A report published by the Birmingham Race Impact Group (BRIG) warned the problem could become "one of the more undesirable legacies of the Commonwealth Games."

In response to the BRIG report, Birmingham 2022 organisers told insidethegames they were "disappointed" with its conclusions, but valued BRIG's input and would "carefully consider" their recommendations.

The report was published after concerns were raised last year that not enough was being done to engage with diverse groups within the community.

"It would appear that the Organising Committee has been preoccupied more with its internal delivery structures than with winning the trust, confidence and support of Birmingham’s ethnically diverse communities," the report stated.

It noted that when Birmingham was awarded the Games in 2017, the bid had "leveraged Birmingham’s diversity as a positive factor in its pitch."

In 2020, a letter signed by 51 community members had complained about the lack of diversity on Birmingham 2022’s Board of Directors.

The BRIG report says that attempts to rectify the situation "make dismal reading."

"The lack of evidence of meaningful progress, despite their later proposals for improvement, led BRIG to conclude that the questions raised by BRIG and the communities of Birmingham remained unanswered and unresolved," the report said.

Some groups said they had not been made aware of meetings.

West Midlands Mayor Andy Street insisted there was "a shared endeavour" to ensure a long term benefit from the Games.

Responding to the report, Birmingham 2022 chief executive Ian Reid told insidethegames: "Equality, diversity and inclusion is integral to how we deliver a successful Games, and we understand the positive impact hosting an event like the Commonwealth Games can have on the lives of people in the West Midlands.

"We are working hard to ensure that those benefits are available to everyone across the region and are proud that our workforce reflects the diversity of the West Midlands. Over 41,000 people applied to join our volunteer team and, through our cross-partner Legacy Plan, nearly 6,000 people have already benefited from skills training.

"In addition, over 100 locally based community organisations have received funding from the Creative City Grants programme. We are also on track to deliver a youth engagement campaign that will reach over one million young people.

"We have a proactive and comprehensive engagement programme with local communities and through this dialogue we recognised there were areas in which we had more work to do, to deliver on all our EDI goals and therefore took steps to make improvements, one of which was to work with BRIG.

"Whilst we are disappointed with the conclusions reached within the report, we value BRIG’s input and will carefully consider their recommendations, so that we maximise every opportunity to benefit as many people as possible from all the communities across Birmingham and the West Midlands."

The report, which runs to 72 pages, has also called for action from the Commonwealth Games Federation.

"The commitment on inclusion and equality needs to be evidenced by the CGF to demonstrate how it stands out from the rest and illustrate that the statement has teeth beyond the words," the report added.

The report had also been critical of Birmingham 2022 chief creative officer Martin Green after comments in an interview he gave last month.

Green had said: "We still don't have enough large ethnically led creative organisations in the city and one of the things that the festival is seeking to do is to address that and so that's why from the outset we said we would particularly lean into younger emerging artists so we can feed the pipeline and hopefully in the end get more established businesses."

The Games are scheduled to open in exactly two months time on July 28.