Too much government??

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Network Rail have officially breached its own licence by failing to deliver the huge Great Western mainline electrification project ^ the railway's ombudsman has ruled.

The Office of Rail and Road, which is the Government's transport authority, has found a 'series of issues' with the huge ^1.7 billion project, and the delays and problems are so bad, it says Network Rail has breached the licence given to it by the Government to run Britain's rail network.

Read more: Western Daily Press

So the government has granted the government (Network Rail) a license, but the government (Office of Rail and Road) says that the government (Network Rail) has breeched that license.  What will the government do about this, and will any fines or other penalties imposed on the government be paid to the government?

[SandTEngineer]

Well it often quoted that NR^» (Network Rail - home page) is totally staffed by Bullsh*ters and Accountants so what goes round comes round.........

[Chris from Nailsea]

It reads rather like the script for a particularly hilarious episode of the much-missed classic television comedy series, "Yes, Minister". 

[Bmblbzzz]

OT, but does anyone else find the first sentence in that quote grates grammatically? I'm quite happy with either singular or plural verbs for collective nouns, but if you go with "have" it clashes horribly to then use "its own".