Not just restricted to the UK
Used to work for a Research agency in Europe. We were not allowed to purchase from Amazon. Fullstop. even if they were the cheapest. We were also not allowed to just go to the local Hardware store (without filling out all the travel paperwork as if we were travelling to the otherside of the world). If we wanted screws we had to purchase them from the one approved online store that had about a 5000% mark-up.
In the end, we went on our own time to the local Hardware store bought the screws and our Boss (who was actually pretty awesome) paid us back by dipping into the "hospitality" Budget and funding a night down the Pub.
Funnily enough there wasnt particularly strict reporting requirements on the hospitality budget so it got a fair bit of use for this sort of thing...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
