The culture secretary has been accused of attempting to “bend the BBC to his political will” after it emerged he plans to have the government directly appoint most members of a new body to run the corporation.

John Whittingdale said only two or three members of a 13-strong unitary board, which would replace the discredited BBC Trust model, would be BBC executives while the rest would be government appointees.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Whittingdale said: “I don’t think the government appointing the BBC non-execs would compromise their independence.”

Whittingdale’s intervention follows a report two weeks ago by David Clementi, the former chairman of Virgin Money and Prudential. It recommended that the BBC’s day-to-day operations be run by a unitary board, headed by a majority of non-executive directors, while full responsibility for regulation be handed over to the media regulator Ofcom.

Calling the BBC Trust model flawed, Clementi said it conflated governance and regulatory functions and called for a “unitary board charged with responsibility for meeting the obligations placed on it under the royal charter and agreement, and responsibility for the interests of licence fee payers”.

Clementi proposed that the government would appoint half of the BBC board of 12 to 14 people, including the chairman, so Whittingdale’s proposals go beyond the Clementi report.

The BBC’s director general, Tony Hall, has already flagged his concerns about the Clementi proposals for the unitary board. In a speech last week, Lord Hall pointed out that unlike any previous governing body, the unitary board would set the editorial direction of the whole BBC. Neither the trust nor its predecessor – the BBC governors who oversaw the corporation from its founding until 2005 – had such powers.

“It will make key decisions on programmes and services, and it will work with me – as editor in chief – on how we manage our impartial journalism. It doesn’t feel to me that these tasks should be undertaken by government-appointed board members. The BBC is one of the world’s great public service broadcasters – not a state broadcaster. A strong, sustainable BBC needs new safeguards for independence, not yet more erosion,” Hall warned.

The only BBC executives on the new body will be the director general, the head of finance and possibly one other.

Labour’s shadow secretary of state for culture, Maria Eagle, said: “With the independence of the BBC clearly at real risk from this government’s mendacity, independent appointment processes must underpin the formation of a new unitary board, including its chair.

“It is unacceptable that ministers are ignoring what the public want from the BBC, and that they are so desperate to bend it to their political will.”