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The anger and sadness were almost tangible in the conference hall in Harrogate following last week's keynote address to the National Social Services Conference by health secretary Alan Milburn.

Publicly, people called it "ironic" that he paid lip-service to launching a recruitment campaign to improve the public image of social services, before storming through a series of threats and harsh criticisms.

"Ironic" is putting it mildly. The speech was hypocritical. For if Milburn really wants to improve quality in social services, he must know that inflicting wound after wound on the morale and reputation of the workforce is not the way to achieve it.

The principle target of his contempt - hard to pinpoint under such heavy and undiscriminating fire - appeared to be the length of time taken by some councils to improve services. Yet Milburn made no link between this and the recruitment and retention crisis, despite the fact that the link is obvious to anyone with experience of social services in 2001, and the fact that he was supposedly launching a campaign to tackle the crisis.

If naming and shaming actually helped the public, it could perhaps be justified. So let's be clear: it doesn't. The performance assessment framework only benefits service users if they can be shown how it works, and what complex tasks are being measured. Simply telling people they live in a "poor performance" area isn't much use to them. It makes the relationship between the public and local services more difficult, and exacerbates the public's disengagement from local democracy. And if the complex performance assessment framework is of little benefit to service users, it's hard to see how the even cruder "star rating" system announced by Milburn will improve matters.

Even Milburn's "top 10" performers will be dismayed at his lack of respect for local authority social services as a whole. What does local democracy mean when the "best performers" may be called in to take over the services of other councils? Or when the private sector can be brought in by central government to impose solutions on local government?

Even the rewards for the best performers fail to make sense. If the performance fund was shared among struggling councils, or if all councils had fewer conditions attached to their funding, no doubt they would all find it easier to improve. If these measures are acknowledged to help run better services, why limit them to those whose services run well already?

The punishments are even more illogical. We hadn't heard much since the NHS Plan about the government's powers to impose care trusts on areas where joint working is not successful - until this speech, that is, when every spectre lurking in a corner of policy somewhere was raised. Milburn clearly stated a wish to see care trusts in "all areas". And he threatened to impose care trusts on failing authorities. Yet surely if care trusts are the best option for seamless services, and if social care is to have real influence in them, as the government claims, they should develop at a realistic pace in areas where both joint working and individual partners are strong. Care trusts themselves lose credibility if they are used as a stick to beat recalcitrant or unprepared partners into a submissive but shallow alliance.

Meanwhile, in social services departments around the country - top 10, bottom 10 or somewhere in the middle - the reality behind the statistics goes on, transforming the lives of our most vulnerable citizens. The minister should get out more, to realise both the unfairness and the devastating impact of his words.

To have your say on Alan Milburn’s speech or discuss any of the issues raised by it, click here.