1532: Singular and Plural Agreement for Collective Nouns Feb 22, 2019

In American English, collective nouns (i.e. nouns that refer to groups of things like 'family' or 'committee') are almost always treated as a singular, but this is not always the case in British English. In British English, collective nouns do usually have singular agreement (e.g. 'family is' not 'family are') but this is only when the group is being referred to as a whole. At other times, if one wanted to emphasize the individual parts of said group, one using British English conventions would opt for plural agreement, such as 'the family is convening' but perhaps 'the family are quarreling'.
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