Rather like the u-turns made by many drivers, the ones executed by Michael Gove, while Justice Secretary, should be seen as corrections of navigational errors rather than any a sign of weakness or, lack of direction. There have been a fair few in his time at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Given his announcement last week that he is now seeking a higher office they will probably stand as some of his main achievements while in charge at the MoJ.     Gove has managed to tear-up much his predecessor Chris Grayling’s dubious legacy. The decision not to go ahead with the Saudi prison deal must be seen as chief amongst these. In the face of opposition from David Cameron and the foreign office, Gove scrapped a £5.9m contract to provide a training programme for prison officers working for the repressive Middle Eastern regime.     Another decision, which marked a change to a more ethical policy direction, was the abandonment of the criminal courts fees. The policy of charging £1,200 to all convicted defendants, who had not pleaded guilty, had caused a righteous backlash in the criminal justice system, leading to 100 magistrates threatening to resign over the changes.     Early in his tenure at the MoJ Gove further relaxed the rules on allowing prisoners books, after Grayling’s restrictions had been successfully challenged in the high court. He also shelved plans to build a mega prison for youths. The Howard League for Penal Reform, which had also fought the books ban so successfully, argued the new prison would become “a centre for violence and self harm.” While his decision on the youth prison was made on grounds of costs, rather than principle, it was right.     The fall out continues from Gove's abandonment one of his predecessor’s most controversial policies, the attempt to introduce two-tier contracts in criminal legal aid. Last week a short consultation finished on a new contract for firms to cover duty rotas in police stations and magistrate's courts. Criminal legal aid lawyers hope that the new contract will turn the clock back to before Grayling decided to introduce a tender system for the work.  The decision by Grove to scrap the tenders was again not taken on any moral grounds; rather it was forced on him by a combination of effective campaigning by criminal legal aid lawyers and bad advice from his civil servants.     Successive legal aid administrators have been attracted to the idea of putting duty work for police and magistrate’s court work out to tender. In March 2009 the then Labour government announced it was going to introduce a system of best value tendering for the work. Similar to the latest abandoned tenders, designing a water tight selection criteria and process to award the contracts proved to be beyond the skills and experience of the MoJ officials. The MoJ needs to learn from its mistakes or, it will be forever caught like Sisyphus from Greek mythology, continually pushing the procurement boulder up hill only for it to roll back down again.     At least the criminal legal aid tenders have allowed the justice secretary to demonstrate again his aplomb at executing the policy u-turn.  Given the challenges around implementing brexit it’s a skill which might well come in handy, if he makes it to number 10.     Steve Hynes, LAG Director   Pic: Lawyers demonstrate against changes to criminal legal aid