A new ministerial team has been appointed at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) after the appointment of Liz Truss as the new Secretary of State for Justice. Her predecessor, Michael Gove, was planning big policy reforms in prisons and the courts. LAG believes he was also contemplating revisiting legal aid policy.     One of Gove's most significant achievements was securing £700m in investment for the digitisation of the courts and tribunals system. Truss might well conclude in a few months time that this was the easy bit, as she has been left with the complex job of overseeing its implementation.     The  courts and tribunals reform project is supposed to lead to savings of £200m a year by 2019/20. As with most large government IT projects some slippage would seem inevitable. If the new justice secretary is to enhance her political reputation she will have to minimise these delays. Good relations with the legal professions, as her predecessor realised, will be a key factor in achieving this.     No timetable, as yet, has been set for the legislation which was planned for the penal system. Gove was playing the right mood music around the need for prison reform. Prisons are a landmine waiting to be detonated under the Ministry of Justice at the moment. According to the many practitioners LAG talks to, lack of resources and poor policy making have left the penal system in a volatile state. Urgent reform is necessary to boast the low morale of the people working in the system and to give prisoners access to education and other services to enable their rehabilitation. Truss has to provide the leadership to ensure this happens.     The abandonment of two tier contracts was one of the most significant and welcome reversals of policy Gove made during his tenure at the MoJ. It is unclear if Shailesh Vara, the minister at the MoJ with responsibility for legal aid will be remaining.  Two new ministers, Sam Gyimah and Phillip Lee, have been announced to replace Caroline Dinenage and Andrew Selous.     Sir Oliver Heald QC has been appointed as the Minister of State at the MoJ, replacing Lord Faulks as the second ranking minister at the MoJ. Faulks has been publicly critical of the appointment of Truss as he believes she lacks the necessary experience. Heald’s appointment though, can be interpreted as providing some heavyweight legal experience in the ministerial team at the MoJ. Heald is a barrister, a former Solicitor General and Shadow Justice Secretary. In the early days of his career he also worked at the Free Representation Unit, which provides pro bono help from barristers.     Heald’s experience at the sharp end of access policy, hopefully, will be of use in persuading his new boss to look again at civil legal aid. LAG understands from a number of sources that Gove was contemplating this.  We believe its time for a re-think of what the scope and priorities of the system should be. The post legislative review of the LASPO Act, which is now due, would be an opportunity to do this.