Can anyone point me in the right direction to find out what has to be included on the list of items we are taking and what format the list should be in. Does the list have to include every single item or would various hand tools be ok?
do we have to advise approximate value of items?

I packed my own boxes (that was how we shipped our stuff across as we wasn't bringing any big stuff) and in most cases generalised items like box clothes, box books, box of kitchen equipment etc. Some stuff especially if expensive we actually states was in the box ie mixture of books and travel DVD player/laptop and had no problems with customs

The cic website gives you an example of the list showing you how to lay it out, hope this helps.

Please see the WIKI article.