Skimle for public sector & policy
Analyse public consultations with the thoroughness democracy demands
Public consultation processes generate hundreds or thousands of individual submissions. For example, EU's Digital Omnibus consultation attracted over 500 responses. Reading them all manually takes months, but skipping responses undermines democratic legitimacy. Basic AI chatbots are not trustworthy and transparent enough, but Skimle processes every submission systematically — with full traceability and a complete audit trail for accountability.
Skimle was originally developed together with Finnish ministries and has since spread to 100s of users around the EU and world.
Every submission deserves to be read
Whether you are processing hundreds of public consultation submissions, a stack of regulatory position papers, or stakeholder feedback gathered ahead of a major policy decision, the challenge is the same: too much text to read carefully, yet outcomes too consequential to skim. Skimle covers every submission with the same systematic rigour, producing a structured and defensible account of what was said — complete with verbatim quotes and a full audit trail.
- Process 1,000 consultation responses in days, not months
- Every submission systematically covered — no voices lost
- Full audit trail for democratic accountability
- Works in 100+ languages for EU-wide consultations
- Stakeholder segmentation — see whose voices align and diverge
FROM THOUSANDS OF SUBMISSIONS TO A DEFENSIBLE SYNTHESIS
Analyse public consultation responses systematically
A meaningful consultation generates hundreds or thousands of submissions in different formats and languages. Without systematic analysis, teams either spend months reading manually or focus on polished industry submissions while citizen voices get skimmed — leaving the outcome open to challenge. Skimle processes every submission using the same systematic approach, delivering a structured map of themes and viewpoints that is fully traceable to the original text.
How it works
- 1. Upload consultation responses
Upload PDFs, Word files, .csv or Excel tables directly to Skimle. Also custom import / upload options available for organisational customers, please ask!
- 2. Define what you want to extract
Define the types of content you want to extract — concerns, support/opposition, specific policy questions. Skimle builds a structured theme map across all submissions.
- 3. Review in the spreadsheet view
Review findings in the spreadsheet view — every submission as a row, themes as columns. See at a glance which concerns appear most and from whom.
- 4. Segment by stakeholder type
Segment by stakeholder type — NGOs, industry, individual citizens — to see whose views align and diverge.
- 5. Export your accountability documentation
Export a full report with verbatim quotes and theme breakdown for your accountability documentation.
UNDERSTAND WHERE CONSENSUS ENDS AND CONFLICT BEGINS
Map stakeholder positions before major policy decisions
Before major regulatory decisions, someone has to make sense of what affected stakeholders actually think — position papers, consultation submissions, meeting notes — and turn it into a map of who wants what and why. That map is hard to document and easy to challenge when built in someone's head. Skimle produces it from the source material: structured, defensible, and grounded in verbatim quotes.
How it works
- 1. Gather all stakeholder input
Upload position papers, past consultation responses, interview transcripts, meeting notes.
- 2. Define the policy dimensions
Define the policy dimensions you need to understand — specific regulatory questions, areas of potential opposition, implementation concerns.
- 3. Map positions and divergences
Skimle maps each stakeholder's position across dimensions and identifies where views converge and diverge.
- 4. Query across stakeholder groups
Use AI chat to query specific concerns or cross-cutting themes across stakeholder groups.
- 5. Export a stakeholder map
Export a stakeholder map with supporting quotes for your decision briefing.
400 PAGES OF BACKGROUND MATERIAL DOES NOT HAVE TO MEAN A LOST WEEKEND
Get on top of large volumes of policy documents and research
Whether it is 400 pages of board materials, 200 impact assessment reports, or a complex technical brief due in 48 hours, the bottleneck is the same: too much text to read carefully, yet decisions too important to skim. Skimle handles the initial read across all documents, so human attention can go where it matters most — synthesis, judgement, and accountability.
How it works
- 1. Upload background materials
Upload research reports, policy documents, previous decisions, expert submissions. Up to 1,000 documents.
- 2. Define what to extract
Define what you need to extract — key arguments, evidence, trade-offs, factual claims. Skimle reads every document for the content that matters to your decision.
- 3. Review the structured map
Review a structured map of the material — themes, sub-themes, and the documents where each appears.
- 4. Ask questions across the whole set
Ask specific questions across the whole document set using AI chat with verified source links.
- 5. Export a briefing document
Export a briefing document with structured findings and verbatim quotes.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- Does AI analysis undermine democratic legitimacy?
- Not when properly disclosed. Skimle provides the audit trail to show systematic, comprehensive review. Policy staff validate and add political and contextual analysis — reducing processing time while maintaining accountability.
- How do you prevent bias in AI categorisation?
- Skimle processes every submission using the same systematic approach, reducing human bias. You maintain full control to validate, adjust, and reorganise themes. The audit trail shows how themes were derived.
- Can this handle submissions in multiple languages?
- Yes. Skimle analyses in 100+ languages, keeping quotes in the original while enabling cross-language theme identification — essential for EU-wide consultations or multilingual jurisdictions.
- How many documents can Skimle handle?
- Up to 1,000 documents per project, covering municipal consultations (50 to 300 responses) through to EU-wide consultations.
- Is citizen data handled securely?
- Yes. Submissions are processed securely, not used to train AI models, and stored in the EU. We support GDPR compliance, data processing agreements, and can discuss single-tenant or open-source LLM deployments.
- Can this be procured within government budget constraints?
- Skimle has a free tier for smaller projects and transparent pricing for larger ones. Many government bodies find the cost lower than external consultants. Contact us to discuss institutional agreements.
- How do we document our process for accountability?
- Every categorisation is traceable and exportable. The audit trail shows which submissions support each theme. This documentation can be included directly in consultation reports.
About Skimle
Built for professionals, by professionals
Skimle is based in Finland and developed by academics and practitioners who have spent careers doing qualitative analysis the hard way — hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of documents, weeks of manual coding. Skimle was born in 2025 when the Finnish government needed a systematic, transparent tool for processing policy consultation responses at scale. We built it because the problem was real and the existing tools were not up to it.
We are trusted by Finnish government ministries, over 30 universities, dozens of consulting and market research firms, and large companies. All data is stored within the EU and processed according to our strict GDPR policy and terms of service.
Want to learn more? Explore our Signal & Noise blog, our FAQ, and use cases by sector. We are also happy to demo the product or explore how Skimle could fit your needs.