White & Case's London office has significantly increased its annual contribution to the global firm's central running costs, with a 70% hike to £17.7m for the 2011 financial year.

The increase comes after the amount the City office paid in to central running costs rose 40% last year to £10.4m. The UK base's contribution to global costs has grown steadily since 2008, when it stood at £4.7m, before rising to £7.4m in 2009.

The information is contained within the US firm's UK limited liability partnership (LLP) accounts for 2011, which show the UK LLP owed the New York partnership £36.5m at year end, up from £32.3m last year.

Other figures to have risen for 2011 include the UK office's average number of members, which increased by 11 on 2010 to 65. Fee earner headcount, excluding partners, expanded from 277 to 296, while non-fee earner numbers fell from 145 to 135.

Staff costs at the London office rose slightly to £51.9m, compared to £48.8m in 2010. The office's turnover rose 6% from £110.3m to £116.8m, which resulted in 2011 profits available for discretionary division among members of £34.1m – a 10% drop from 2010.

The accounts also show that around £1.9m (1.6%) of the UK LLP's turnover was derived from Africa, where the firm has an office in Johannesburg.

The London practice is one of the largest offices in White & Case's global network, which ranks in the top 20 largest law firms in the world in revenue terms, with global income of $1.33bn (£829m) in 2011.

"White & Case is a global organisation and the London accounts reflect this position," a spokesperson for the firm said. "The process of realigning costs to fit in with our regional and global structure continued in 2011, following on from our approach in 2010 and before.

"These changes are reflected in the fact that an increasing proportion of our services are accounted for centrally and then charged back to individual offices."