Michael Grade will be chairman of the BBC Trust

The purpose of these changes is to make the BBC more accountable to its licence fee payers and put more distance between those who hold it to account and those who run it on a day-to-day basis.

THE BBC NOW Board of 12 governors, appointed by the Queen, regulates and represents BBC and acts as trustees of public interest Executive board of nine BBC directors, appointed by and answerable to governors, runs BBC Three boards - creative, journalism and commercial - report to executive board

The BBC Trust would take the place of the board of governors and be the public's voice within the corporation.

It would be ultimately responsible for how the licence fee was spent and "directly accountable" to those who paid the fee.

Any decisions it made would have to be "clearly grounded in viewer and listener opinion".

The trust would approve or reject "high level" BBC strategies and budgets and, like the governors, uphold standards of accuracy and impartiality.

THE BBC OF THE FUTURE? Independent board of trustees, appointed by the Queen, to act as regulator with responsibility for licence fee and answerable to licence fee payers Executive board, charged with day-to-day management and delivering services Board members appointed by trustees, and will include "significant minority" of non-executive directors to offer external expertise

Every part of the BBC would have a specific licence, setting out their roles and purposes, and the trust would impose "new, rigorous" tests to make sure they stuck to them.

Any changes to these services would be subject to a "public value test" by the trust and they would have to take the opinions of every household into account.

Constant market research would keep the trust in touch with the public. Opinions could also be heard through online forums, open meetings, AGMs or locally-elected representatives on regional broadcasting councils.

In turn, the public could find out what the trust was doing if the trust met in public, webcast its meetings, published its minutes and research and revealed the voting records of every member.

Members may also have regular independent appraisals - and sacked if they did not come up to scratch.

Director General Mark Thompson will chair the executive board

Like the current executive board, the new executive board would run the BBC day-to-day, develop strategies, deliver programmes and take decisions within the trust's framework.

Unlike the current board, it would include a "significant minority" of non-executive members, as well as managers, to "offer support and an external perspective".

The board would take proposals for strategies and budgets to the trust, which could reject them if they did not think they were in the public interest or in tune with what the public wanted.

The board would also be accountable to the trust if the trust did not think services were performing as well as they should.