An independent review into Maritime New Zealand's handling of the grounding of the Rena will go ahead.

MNZ announced this morning an independent review into the grounding on Astrolabe Reef on October 5, 2011 will be conducted by former Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Simon Murdoch.

The Rena on Astrolabe Reef on October 3, 2012.

Stuff.co.nz also reports Simon was the director of the Government Security Communications Bureau in 2011 when Kim Dotcom was put under surveillance.

The review will examine the MNZ response to the Rena incident and establish the factors that contributed to, or limited, its effectiveness.

The review has been commissioned jointly by the Ministry of Transport (MOT) and Maritime New Zealand (MNZ), and will be overseen by MOT Chief Executive Martin Matthews, the Chair of MNZ, David Ledson, and the Director of MNZ, Keith Manch.

MNZ says the report will involve discussions with MNZ staff, and central and local government stakeholders and key agents involved in the response.

It will not involve public submissions and a public consultation document will not be produced but the final report will be made public.

MNZ Director Keith Manch says an independent review of such large scale incidents is standard practice for emergency response organisations.

'As an organisation, business units within MNZ have done a lot of thinking about the response to the Rena grounding.

'Now it is timely to get an independent view.

'There will be things that have been done very well, but inevitably there will be areas where things could have been done better and we can take lessons away from this incident.”

Keith says the review's focus is solely on MNZ's response to the incident.

He says the causes of the grounding have already been established in the criminal investigation that led to the prosecution of the master and second officer.

It is expected the independent review will be completed in the first quarter of 2013.

The review will cover the planning and preparedness; oil spill response; salvage oversight; MNZ response team actions; MNZ's investigation of the incident; administrative support functions that enabled the response activity; communications and community engagement.

In addition, the review will consider the effect on MNZ's business continuity and MNZ's ability to respond to a wider ranging major maritime incident (for instance: involving loss of life as well as oil spill and salvage).

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission is conducting a separate investigation into the grounding.

Reviewer Simon Murdoch retired from the public service in 2009. He was Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet from 1991-1998.

He spent most of his career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade where he became Chief Executive Officer in 2002.

He has held diplomatic postings in Canberra and Washington, and has undertaken a number of reviews in the public sector, mostly in the fields of foreign affairs, security and emergency response and management.