When reading British periodicals, one comes across the following sort of constructions:

"The Ministry are letting contracts ..."
"The Ministry are preparing for ..."

These sounds off to the ears of residents of the USA because we think of a department of government as being a unit, an entity, a single thing and single things take singular verbs. To reach the mindset of Brits, it is necessary to mentally add some words, e.g.:

"(Officials of) the Ministry are letting contracts ..."
"(Members of) the Ministry are preparing for ..."