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When the then health secretary Alan Milburn publicly named and shamed the 14 "worst" social services departments in England two years ago there were audible gasps from the assembled directors at the annual social services conference in Harrogate.

While opposition to league tables and naming and shaming is just as strong today, opposition to the performance management system introduced by Milburn to measure social services departments’ performances and prospects is more tempered.

In the week that Milburn’s successor John Reid announced the latest star ratings, with a record 60 per cent of departments winning two or three stars, directors accept that their reservations about performance scrutiny are disappearing.

Star ratings are based on evidence from inspections, joint reviews, performance indicators, and annual reviews. A set of key performance indicators is used to check councils are treated in the same way. This year, this includes indicators covering the self-audit of child protection services that followed the Victoria Climbié Inquiry, and progress on implementation of the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000.

A year ago, director of social services for three-star Kingston-upon-Thames, Roy Taylor, hit out at the system claiming its results relied on how efficient an authority was at collecting data. Performance indicators also penalised smaller authorities where one slight change could have a huge impact on data, he complained.

Twelve months on, he still has some concerns, especially over "demotivating" league tables, but his overall views have mellowed.

"The system today is much more robust than it was two years ago," Taylor says. "The different bits of the system are working together and the different parts of the department are much more geared up to the individual performance indicators. There are still some frustrations but I feel we now know what we are talking about."

Across the capital in Camden, social services director Jane Held, whose department held on to its two stars this year, heaps praise on today’s system. She says: "There is now a much more holistic approach to the performance of the organisation and the system is working better each year."

In Blackburn with Darwen, director Stephen Sloss says his social services department pulled its star-rating up from two to three by getting to grips with the "nuts and bolts" of the system, including tidying up procedures and adhering to regulations. "The way in which we now manage the business in terms of performance management has become much more developed," he explains.

Even those social services directors who find their departments at the bottom of the league table appear to be backing the system, claiming its benefits outweigh its disadvantages.

Veronica Jackson, executive director for social services and health at Oldham, one of eight departments to have a zero rating this year, says external review is valuable because it prevents complacency. But she, too, is critical of public league tables and the damage they do to staff morale.

Mary Robinson, interim director of community care with statutory responsibility for social services at North East Lincolnshire, whose department moved from zero to one star this year, voices similar concerns: "The downside after we were given zero stars last year was that people were very demoralised. That has been a real problem and we are still battling that.

"It’s important that we should be accountable, but there are other more supportive ways of operating rather than public humiliation."

Jackson says she has already taken steps to prevent morale nose-diving by writing to all her staff as soon as this year’s results were published, "reassuring them about the value that we place in the job that they do".

Although she has confidence in the star ratings system, she thinks it still discriminates and is keen to see a weighted system brought in which links ability to deliver services to resources.

Community care minister Stephen Ladyman stated at the launch of this year’s ratings that former critics of the system should "accept that they were wrong".

While few directors would go this far, many are at least prepared to acknowledge that the system has some merit now that it has had two years to mature and develop.