UPDATED 7.09AM: Former Portuguese Prime  Minister Antonio Guterres is still leading in the second ballot for UN Secretary General but other candidates, including Helen Clark, have moved.

Miss Clark has reportedly slipped from sixth to seventh in the straw ballot in which the 15 Security Council Members rate each candidate with either "encourage," "discourage" or "no opinion."

Miss Clark's  "encourage" votes have slipped from 8 to 6, her "discourage" votes have increased from 5 to 8, and "no opinion" votes have gone from 2 to 1,  according to Foreign Policy magazine.

Voice of America's UN Correspondent Margaret Beesher doubts Miss Clark will be very happy with this morning's result.

"It's not a great result, I'm sure she's disappointed, I'm sure her team is disappointed. I think it's going to be very hard for her to recover from this at this point."

Miss Clark came sixth out of 12 candidates in the first ballot on July 21.

Reuters and the magazine are both reporting that Mr Guterres is still well ahead of the pack with 11 positive votes, two discourage and two no opinion.

Serbian candidate Vuk Jeremic has moved up to second (from fourth) and is now the highest placed candidate from Eastern Europe, the region which is favoured in the traditional rotational system.

The biggest movement has been in the position of Argentinian Susana Malcorra who has moved to third place from eight last time and is now the highest placed woman.

Slovenian Danilo Turk has slipped from second to fourth.

Bulgarian Irina Bokova who was third last time has slipped to fifth and Macedonian Srgjan Kerim has gone from faith to sixth.

The results are never officially declared but usually leak quite quickly.

Croatian candidate Vesna Pusic withdrew her candidacy yesterday, reducing the field to 11.

Mr Guterres was Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002. Until last year, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Vuk Jeremic was Foreign Minister of Serbia from 2007 to 2012 and has been president of the UN General Assembly.

Malcorra is Argentina's foreign minister and was chief of staff to current Secretary General Ban ki Moon.

Miss Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008 and since then has lead the UN Development Programme.

Under the selection system, ballots are expected to continue until a consensus is reached.

None of the permanent five members of the Security Council, Britain, China, France, Russia or the United States, is exercising its veto at this stage.

There's a push for a female Secretary General from some groups, while others think it's Eastern Europe's turn.