Kerelaw school was shut down after a police investigation

The Kerelaw Residential Unit in Stevenson, Ayrshire, was closed in 2006 following a police investigation.

The inquiry, jointly commissioned by the government and Glasgow City Council, will make recommendations to help prevent similar abuse in future.

Adam Ingram, minister for children, told MSPs that lessons had to be learned from what happened.

Last year, two men were found guilty of physically and sexually abusing children in their care at Kerelaw, which looked after children with significant emotional, social and behavioural problems.

Abuse history

Art teacher Matthew George, 56, was jailed for 10 years at the High Court in Edinburgh for a "horrifying catalogue" of 18 offences.

Residential care worker John Muldoon, 53, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail for four offences.

Earlier this year, the Crown Office said it was taking no further action over 10 cases of alleged abuse at the school.

Glasgow City Council also spent three years investigating the workings of the unit and a report found that as many as 40 care workers abused children at Kerelaw.

Mr Ingram said it had uncovered an "unacceptable and long-standing history" of child abuse.

KERELAW INQUIRY AIMS Insight into circumstances of the abuse Examine Glasgow council's stewardship of the school Consider steps taken by the council after the closure Recommendations to avoid a repeat of Kerelaw Identify other child protection issues

"We would be doing a great disservice to all those involved if we did not consider what we can learn from the Kerelaw situation," he told MSPs.

"I want to be assured that abuse, and allegations of abuse, on the scale and over that duration cannot ever happen again in a residential setting in Scotland.

"We owe it to the children who were abused, to the staff not involved in the abuse but caught up in the events by association, and to all children in residential settings who we have a responsibility to safeguard."

The detailed remit of the inquiry, to be chaired by the former senior civil servant Eddie Frizzell, will be outlined in the new year.

It will also aim to gain an insight as to the circumstances which led to abuse at Kerelaw, examine Glasgow council's stewardship of the unit and the steps which the local authority took in the wake of the closure.