But 90% of referees aren't on the promotion system and many of those never will be. Which is fine in terms of promotions as those on promotion will get observed, but ...
.. Referee's Secretaries need to have some way of knowing how well referees are performing
I'm not an big fan of club marks, but over the course of a season they do tend to reflect the referee's overall ability. If a referee is consistently averaging 80+, even getting those kind of marks from teams who lost or had discipline issues, then you have a reasonably good idea he knows what he is going. Likewise if a referee is getting 60 or lower and written reports every week, even from teams who won and had no discipline issues, then you have a fair indication there is something wrong. A good RefsSec won't just look at the marks in isolation, but rather will look at the result of the game, any misconduct, and how that club normally marks, and he will also speak to clubs who don't mark properly. I once had a club who gave 100 for every game, so I asked them to start doing it properly. Conversely I had a team who always gave 90 if they won and 65 if they lost or drew, so I confronted them with this evidence and asked them to do it correctly. When they refused it was pointed out in no uncertain terms that they would be getting the lowest marked referee's week in week out until they did start marking properly, and the penny eventually dropped.
There's also an argument to say that the clubs are the customers. They elect the league management committee, including the RefsSec, so expect them to do a good job, and they pay the referee a fee for their services. If you use an agency to hire a cleaner and she (or he) turns out to be hopeless you are going to complain to the agency (read league) about the cleaner (read referee), and if asked or required to give the cleaner a rating it won't be very high. Is refereeing really that much different?