Thank heaven for Sainsbury's. Not for the stores but for last week's reminder that government is not alone in having IT disasters. There is no evidence that the public sector bungles more often than business. Given the extra hurdles facing government agencies - procurement rules and the complexities of public policy - this is quite an achievement.

Every project has to work all the time. When government can't reach this level, it has to pretend. Managers are under colossal pressure to maintain that programmes are running on schedule and that consensus reigns even when projects are patently struggling.

This outlook may account for the government's sniffy response to a thoughtful and provocative investigation into IT projects that the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee published in July. Under the conventional courtesies, the government's reply is "we know what we're doing and we don't need your suggestions".

So, even when the Department for Work and Pensions agrees with a recommendation - on big bang projects, for example - it says it has taken action already.

When the department disagrees, it is because it knows a better way. The committee's enthusiasm for "concept viability" - the idea of sounding out the market before a new system is procured - gets short shrift. "The department is not convinced that the concept viability service would produce the best results for it. It is already increasingly working on a partnership basis with its main suppliers and so is able to get early industry intelligence in that way."

This spectacularly misses the point of concept viability, which is to get a reality check before contracts are signed.

Predictably, the department comes down against the committee's suggestions for more openness. Results of staff consultations, for example, are to remain secret. The excuse: as consultation is an iterative process throughout the lifespan of a project, it would be "inappropriate" to publish the result of a one-off consultation.

It will be interesting to see whether this extraordinary position survives its first contact with the Freedom of Information Act.

And, of course, the department dashes any hope that results of gateway reviews will enter the public domain. The government reply says that both the department and the Office of Government Commerce have been "frank" about the idea, which is civil service speak for hitting the ceiling.

"There are legitimate concerns around the need to protect government departments' onward programme of competitive supply, and to protect the inherent value of the openness and candour_ currently afforded by confidentiality."

Bah. It is time to blow the whistle on this whole idea of commercial confidentiality in government. The sky didn't fall in when the Audit Commission Act required local authorities to make available details of their contracts with suppliers. What is so different about Whitehall? Commercial secrecy doesn't seem to have done Sainsbury's much good.