To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent representations the Government has made to the Secretary-General of the UN on reform of the UN. (246221)

We are in constant contact with the Secretariat, including the UN Secretary-General, over UN reform. In December 2008 we achieved good results in the UN’s 5^th committee where we agreed a number of reforms foreshadowed in the 2005 World Summit. These included reform of the UN’s human resources management (streamlining the UN’s contractual system, and improving conditions of field staff in the hardest missions to help tackle staffing problems), reform of the Department of Political Affairs to improve the UN’s capacity in the field of preventive diplomacy and mediation, modernising the UN’s outdated IT system, and reforming the system of internal appeals for UN staff to make it more accountable and efficient.