Personally, as an American and an English teacher, I commend the English and Canadians for keeping collective nouns in the plural, where they belong. I’m usually critical of the inane things Brits do to the language (don’t get me started), but on this, they’re correct. Sorry you don’t agree, but changing this (and this change happened in my lifetime) has caused not only confusion, but the steady decline of proper grammar usage. When something becomes confusing and inconsistent, people throw up their hands and decide not to care. Who can blame them. Family,’ ‘band,’ ‘company’ have all been chosen as singular entities but not, say ’police.’ You wouldn’t want to hear someone say, “the police was called.” We should join the Brits on this ONE thing.