the government done this -- when councils are the bodies with the services, staff and resources best-placed to deal with large influxes of people, just as the response to the Kosovar refugees showed?

Could it be that saving its political skin was the consideration -- doing the dispersal by stealth in the hope that the lid could be kept on any voter backlash in the 'host' communities? If so, it stinks, Mr Straw.