If you think about the fire risk assessment process (i.e. what goes on in your tiny little brain (or mine) when you (or I) carry out an assessment) what you are doing is comparing a building against a huge range of interactive variables that play off against each other in the manner of balancing scales stuck in a spider's web with the spider creeping round the edges of the web. Ultimately, you have to make decisions that can affect people's lives based on the interwoven multi-dimensional fabric of standards, examples and experience.
This doesn't sound like the sort of process that can be carried out by some simple form filling app on a tablet.
The software can be used as a very useful recording and form filling tool. But it cannot do the job for you.
On the other hand, the assessment that goes on in our brains certainly could be replicated by some complex and well informed algorithm. And it would probably do a better job than our oft misguided brains can do. Think for a moment, for example, on the fact that about 80% of drivers honestly believe that they are better than average drivers. This cannot be, of course, and it illustrates that our intuition is not the most reliable thing in the world.
We all have a tendency to make judgements based on our immediate experiences and not on broader facts. There are a number of documented cases of interviews with murderers where the interviewer described the interviewee as 'charming', 'amiable' or 'engaging'. Well, maybe they were during the interview but I don't think they always are! We should all be aware of our inherent short-sightedness. Risk assessment software could be based on facts and statistics, probabilities and known consequential losses.
But no such software exists at the moment. Maybe I'll put my mind to it....
...No, too busy balancing scales in spiders' webs.
Stu