A GP has criticised Oldham Council's school application system after he had problems registering his children for school.

Dr Mark Wilshere, a GP at Quayside Medical Practice, said that the council's school application system was "completely failed" after his children did not attend school for three months.

The GP and his wife eventually took matters into their own hands to get their children in school and now he is warning other parents who may have struggled.

Dr Wilshere said: "The system is not robust or fail-proof."

He and his family moved to Saddleworth from West Yorkshire three months ago and began the process of applying his four children for schools.

The council's process involves applicants listing their preferred schools, with the council then left to allocate children to schools based on the places available.

The council says the process takes 15 days, but Dr Wilshere said they waited for over 20 days.

He said: "When we contacted the council, no one seemed to know what was going on or what progress had been made."

Eventually, Dr Wilshere's wife directly contacted their preferred school, Christ Church C.E. Primary School, who said they had places available but had never been contacted by the council.

He said: "I’m just concerned if there are others out there applying and aren't as persistent, they may have their kids at a school unnecessarily far away."

The council disputed Dr Wilshere's claims over the application system.

Cllr Shaid Mushtaq, cabinet member for Education and Skills, said: "This process is fairly straightforward and does not require asking individual schools for their admission numbers, as we already hold this data.

"Furthermore, the process doesn’t consist of several steps that we need to go through, so progress updates aren’t usually provided.

"We would advise all parents to be patient with our School Admissions Service while we work through these applications and to await their results within the allotted timescale.

"We apologise, if Mr Wilshere has concerns over our current system and we would be happy to have further discussions with him in regard to his situation, however we are not aware of any cases that haven’t been successfully processed within our normal 15 day target this academic year where the process has gone uninterrupted.”