Your Local Authority should have a guidance note on the financial assessment process, what is taken into account and what is disregarded. It would be worth reading that in the first instance. What follows is specific to my wife's circumstances and the requirements of our Local Authority but should give you an idea of what to expect.
My wife was approaching the threshold about a year ago. I requested a financial assessment by the Local Authority. The first stage was to complete a capital reduction form showing that the threshold had been or would soon be reached. I was contacted by the financial assessor who requested evidence of my wife's income and details of assets held in bank accounts, savings accounts and other investments. I supplied this information including statements for each account to cover the previous 12 month period. I also supplied a summary of residential care costs paid over the same period.
I received confirmation that my wife would continue to self-fund for another few weeks until the threshold was crossed. After that she would be required to make a contribution towards a portion of the care costs, with the council picking up the remaining and larger portion. She was in receipt of Attendance Allowance but this would cease 4 weeks after the council started to contribute. Her contribution was higher for those 4 weeks then reduced to its current 4 weekly amount.
Certain things were disregarded from the calculation. First and foremost was our jointly owned house, fully disregarded as I still live in it. £14,250.00 (the lower threshold) of her assets/savings was disregarded. Half of her occupational pension was deemed to have been donated to me and was disregarded. There was also a statutory amount of £24.90 per week for personal expenses and another small amount for pension savings credit that were disregarded.
This meant that my wife's contribution was based on the whole of her state pension, half of her occupational pension and a tariff from savings/capital based on the difference between her actual assets and the lower threshold, calculated at £1 per £250.00.
Note: the tariff can be at most £36.00 per week (ie £23,250-£14,250 = £9000 @ £1.00 per £250 = £36) but is likely to be less depending upon how close the actual total of assets is to the £23,250 upper threshold.